Turning Water, Honey, & Berries to Wine
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- čas přidán 29. 04. 2023
- My 1st attempt at making an age old beverage called mead. Which is basically made of two main ingredients, water and honey. #mead #wine #homestead #honey #beekeeping
- Jak na to + styl
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Meadmaker since 1989 here. May I offer a few tips? (Warning: loooooong post)
You mentioned you added distilled water. For optimum flavour you want some minerals. Distilled water doesn’t contain any. Spring water, aka mineral water, contains minerals. As an alternative you wan use well water you’ve brought to a boil and allowed to cool.
Great that you use frozen fruit. I’d recommend allowing the fruit to thaw completely and to slightly mash it before adding it. Also: for easy removal of the fruit, dump it in a fine mesh brewing bag, tie it loosely (as in: not too close to the fruit). Once the fruit has given off its flavour and colour you can just fish out the bag, allow it to drain in a colander that sits in a bowl, and transfer the collected juice that dripped out back to the bucket. When the fruit is still very cold, it can be one of the reasons why fermentation is slow to start.
When to remove the fruit? Soft fruit after around a week. Hard fruit just before fermentation is done. I usually remove soft fruit like berries after 3-7 days, depending on how mushy they’ve gotten. Don’t let the fruit completely turn to mush. It’ll only give you more sediment in semi-suspension and that means more loss.
Want more fruit flavour? When fermentation is done, add more fruit after racking your mead and let it sit for some more.
When is fermentation done? Get yourself a hydrometer and testing tube. Best way to determine both alcohol content and when fermentation is done. It’s a really cheap tool and is endlessly reusable, unless you break it. I can explain how to use it, but there are plenty of videos on how to (channels like CS Brews, Doin’ The Most, Man Made Mead, Mead With Errick and Derrick, Hangin’ With Hodge…)
I didn’t have a hydrometer when I started my mead. What do I do now? Order one. Use it to determine when fermentation is done. Take 2-3 readings, each several days apart when you think it’s done (i.e. when airlock activity slows down to a crawl). Two identical readings around 1.000 gravity or below means your yeast has stopped because there is nothing there anymore for it to chew on. That’s for a recipe of roughly 3 lbs of honey per gallon of must using water. For recipes using juice only instead of water it gets a little more complicated. For recipes using more honey, it gets a little more complicated as well.
My mead doesn’t completely clear. What happened? You used berries. They contain pectin. Pectin causes ‘pectic haze’. Adding some pectic enzyme (aka pectolase) will clear that right up. Adding it post fermentation leans you need to double the dose. Adding it before you add the yeast means you simply follow package instructions. Extra perk to adding pectic enzyme means it helps break down the fruit and extract more flavour.
I’ve got mould floating on top of my fruit! What do I do? If it’s really mould, throw out your batch. If it.s just foam that doesn’t return to the surface after stirring, it’s yeast rafts and Croysen ceust. Those are normal. Keep on trucking.
How do I avoid mould? - Stir your ferment daily until you remove the fruit. If your fruit isn’t in a brew bag, it might be a good idea to sanitise a sieve and to use it to scoop out most of that fruit before the next step. Allow to settle again under airlock and finish fermentation before moving to the next step.
Things got busy and I forgot to move the fruit around/remove it before fermentation was done. What do I do? Is my mead ruined? Nope. Breathe. Use your eyes and nose. Does it smell rotten? Does it have mould on top? Or does it just smell alcoholic and a little funky from the carbon dioxide and other gasses? If it just smells of fermentation and has no mould, you’re good. Remove the fruit. Let it settle and proceed to the next step.
It smells like vinegar! What do I do? Let the vinegarisation run its course because this batch is toast as far as mead is concerned. Make lots of salads and marinades. Don’t use this bucket for any alcoholic fermentation anymore or sanitise the CRAP out of it. This is the main reason why I prefer glass fermenters: easier to sanitise. Any plastic instrument that has touched a live vinegar culture never comes near my wines, meads and ciders. Ever. But I’m stricter than most on that. I’m even noping out on making mead/wine/cider in the same space as making vinegar. Some happily do.
I’ve got too much head space in my secondary fermenter! What do I do? If fermentation is still active k don’t worry about it. If fermentation is done, either get a smaller fermenter or top up your lead with more must (honey water at the same ratio you originally used). Or add a juice of your choice. It’ll lower your alcohol percentage and might (well, most probably will) re-start fermentation. That.s preferable to having your mead spoil.
