A lot of problems can be solved by blending. I had 2/3 of my demijohns tied up with an apple mead that was to thin, a pear mead that was too flabby, a blackberry mead that was *way* too tart and a rasperry & elderflower wine that was overly floral. I blended a sample glass, recording ratios, and scaled that blend up in a bucket to bottle. I've ended up with a remarkable and complex mead/wine blend with strong berry flavours on the front and a burst of elderflower blossom and pear on the nose and the back-end on exhalation. Those demijohns won't stay empty for long though. I'm doing a shop-run for tinned lychees, they make a brilliantly light, fruity/floral wine. You almost don't need the fruit, the syrup they're tinned with works well as a flavour extraction.
Couldn’t agree more about blending. And you’ve piqued my interest with the lychees. The Asian supermarket I like to haunt some times carries great big restaurant size tins of lychees in syrup. They don’t cost much. Methinks next time my SO and me go there he’s going to be even more flabberghasted than other times when I pick up one of those tins. I’ve lived in Southeast Asia for quite a few years and go all ga-ga whenever I walk around that place. He’s unfamiliar with most what’s sold there AND still trying to wrap his mind about my ‘will it mead/wine’ mentality. Poor sweetheart! He’s going to be in for another my-girlfriend-has-a-screw-loose moment. Oh well, he likes my cooking and my brews so he’ll get over it quickly!
Welcome to the wonderful world of mead making! If you keep going on this journey and it’s your first venture into home brewing (and I really hope you stick with it!) you’ll find it can be a wild ride. You’ll find yourself being amazed, stumped, frustrated, overjoyed, surprised, impatient, taken aback, curious, intrigued, proud as punch, tempted, … and much, much more. There are so many possibilities with mead making that it never gets boring and with a little resourcefulness you’ll rarely have to throw out a brew. You’ll find out a lot about yourself as well. Are you the type to prefer set-and-forget brews? Are you an airlock-sniffer? Do you like to science the heck out of a brew? Do you prefer the variety of lots of small-batch brews of will larger batches be your thing? Is low-ABV your thing or will you prefer higher ABV brews? Do you prefer being able to drink your brews close to bottling time or will you develop a schedule that gravitates towards brews that reach their peak after months of ageing? I was 19-20 (ish) when my grandmother helped me to make my first mead and am in my early fifties now. I’m still learning and frankly, that’s part of the fun. I’ve branched out into fruit wines and ciders as well but mead still is my favourite. A little piece of totally unsolicited advice: either make yourself a mead recipe file on your computer/phone (and make multiple cloud-based backups) or get yourself a small binder to keep track of your brews. A binder has the advantage of being able to add pages and separators to categorise your recipes. Write down your recipe, gravity readings, starting dates, finishing steps/dates, bottling dates, possible issues and tweaks. Over time, add your tasting notes. Label your bottles (masking tape and a sharpie are cheap, easy and fast). There isn’t a mead maker I know who doesn’t regret being unable to recreate that one exceptional mead they didn’t keep notes on. Myself included. Oh… and another thing. You’ll probably find yourself pondering over various kinds of fruit, syrups, sugars, herbs, spices and whatnot and asking yourself “I wonder how that will ferment?” … and if you do that aloud a lot, you might catch a little facepalm here and there from friends and family. But they’ll probably end up requesting brews and at times you might find yourself at the receiving end of bumper crops of fruit in exchange for a taster. 😊 Happy brewing!
@@eddavanleemputten9232 Actually, could I add to this? My friend recommended to me the "Mead Mate" app which helps keep track of recipes, ABV, and readings/dates of readings for all your mead-making needs.
@@TheGamingLegendsOfficial - That works too. Although I really recommend keeping a good backup file, and updating that backup as often as possible. My extremely strange life caused me to lose all my electronic files once and man, do I regret that. Fortunately I still had my binder with hand-written notes. It’s stained and grubby, but contains all my recipes. Successes, failures, and everything in between. 😊 Whichever works for you, as long as you keep records. They can teach you so much! Plus: after a while it’s fun to see how much that list of recipes has grown.
