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First mead- hope it works!
also just did my first mead. its been it the primary for two weeks now. starting OG was 1.14, pitched a started that was honey and water, about one quart.
1.5 gal cranberry pomagrante juice
7 #s honey
1 gal water
yeast starter (as mentioned earlier)
after one week i added another starter yeast that was the same as the formentioned. looking for a strong mead, not a sweet one. i will rack it to a secondary in two more weeks. good luck on yours also.
Good luck on your mead too culinary! Sounds good with the juice in there. I will take and post some pictures of my primary today and maybe keep this thread going kind of a blog to help other people in the future who wish to make a simple sweet mead.
cant wait to see the pictures.
how do you plan on bottling your mead, basementbrewer. i have been collecting wine bottles from work, and i know a friend with access to a corker. i will probably put all the mead i have into wine bottles some carded and some still.
I am planning a few things for my mead. After it sits in the primary for 30 days I want to take and put it into different vessels for secondary. One 3 gallon of just straight sweet mead, and then 3 seperate one gallon containers with different ingredients. I am thinking of vanilla cinnamon, pomegranete, and something else with some fresh berries from the area. I have two cherry trees in my backyard that I hope will bear some this year so maybe a little of them will be included.
Once these are done I plan on bottling some still and some sparkling. I will probably do a mixture of regular 12 oz beer bottles, 22 oz beer bottles, wine bottles, and possibly some champagne bottles for the sparkling. As far as corking goes, you can get a hand corker for around $7 and it works well without having the hassle of borrowing one. good luck
sounds like a great idea to split up the batch. are you planning on using fresh pomegranete or juice? also, how long are you planing on the mead being in the secondary for? i was thinking, for mine, three weeks in primary and then four weeks in secondary. then letting them bottle condition for about two weeks before i open one. is this too long at any stage or not long enough. i've heard of mead being aged for a short while(four weeks total) to as long as one year. i suppose it's all up to the brewer and the desired results though.
Mead is still going, all is well so far. It has been 14 days since I pitched the yeast. The airlock has slowed to about once every 45 seconds or so. It is still cloudy but doesn't look as dense as last week. There is a significant amount of trub settling on the bottom of the carboy. I might take a spg reading tomorrow to see how shes doing
To answer your questions, I will probably just buy a bottle or so of Pom juice, the ariles are so delicate I don't know if they would be able to hold up to steeping or steaming (I guess I could put the steep water and all in there tho?) I plan on leaving it in the primary for 30 days ( spg willing) then racking out of that into the seperate experimental tanks. The I will just let the secondary sit until fairly clear. I think alot of it depends on your honey and its type, how fast your yeast ferments out and drops out of suspension, and any other variables that effect each individual batch.
1.14 OG sound really light to me.
Racked my mead today from pirmary to secondary. It has been in the primary for 17 days now. The airlock was almost completely stopped with a bubble every 5-20 minutes. Took a spg reading and it was 1.002 which brings my abv close to (1.090-1.002=.88 X 130) 11.44 %. I racked it on top of 1/2 # of honey and 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient. After racking within 30 minutes the bubbler was working again with a bubble every 2-3 minutes. hydrometer sample shows that the mead is slightly clearing and flavor is improving with a definite alcohol aroma and still a yeasty after taste.
here are some pics of the racking
The mead before racking
Racking the mead
Trub left behind in primary. The black dots are raisins used for nutrients in the starter
The freshly racked mead happy in the secondary
Mead is starting to clear nicely. Took a SPG this morning and it is 1.006. This is higher than the last reading and I am assuming it is because I racked it on top of 1/2 # of honey last time. I threw in a light pinch of yeast nutrient and took the end of my long plastic paddle, sterilized the end of it, and put it to the bottom of the car boy and gave it a light stir. I am hoping this will rouse up the yeast and work out that extra honey. The tasting in hydrometer tube is still super sharp alcoholic bite but the yeasty smell and slight flavor is fading into the background
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