"So I'm actually gonna save some of the water I'm creating here in a second" >dumps it all out "I'm gonna get a little bit more water in here" >fills it all the way up "So I filled this up with water" Hahaha you're too funny :)
Incredible video! I’ve got all of my starting supplies coming in for Father’s Day so I can try my first batch. Your video is really helpful to visualize all of the text research I’ve done over the last week. Super excited to brew my first mead!
Really useful and important video for novice mead makers and those who are hesitant in getting their toes in the water but even while I know this is nit-picking - two comments. 1. For mead makers an hydrometer is not really necessary to measure your starting gravity - after all, one pound of honey dissolved in water to make one US gallon of must will have a reading of 1.035, and two pounds will read 1.070. An hydrometer is NECESSARY to monitor the progress of the fermentation. If fermentation stops after two or three weeks, has the yeast fermented ALL the sugars? Has the fermentation stalled at 1.050? Did it ever really get off the ground? We monitor the progress (or failure to progress) of the fermentation using an hydrometer. 2. CO2 produced by the yeast does not in fact "expand" the fruit. What the CO2 gas does is force the fruit towards to the surface and if the mead maker has chosen to use a carboy to make a mead or a wine with fruit, that fruit forced upwards by the gas will form a cap that can (and often will) trap the gas as good as any cork, and the result will be an exploding carboy caused by the pressure of the gas on any weakness in the glass. If you are fermenting 2 lbs of honey, approximately one pound (weight) of gas will be produced by the yeast. One POUND of gas. Best , in my opinion, is to use a food grade bucket when the mead maker is thinking about adding fruit to the primary fermenter. The issue is not simply the ease of squeezing fruit into a carboy or removing fruit at the end of the day.
Great vid! Realy helpful for the beginner mead maker. Loved how you showed the full frame of the whole process. Not a detail missed! P.S. Chitosan is pronounced ky-toe-san ;) tomato, tomato - ha!
Literally just mixed my first batch. Just a simple traditional with 3L of water to 1 kg of orange blossom honey for a gallon total volume. That was assuming a 1.4 g/cm3 density of honey but I'm afraid this one was very dense hahah. I was shooting for like 1.075 and it got up to 1.088. So excited for it!
@@bucknashlet's hope so! Following tosna with a fermaid o equivalent,, and gonna try to keep without fruit or anything, see if it turns into something tasty
Thank you so much for these videos. These are super educational. I watched all the way through and learned a lot. Looking forward to watching more, should be making my first gallon ever in a week when my equipment arrives from Amazon.
I'm getting ready to make my first batch of mead, and this was really helpful! I'm making a simple traditional mead with D47 yeast and high quality local honey. I'm hoping everything will work out!
If you fill the carboy half way with water and the honey in, would it not allow you to shake it easier and oxidize the water better for the yeast to thrive? Then fill the jug with water to its desired amount. It may allow you to dissolve the honey faster.
I'm attempting to make mead for the first time by way of this recipe. It is very instructional, but one aspect that I wish would have been emphasized is that some honey is solid and takes quite a long time to melt into a pourable state.
Just a tip to people adding anything powdered to an active fermentation (nutrient or w/e) just dissolve what you're adding into a small amount of warm water (nothing that will make a difference usually for me I use 50ml)and once it's dissolved just pour directly.
I'z Getting Bored with nothing in Season to Brew . So I got enough Blueberries 🫐 out of the Freezer for a 6.5 Gallon Batch . That's a Little Too Heavy to pick up and Shake as your Video was suggesting . I Rely on ( WILLY THE WONDER WAND🎉😂 ) JUST A 2 Piece Pool Stick . I unscrew it for the short stuff and leave it together for the Taller stuff . I Know , it Don't have a Paddle on the end , but that Leather Tip is smooth sailing , quiet 🤫🤐 gets Up in the corner pretty good and makes it go Round and Round . I always try and Aim for 1.100 O.G. But , this time I went a little over , 1.105 . Oooow well , Make Do With What You Get . 🐯🤠
Thank you very much for this instructional video! I always wanted to learn how to make mead, but didn't know where to start. Your video was the perfect guide for me and I was excited to try making my first batch. The result exceeded my expectations! Thanks to your video, I now know how to make this delicious drink and I'm sure my friends will appreciate it at their next party. Thanks again for your valuable advice and detailed explanation of the mead making process. You are well done!
Happy to see you use this honey. I've seen it at Sam's the last few times and wondered if it was OK since they've been out of the Nate's brand in my area for a while.
I would love to hear an opinion for what the average time frame you would feel comfortable aging in a swing top, a screw top, in the carboy itself. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me
I found this quite fascinating, Would I ever attempt to undertake making mead? Probably not, but maybe because I am here. But I am curious, does the mead have a bready/beer smell during the first few days? Like how proofed yeast smells when making bread?
I have been making mead for 3 or so years and never used nutrients. Fermaid O is not available in my country and I'm terrified of buying something very chemical-y. I wonder what the difference would be if I did use a nutrient, because the brews never got any off flavours and are usually between 11-15% ABV
Back in 2020 I ordered 60 pounds of honey 5 gallons for $146.99 off of eBay back then it was under 2.50 a pound.ive made about 10 gallons of mead out of that since then and still have plenty of honey left
I have a question about sanitising. I have sanitised everything well beforehand. During the process, I did rinse my gallon and airlock a few times with a regular towel, the airlock contains plain water from the tap and once I used a pipette that I forgot to sanitise for a moment... Could this cause a problem? Or is this normally not too bad?