Great information. I’m gathering supplies to start my first ever fermentation and there’s a lot of great info on your channel. I’m glad you’re willing to break things down and help get some of us newbies out of the weeds. Thanks for being awesome
Thanks for the content! I started mead making last year and I made (3) batches of mead and literally each on of my meads had one of these problems. I just harvested 204lbs of honey and am planning to make a lot more mead starting this weekend so this video came at just the right time.
@@DointheMost It sure is. I started bee keeping three years ago for operation ""free" alcohol". It has been fun adventure so far. For the varietal, it is a little hard to say. I would consider it Indiana wildflower which consists of mainly black locus, white Clover, & blackberry blossom. As for what I am planning to brew I am going to try a spiced apple mead, Strawberry rhubarb mead, a traditional sweet mead with Kveik yeast. If I end up having time to pick this year, I would like to try a cherry mead and a blueberry mead. I am also debating the idea of a habanero mango capsicumel and trying my luck at an Acerglyn again. I am curious if you have any commercial still meads that you would consider good or would recommend? I would like to order them and give them a try just to have a baseline as to if what I am brewing is being considered good? If that makes any sense. Thanks.
This was helpful! I made a mead using wild yeast from baby pinecones in addition to ordinary yeast, and I believe it made what you called a sour mead. I was scared at first it was a weak mead vinegar
Thanks, dude! I made a pineapple mead and after the first fermentation (1 month), it tasted very sour. It's in the second stage now for another 2 months. If it's still sour I'll balance the acid/ph and see how that goes. Thanks for the tips, I love your channel, definitely the most knowledgeable.
How did it go? A sour taste can often be traced back to a brew fermenting completely dry. As long as it didn’t smell of vinegar, you should be able to balance it. Pineapple can take a long time to age as well. So can brews based on other fruits, like banana and quince. And just like the saying goes, there are a thousand ways that lead to Rome… and even more ways to balance a brew.
@@eddavanleemputten9232 Turned out good actually. I re-tasted it on the 3-month mark and back sweeten it with white sugar. I also added gold flakes in hopes to get my partner into it, it worked 🙈🤣
@@JustaSpaceCowboy - Great news! Thanks for updating me! Time heals almost all brews… and this time gold flakes made your partner like it as well, which is a plus not just for this brew but for future ones! Trust has been established. If you make a new batch your partner will like it hopefully even without the flakes. (Sweetie, it’s the exact same, I just ran out of flakes) I hope you can keep a bottle until it’s a year old. You’ll be amazed at how good it can be with more time. Happy brewing!
I bought a bottle of mead that was way too sweet for us to drink, I decided to play with it and added a bit of brandy it was a big hit. I'm now considering deliberately doing a sweet mead with the intention of fortifying it.
@@DointheMost sounds interesting, my family like fortified wines but I was never a fan of it myself, but I've liked the couple that I've done, I made a cranberry type wine and fortified it with vodka, tastes like a cosmopolitan cocktail. Thanks for the videos they've really helped me
@@GippslandCNC - That’s one of the best parts about home brewing to me: being able to tailor the end result to what you like. My SO’s son is an avid cocktail mixer to the extent that he’s followed a course for it. I get a lot of ideas from letting him loose on my brews.
I was at a winery in Tombstone, AZ recently. Their offerings had a sweet wine and a spicy wine. The spicy wine was just the sweet wine with a hot pepper thrown in. They found that the pepper cut the sweetness nicely. I have since added a bit of habeñero to each of my too sweet meads in one batch. Maybe a bit too much pepper though. They are now quite drinkable, but it's best not to get it on your lips. That's ok. We like 'em spicy down here.
Liked this video overall, but one criticism: alcohol is not an acid. It is neither an acid nor base. It doesn't have a weakly paired hydrogen atom to lend in protonation or a hydroxide group that dissociates to an ion in solution.
my first batch of mead has blackberries and lemon in it and i transferred it into a carboy without the fruit after two weeks and it smells and tastes like rotten egg 😭 i told everyone i was completely fine with the idea that it might not be good since it’s my first batch, but deep down im so sad 🥺 i know i can potentially fix the smell but I’m worried about the taste. it tastes like alcohol but not overbearingly so like i know it should at this point. oh well!