Can I filter my mead to clear it? Only if you have specialised filters. Coffee filters do NOT work. You’ll only succeed in wasting coffee filters, potentially oxidising your mead, and losing copious amounts of time. Allow all the sediment to sink to the bottom of your fermenter, then siphon the clear stuff over into another container or containers of your choice.
My mead has gone completely dry and I want it to be sweet(er). What do I do? Is it spoiled? Nope. It hasn’t gone bad. The yeast simply chewed through all the sweetness. Once racked off the lees (settled yeast at the bottom of your fermenter), sweeten it to taste and stabilise it. Either use chemicals from the home brew store/online according to package instructions, or pasteurise (heat to 140°F core temperature for 10-20 minutes to kill the yeast). There are videos on pasteurising and on stabilising. You can also opt for non-fermentable sweeteners like stevia or erythritol.
I added honey to my crystal clear mead to sweeten it and now it’s cloudy! What do I do? Wait. It.s called honey haze and will most likely fall out of suspension. It.s caused by the proteins in the raw, unfiltered honey. If your mead has been stabilised or you’re stabilising right after sweetening (aka back sweetening) all you need is time. You can use fining agents but in most cases (except for pectic haze and haze caused by starches) time is your friend. Stick an airlock on there and wait before bottling or set your bottled mead upright and pour carefully when serving. That honey haze is the sign of having used pure, natural, unadulterated raw honey. Nothing wrong with it.
What do you mean by ‘fermenter’? Any vessel you choose to ferment in. Bucket, carboy, wide mouth bubbler, growler… whatever floats your boat, can be sanitised and can be fitted with an airlock.
What tools do you recommend? Airlocks, auto-siphon fitted with tubing, hydrometer and suitably sized cylinder, bottling wand, brewing bags, a turkey baster or wine thief for taking samples, fermenters that are easy to sanitise. Technically all you need is a fermenter. The rest does however make your life a whole lot easier. Other equipment besides what I mentioned is for those who like fancy stuff.
Help! I’ve got bits of fruit stuck in my siphoning tube/auto-siphon/racking cane! What do I do? Now you know why I recommend the use of brewing bags when working with fruit. Rinse out the lot, and try racking through a sieve. If you’re not squeamish, use a nylon ladies’s pantyhose you’ve sanitised and fit that over your siphon. I’ve never done that but some do it. Or be patient, keep cleaning out the siphon and try to stay sane until you’ve had enough. Or get someone to quickly sew you a sleeve out of cheesecloth to fit over your siphon.
How long should I age my mead? Depends. Typically I’d say at least 3 months for low alcohol meads, six months to a year for your average mead and longer for high alcohol meads. But that’s a personal preference. Some people like young wines and the French Beaujolais region has even made a thing of it (Beaujolais Nouveau). That’s wine with an ABV around 10-14% alcohol and less than 6-12 months old.
My mead tastes ‘thin’, the flavour is gone as soon as I swallow. It’s ‘watery’. What happened? Your mead has no tannins or very little tannins. Either add a small amount of powdered wine tannins, or a piece of charred oak from the home brew store and let it sit for a while. Taste frequently and when it tastes right, remove the oak. Next time, add the tannin upfront or add strong black tea to the water.you won’t be able to taste the tea but the tannins will round out the flavours and they’ll linger more.
My mead is too tart and I don’t taste a lot of fruit! What happened! It needs sweetness to bring out the flavours. Add some to a sample and taste again.
I don’t get a lot of honey taste/scent! What happened? Nothing. Your mead is still very young. Wait. Time is your friend in just about 99% of your mead issues.
Hope all of this unsolicited advice helps. Happy brewing!
I thoroughly enjoyed your video and hope you’ll post a follow-up. I always love it when someone starts on the road to making mead, and I hope you keep at it. 😊
Wow, great info! I greatly appreciate it! This was a first but will definitely be doing more!
And follow up is coming!
@@seedsandarrowsfrontier9224 - Looking forward to it!
@@seedsandarrowsfrontier9224 - Given you said in your video you have access to advice, I know you have people who can and will be happy to answer any and all questions you have. If however you want to pick my brain, feel free to do so through here. I’ll be happy to help.