Ok question please. My strawberry mead is a bit watery. It tasted fine till I racked it. I had added sorb K to stop fermentation. I want to make it more flavorful. If I add honey will I need to add more sorb K? Or will the Maltodextrin work better? It is a 5 gallon batch.
Great video. I would have thought that rather than too low an ABV, a mead that is too high would be more thin. Alcohol has a lower density than water so even water is more viscous than ethanol so a mead that is at 18 % ABV is far more likely to feel thinner than a mead at 5%. Certainly adding honey to sweeten will increase the density and so the viscosity, but a lower ABV should be more dense than a higher ABV mead , all things being equal. No?
I could see that being the case if it weren’t for the fact that a high ABV mead also has brought a lot of stuff with it in the additional honey, and increased fermentation activity can create compounds that add density to the mouth feel, like esters and glycerin. So higher ABV meads and wines tend to have a higher sensation of body.
high abv+ to sweet.. its not ruined, its a light liquor and should be treated as such, made one that had 18%abv, the yeast didnt go higher and that was the plan, it turned out super good, mixed with carbonated water and drank it like that.. boy, i turned alcoholic for a month, they say the yeast dying can bring out an off flavor, but in this case it was PERF, id like to ad that it was a peach melomel with vanilla like wood chips in it.
Great video! I'm super late to this party, but does any of this advice work after racking, or do I have to taste beforehand? I'm very new to mead making and not sure what the expectations are.
Im new, go easy on me. I made 3 separate gallons of mead. I used roughly 5 lbs of honey in each. Same yeast in all 3. Theyve been fermenting about 2 weeks at this point. I'm starting to wonder if they are going to end up stalling out or going bad because I used too much honey. Would it make sense to combine all 3 gallons into a 5 gallon fermenter, add water, and some nutrient, and let it finish fermenting out, or should I leave them separate and possibly have to fix them individually?
@@jasonlayman8817 That sounds incredibly messy. I’ve seen people do non-water drinks with a soda stream, but it’s really built for the viscosity of water. Changing the viscosity of the liquid can create some unpredictable messes in that thing!
My 1rst mead came out really, really, smokey/oakey flavor. A bit too much. How did that happen, and can anything be done for it? ...and no, I didn't put in any wood chips, lol. I think it was the champagne yeast, but still not sure. It was very dry, which I think played into it, but would not think that dryness alone would cause that much smokey/oakey flavor
@@DointheMost admittedly it was a local grocery store brand (kroger), so not the best. I was thinking to go with a middle of the road honey in terms of quality and taste to get a baseline, then up my honey game from there. I did use a higher end honey to backsweeten some (1/3 cup per gallon) which did help alot, but the smokey/oakey flavor was still definitely there. I am definitely trying a different yeast next time. Between the dozen or two yeasts, and around a few hundred honey's between brands and types, this could be a long trial and error process, lol.
DTM asked the first question that came to mind. It’s an interesting question. Champagne yeast can ferment quite hard. Did you add nutrients? Could you give a ballpark figure as far as brewing temp goes (temp of the space your fermenter sat in)? My brewing history goes back 30-ish years and although I have a pretty low-frequency brewing schedule I’ve never had this happen. Then again, flavour experience is a very personal thing. What were your other ingredients?
@@eddavanleemputten9232 I came back two weeks after initially pitching the yeast, added yeast nutrient, a little amylase enzyme, and stirred. The temperature was just room temperature, low 70's, 72ish.
@@maxhunter3574 - Mmmmmm… maybe the honey or the yeast did it then. Home brewing is this weird and wonderful world of surprises. I can imagine buckwheat honey or chestnut honey adding a smoky/oaky flavour. If a mead ferments to complete dryness it can have an astringency that comes over as woody as well. Definitely interesting. I’m based in Europe, no idea where you’re based but contrary to what some believe (I’ve read comments about beekeepers telling beginner mead makers ‘honey is honey & the kind doesn’t matter for mead) the honey you use, the yeast you use, the temperature you ferment at and how much residual sugars are left in the end product definitely do affect flavour. Sounds to me your fermentation temperature is right within the ‘happy range’ for the champagne yeasts I know, yielding a dry end result for anything right up to 15-18% ABV. Did you sense any residual sweetness or was it more like a dry, white wine? Because fermented honey always has some bitterness to it as well which can come across as oakey. If your brew went dry, perhaps have a taster with some sugar or honey added to it and see if that makes it taste more agreeable. If it does, if the added sweetness masks that bitterness, remember that age will mellow it out. If sweetness helps I’d sweeten it to taste and then pasteurise it to stabilise (eliminates the need to buy stabilisers) or I’d stabilise and throw in some fruit to add something to mask that bitterness. But that’s me. Others would do different, I’m sure.
ok made a mead it is over 6 months old now SG 1.140 FG 1.030 used EC 1118 my problem is I think it made ethanol not alcohol getting ready to trach it !!!! your thoughts ???
I realise you asked your question three months ago but here goes, in the hopes that you haven’t thrown out your mead… First off, ethanol is alcohol, and it’s the type of alcohol you want. Perhaps you meant methanol? All brews contain methanol (including commercial ones!), so nothing to worry about because no home brewed, non-distilled drink contains levels that are dangerous unless you chug so much you’ll get yourself really, REALLY drunk. Mead, even at 18-20 % ABV, will typically contain the same amount of methanol any commercial non-fortified drink with a similar brew will contain. I did a quick calculation and your brew has a bit more than 14% ABV. You could simply be feeling the alcohol burn. My advice would be to either simply allow it to age, or to cut it with another mead. Your initial gravity was quite high and it might have caused your yeast to conk out. EC-1118 isn’t known for doing this, but some times, no matter what yeast you use, it won’t chew through all the sugars it’s reputed to chew through. It could be the yeast was old, or a bad batch (rare, but it happens), or the ingredients used might interfere with fermentation, or… so many factors. Some times when a brew stops at this ABV I take off a sample, add a splash of water, and check if fermentation kicks in again. If it does, that tells me this batch simply conked out due to the alcohol percentage. Every home brewer eventually gets faced with what I call an ornery brew that has them jumping through hoops trying to figure out what the heck is going on. It can be both aggravating and fun to work on it and try to toe the line. There’s always the option of stabilising it and cutting it with another mead. I hope you didn’t end up trashing it. There seldom is the need to. If it smells like vinegar or has weird things floating in it then yes: trash it. Otherwise I’d advise joining BC’s Discord and asking for advice there. There are loads of experienced home brewers on there that can and will help out. Stuck brews, alcohol burn, weird floaties, weird smells, brews not clearing, you name it, they’ll often know what to do.
@@DointheMost Well, it's not. That's literally in chemistry. Learn about pH. Anything higher than 7.00 is alkaline/basic, and anything lower is acidic.
A lot of problems can be solved by blending. I had 2/3 of my demijohns tied up with an apple mead that was to thin, a pear mead that was too flabby, a blackberry mead that was *way* too tart and a rasperry & elderflower wine that was overly floral. I blended a sample glass, recording ratios, and scaled that blend up in a bucket to bottle. I've ended up with a remarkable and complex mead/wine blend with strong berry flavours on the front and a burst of elderflower blossom and pear on the nose and the back-end on exhalation.
Those demijohns won't stay empty for long though. I'm doing a shop-run for tinned lychees, they make a brilliantly light, fruity/floral wine. You almost don't need the fruit, the syrup they're tinned with works well as a flavour extraction.
This is really remarkable and a great testament to how bench trials can level up a brew that needs balancing. Super cool! And sounds delicious.
Couldn’t agree more about blending. And you’ve piqued my interest with the lychees. The Asian supermarket I like to haunt some times carries great big restaurant size tins of lychees in syrup. They don’t cost much. Methinks next time my SO and me go there he’s going to be even more flabberghasted than other times when I pick up one of those tins. I’ve lived in Southeast Asia for quite a few years and go all ga-ga whenever I walk around that place. He’s unfamiliar with most what’s sold there AND still trying to wrap his mind about my ‘will it mead/wine’ mentality. Poor sweetheart! He’s going to be in for another my-girlfriend-has-a-screw-loose moment. Oh well, he likes my cooking and my brews so he’ll get over it quickly!
Just started mead making days ago, on day two of fermenting. Iam really feeling more comfortable after watching you videos.
Glad to hear it! Here’s hoping for a smooth fermentation and delicious mead!
Welcome to the wonderful world of mead making! If you keep going on this journey and it’s your first venture into home brewing (and I really hope you stick with it!) you’ll find it can be a wild ride. You’ll find yourself being amazed, stumped, frustrated, overjoyed, surprised, impatient, taken aback, curious, intrigued, proud as punch, tempted, … and much, much more. There are so many possibilities with mead making that it never gets boring and with a little resourcefulness you’ll rarely have to throw out a brew. You’ll find out a lot about yourself as well. Are you the type to prefer set-and-forget brews? Are you an airlock-sniffer? Do you like to science the heck out of a brew? Do you prefer the variety of lots of small-batch brews of will larger batches be your thing? Is low-ABV your thing or will you prefer higher ABV brews? Do you prefer being able to drink your brews close to bottling time or will you develop a schedule that gravitates towards brews that reach their peak after months of ageing?
I was 19-20 (ish) when my grandmother helped me to make my first mead and am in my early fifties now. I’m still learning and frankly, that’s part of the fun. I’ve branched out into fruit wines and ciders as well but mead still is my favourite.
A little piece of totally unsolicited advice: either make yourself a mead recipe file on your computer/phone (and make multiple cloud-based backups) or get yourself a small binder to keep track of your brews. A binder has the advantage of being able to add pages and separators to categorise your recipes. Write down your recipe, gravity readings, starting dates, finishing steps/dates, bottling dates, possible issues and tweaks. Over time, add your tasting notes. Label your bottles (masking tape and a sharpie are cheap, easy and fast). There isn’t a mead maker I know who doesn’t regret being unable to recreate that one exceptional mead they didn’t keep notes on. Myself included.
Oh… and another thing. You’ll probably find yourself pondering over various kinds of fruit, syrups, sugars, herbs, spices and whatnot and asking yourself “I wonder how that will ferment?” … and if you do that aloud a lot, you might catch a little facepalm here and there from friends and family. But they’ll probably end up requesting brews and at times you might find yourself at the receiving end of bumper crops of fruit in exchange for a taster. 😊
Happy brewing!
@@eddavanleemputten9232 Seconding taking notes! You'll either be glad you did or sad you didn't.
@@eddavanleemputten9232 Actually, could I add to this? My friend recommended to me the "Mead Mate" app which helps keep track of recipes, ABV, and readings/dates of readings for all your mead-making needs.
@@TheGamingLegendsOfficial - That works too. Although I really recommend keeping a good backup file, and updating that backup as often as possible. My extremely strange life caused me to lose all my electronic files once and man, do I regret that. Fortunately I still had my binder with hand-written notes. It’s stained and grubby, but contains all my recipes. Successes, failures, and everything in between. 😊
Whichever works for you, as long as you keep records. They can teach you so much! Plus: after a while it’s fun to see how much that list of recipes has grown.
Great information. I’m gathering supplies to start my first ever fermentation and there’s a lot of great info on your channel. I’m glad you’re willing to break things down and help get some of us newbies out of the weeds. Thanks for being awesome
Happy brewing! Cheers! 🍻
Best of luck!
Thanks for the content! I started mead making last year and I made (3) batches of mead and literally each on of my meads had one of these problems. I just harvested 204lbs of honey and am planning to make a lot more mead starting this weekend so this video came at just the right time.
Dang! That’s a lot of honey! What varietal? What are you planning on making?
@@DointheMost It sure is. I started bee keeping three years ago for operation ""free" alcohol". It has been fun adventure so far.
For the varietal, it is a little hard to say. I would consider it Indiana wildflower which consists of mainly black locus, white Clover, & blackberry blossom. As for what I am planning to brew I am going to try a spiced apple mead, Strawberry rhubarb mead, a traditional sweet mead with Kveik yeast. If I end up having time to pick this year, I would like to try a cherry mead and a blueberry mead. I am also debating the idea of a habanero mango capsicumel and trying my luck at an Acerglyn again.
I am curious if you have any commercial still meads that you would consider good or would recommend? I would like to order them and give them a try just to have a baseline as to if what I am brewing is being considered good? If that makes any sense. Thanks.
@@441bocaj I would definitely recommend trying out the still meads from Superstition and Sap House, both great meaderies!
This was helpful! I made a mead using wild yeast from baby pinecones in addition to ordinary yeast, and I believe it made what you called a sour mead. I was scared at first it was a weak mead vinegar
Thanks, dude! I made a pineapple mead and after the first fermentation (1 month), it tasted very sour. It's in the second stage now for another 2 months. If it's still sour I'll balance the acid/ph and see how that goes. Thanks for the tips, I love your channel, definitely the most knowledgeable.
How did it go?
A sour taste can often be traced back to a brew fermenting completely dry. As long as it didn’t smell of vinegar, you should be able to balance it. Pineapple can take a long time to age as well. So can brews based on other fruits, like banana and quince. And just like the saying goes, there are a thousand ways that lead to Rome… and even more ways to balance a brew.
@@eddavanleemputten9232 Turned out good actually. I re-tasted it on the 3-month mark and back sweeten it with white sugar. I also added gold flakes in hopes to get my partner into it, it worked 🙈🤣
@@JustaSpaceCowboy - Great news! Thanks for updating me! Time heals almost all brews… and this time gold flakes made your partner like it as well, which is a plus not just for this brew but for future ones! Trust has been established. If you make a new batch your partner will like it hopefully even without the flakes. (Sweetie, it’s the exact same, I just ran out of flakes)
I hope you can keep a bottle until it’s a year old. You’ll be amazed at how good it can be with more time.
Happy brewing!
I bought a bottle of mead that was way too sweet for us to drink, I decided to play with it and added a bit of brandy it was a big hit. I'm now considering deliberately doing a sweet mead with the intention of fortifying it.
Fortifying can be a lot of fun! I have plans for an amaretto fortified mead myself. 😁
@@DointheMost sounds interesting, my family like fortified wines but I was never a fan of it myself, but I've liked the couple that I've done, I made a cranberry type wine and fortified it with vodka, tastes like a cosmopolitan cocktail. Thanks for the videos they've really helped me
@@GippslandCNC - That’s one of the best parts about home brewing to me: being able to tailor the end result to what you like.
My SO’s son is an avid cocktail mixer to the extent that he’s followed a course for it. I get a lot of ideas from letting him loose on my brews.
I was at a winery in Tombstone, AZ recently. Their offerings had a sweet wine and a spicy wine. The spicy wine was just the sweet wine with a hot pepper thrown in. They found that the pepper cut the sweetness nicely. I have since added a bit of habeñero to each of my too sweet meads in one batch. Maybe a bit too much pepper though. They are now quite drinkable, but it's best not to get it on your lips. That's ok. We like 'em spicy down here.
Great Video , Plenty of Good Information in there . Thanks, My Friend . 🥂 🐯🤠
Cheers! 🍻
Just made my first few gallons of cider and cherry meads bcuz of this bearded gentleman 🙏🏽☺️
Liked this video overall, but one criticism: alcohol is not an acid. It is neither an acid nor base. It doesn't have a weakly paired hydrogen atom to lend in protonation or a hydroxide group that dissociates to an ion in solution.
It all comes down to balance!
Truly it does! Perhaps this is secretly an entry-level balancing video 🤭
Very useful!
Thank you! Happy brewing!
my first batch of mead has blackberries and lemon in it and i transferred it into a carboy without the fruit after two weeks and it smells and tastes like rotten egg 😭 i told everyone i was completely fine with the idea that it might not be good since it’s my first batch, but deep down im so sad 🥺 i know i can potentially fix the smell but I’m worried about the taste. it tastes like alcohol but not overbearingly so like i know it should at this point. oh well!
Ok question please. My strawberry mead is a bit watery. It tasted fine till I racked it. I had added sorb K to stop fermentation. I want to make it more flavorful. If I add honey will I need to add more sorb K? Or will the Maltodextrin work better? It is a 5 gallon batch.
Great video. I would have thought that rather than too low an ABV, a mead that is too high would be more thin. Alcohol has a lower density than water so even water is more viscous than ethanol so a mead that is at 18 % ABV is far more likely to feel thinner than a mead at 5%. Certainly adding honey to sweeten will increase the density and so the viscosity, but a lower ABV should be more dense than a higher ABV mead , all things being equal. No?
This has always confused me as well
I could see that being the case if it weren’t for the fact that a high ABV mead also has brought a lot of stuff with it in the additional honey, and increased fermentation activity can create compounds that add density to the mouth feel, like esters and glycerin. So higher ABV meads and wines tend to have a higher sensation of body.
@@DointheMost well said
Super helpful! Thank you
high abv+ to sweet.. its not ruined, its a light liquor and should be treated as such, made one that had 18%abv, the yeast didnt go higher and that was the plan, it turned out super good, mixed with carbonated water and drank it like that.. boy, i turned alcoholic for a month, they say the yeast dying can bring out an off flavor, but in this case it was PERF, id like to ad that it was a peach melomel with vanilla like wood chips in it.
Great video! I'm super late to this party, but does any of this advice work after racking, or do I have to taste beforehand? I'm very new to mead making and not sure what the expectations are.
Im new, go easy on me. I made 3 separate gallons of mead. I used roughly 5 lbs of honey in each. Same yeast in all 3. Theyve been fermenting about 2 weeks at this point. I'm starting to wonder if they are going to end up stalling out or going bad because I used too much honey. Would it make sense to combine all 3 gallons into a 5 gallon fermenter, add water, and some nutrient, and let it finish fermenting out, or should I leave them separate and possibly have to fix them individually?
yeah i stabilized my session mead so no carbonating for me. I did add a bit of honey and razzberries and will try it later.
Even without carbonation that sounds hella refreshing
@@DointheMost thanks, I'm sure it will be fine if not maybe I will try a soda streamer. Do you think that would work?
@@jasonlayman8817 That sounds incredibly messy. I’ve seen people do non-water drinks with a soda stream, but it’s really built for the viscosity of water. Changing the viscosity of the liquid can create some unpredictable messes in that thing!
@@DointheMost kind what I thought as well. I appreciate all that you do for us viewers.
@@jasonlayman8817 actually I’d use a seltzer can instead
Hi BC, thanks for the video. It was really informative. One question I have is how much Maltodextrin do you use per gallon of melomel?
My mead is reading 15% abv but the taste is almost vinegar is it bad or does it need to sit
My 1rst mead came out really, really, smokey/oakey flavor. A bit too much. How did that happen, and can anything be done for it? ...and no, I didn't put in any wood chips, lol. I think it was the champagne yeast, but still not sure. It was very dry, which I think played into it, but would not think that dryness alone would cause that much smokey/oakey flavor
What type of honey? It may have just been a phenolic flavor as a yeast byproduct.
@@DointheMost admittedly it was a local grocery store brand (kroger), so not the best. I was thinking to go with a middle of the road honey in terms of quality and taste to get a baseline, then up my honey game from there. I did use a higher end honey to backsweeten some (1/3 cup per gallon) which did help alot, but the smokey/oakey flavor was still definitely there. I am definitely trying a different yeast next time. Between the dozen or two yeasts, and around a few hundred honey's between brands and types, this could be a long trial and error process, lol.
DTM asked the first question that came to mind. It’s an interesting question. Champagne yeast can ferment quite hard. Did you add nutrients? Could you give a ballpark figure as far as brewing temp goes (temp of the space your fermenter sat in)?
My brewing history goes back 30-ish years and although I have a pretty low-frequency brewing schedule I’ve never had this happen. Then again, flavour experience is a very personal thing. What were your other ingredients?
@@eddavanleemputten9232 I came back two weeks after initially pitching the yeast, added yeast nutrient, a little amylase enzyme, and stirred. The temperature was just room temperature, low 70's, 72ish.
@@maxhunter3574 - Mmmmmm… maybe the honey or the yeast did it then. Home brewing is this weird and wonderful world of surprises. I can imagine buckwheat honey or chestnut honey adding a smoky/oaky flavour. If a mead ferments to complete dryness it can have an astringency that comes over as woody as well. Definitely interesting.
I’m based in Europe, no idea where you’re based but contrary to what some believe (I’ve read comments about beekeepers telling beginner mead makers ‘honey is honey & the kind doesn’t matter for mead) the honey you use, the yeast you use, the temperature you ferment at and how much residual sugars are left in the end product definitely do affect flavour. Sounds to me your fermentation temperature is right within the ‘happy range’ for the champagne yeasts I know, yielding a dry end result for anything right up to 15-18% ABV. Did you sense any residual sweetness or was it more like a dry, white wine? Because fermented honey always has some bitterness to it as well which can come across as oakey. If your brew went dry, perhaps have a taster with some sugar or honey added to it and see if that makes it taste more agreeable. If it does, if the added sweetness masks that bitterness, remember that age will mellow it out. If sweetness helps I’d sweeten it to taste and then pasteurise it to stabilise (eliminates the need to buy stabilisers) or I’d stabilise and throw in some fruit to add something to mask that bitterness. But that’s me. Others would do different, I’m sure.
You should do one on fusils
How do I keep my mead from exploding?
ok made a mead it is over 6 months old now SG 1.140 FG 1.030 used EC 1118 my problem is I think it made ethanol not alcohol getting ready to trach it !!!! your thoughts ???
I realise you asked your question three months ago but here goes, in the hopes that you haven’t thrown out your mead…
First off, ethanol is alcohol, and it’s the type of alcohol you want. Perhaps you meant methanol? All brews contain methanol (including commercial ones!), so nothing to worry about because no home brewed, non-distilled drink contains levels that are dangerous unless you chug so much you’ll get yourself really, REALLY drunk. Mead, even at 18-20 % ABV, will typically contain the same amount of methanol any commercial non-fortified drink with a similar brew will contain.
I did a quick calculation and your brew has a bit more than 14% ABV. You could simply be feeling the alcohol burn. My advice would be to either simply allow it to age, or to cut it with another mead. Your initial gravity was quite high and it might have caused your yeast to conk out. EC-1118 isn’t known for doing this, but some times, no matter what yeast you use, it won’t chew through all the sugars it’s reputed to chew through. It could be the yeast was old, or a bad batch (rare, but it happens), or the ingredients used might interfere with fermentation, or… so many factors. Some times when a brew stops at this ABV I take off a sample, add a splash of water, and check if fermentation kicks in again. If it does, that tells me this batch simply conked out due to the alcohol percentage.
Every home brewer eventually gets faced with what I call an ornery brew that has them jumping through hoops trying to figure out what the heck is going on. It can be both aggravating and fun to work on it and try to toe the line. There’s always the option of stabilising it and cutting it with another mead.
I hope you didn’t end up trashing it. There seldom is the need to. If it smells like vinegar or has weird things floating in it then yes: trash it. Otherwise I’d advise joining BC’s Discord and asking for advice there. There are loads of experienced home brewers on there that can and will help out. Stuck brews, alcohol burn, weird floaties, weird smells, brews not clearing, you name it, they’ll often know what to do.
FWIW The pH of 100% ethanol is 7.33, pure water is 7.00. Alcohol is actually more alkaline than water
Hi, just wondering if you can substitute the candi sugar for candi syrup in your butterbeer recipe?
That should be an okay substitute! Very similar flavor profile. 🍻
Thanks 😊
Alcohol isn't an acid. Its pH is 7.33, which is on the alkaline or basic side of the neutral 7.00.
Hey do you like Coffeemels?
Haven’t had one I’ve loved - yet! You?
@@DointheMost I live in a city recognized for its coffee and I'm looking to make a recipe with it
@@DointheMost i think its a tough one to really nnail
...kind of no.. alcohol is not an acid.. its an alcohol...
Alcohol is acidic. That’s literally in the encyclopedia.
@@DointheMost Well, it's not. That's literally in chemistry. Learn about pH. Anything higher than 7.00 is alkaline/basic, and anything lower is acidic.
@@user-qjvqfjv Good troll