Hi @ManMadeMead I am following this video as to do my first Mead :D. I had only 8l jug, so I scale up it a little bit and I got ~1.096 OG. Is that good?
You can usually find people selling complete kits for very cheap on marketplace. I've been buying up tons of cheap equipment second hand and then assembling beginner kits for friends, which I'll usually give them for free or roughly my cost. To get bottles I just spent a few months drinking only from bottles that I would like to refill.
Why would tequila or a high Spirit evaporate less quickly than water? Ethanol evaporates more quickly than water and how spirits have a lot of ethanol in them so I would think they would evaporate more quickly. I just don't know how that works.
Star san dont care for the foam does it alter your brew in anyway ive been using and having great luck with one step but would like to try the star san for soaking older bottles etc any advice would be appreciated.
@@ManMadeMeadI think I'd cringe and not trust my drink if I left it on my bottle. What is in that sanitizer that makes it harmless to the yeast, and safe to drink?
My first mead came out tasting like turpentine and I have since made adjustments..lol . but I was wondering if you just keep the sanitation liquid or keep making batches through out? currently I am using one step no rinse sanitizer.
I am really not comfortable with that foam :) why not just rinse it out a bit? Are you sure that you want that stuff in your must? At the very least it will kill off some yeast even if it food safe in this concentration. Maybe it has a chance to create off flavors as well? I would not tempt it to be honest
That cylinder didn't get sanitized at all, there was zero contact of the Star San with the insides. Then you potentially contaminated the must. Well done. For someone that runs the "sanitize everything that touches the must" narrative, that was quite a weird thing to do.
@@ManMadeMead Nothing like an ad hominem to a genuine feedback. I wasn't even sarcastic. Maybe it's not me who's grumpy, maybe you just snowflaked a bit.
Have you ever just bought some canned co2 I've seen people use it to fill the bottle with co2 when bottling beer and wine would it work in a situation like that since co2 is heavier then oxygen
I haven't used it before, but it sounds interesting! Also here people talk about how the whole c02 is heavier than oxygen as a fallacy... I don't really know!
I've made a few batches of mead now and backsweetened most with honey. My problem I seem to come in with is that once I backsweeten the wine seems to taste too much like honey instead of the fruit it's made with. I'm sure it's as simple as sweeten less. I was just curious if others have struggled with this same situation.
If part of your equipment is made out of plastic, an autoclave wouldn’t do as it uses heat to sterilise… unless there are autoclaves that use different technology that I’m aware of.
@@eddavanleemputten9232 you can still sterilize with sodium metabisulfite and water in case of big plastic pieces, dont need to autoclave, boiling or a vapor bath will do the job, little 70% alcohol bath after and leave it to dry, uv-c if you want to go the extra mile
Same, not only using tap water (lol, some sanitized environment), not sanitized the measuring vessel at all (placed opening down, he expects the vapor to sanitize it?) ,then poured content into the must, and left a foam from a chemical, that is intended to kill microorganisms :D Wild.
I normally get it through amazon! It's kind of expensive... you can get it in smaller amounts. But this is what I recently bought and put into that plastic container: amzn.to/3tIq6j4
3 - 6 weeks?? It's one of the many reasons why I never ferment in one of these narrow neck glass carboys. Also how do you know it's done at 1.000? I haven't had anything finished at precisely 1.000 for a couple of years. Just made a cyser within 9 days in a bucket where I opened it up and mixed it every day for the first 4 days. The OG was 1.127 and the current gravity is 0.996. It's at 17.5% ABV. and still fermenting after being racked into a glass carboy. It'll definitely go a few more points down over the next few days.
3 - 6 weeks is a pretty normal time for a primary fermentation to run through (and for it to have any time let sediment drop to the bottom). Most of my things end at 1.000!
Mine usually goes to between 17 plus and 19 plus a.b.v. . I have had Cucumber 🥒 go to 21.33 a.b.v. . When mine goes Dry I'll Sweeten it Up and let it Work some more . Step Feed is what I call it . Cucumber 🥒 Taste like a good quality Chardonnay , especially At 1.000 . Most People I know like Their's Dry . Anything but that I like to try and Hit 🎯 1.010 . 🐯🤠
P.S. Cucumber 🥒 will go Dry , Below the Scale Reading on the Hydrometer . about the distance of 6 Points Below the Last Reading . Just something in it that makes it GO . Some people don't like a Brew so Strong , I'll sometimes add Apple 🍎🍏 Juice or Grape 🍇 Juice to some for people I give it to . I'll let Em stand there and Taste and pick out what they want , and Doctor it up to please Em . One Person has even said , THIS is for My Church Group , it has to be Good . 🐯🤠
@@magacop5180 Nah. I've actually never used that yeast, although the strongest yeast I've ever used was on par with it or stronger - at least in terms of alcohol tolerance...it was Mangrove Jack's M05. Thing is, the regular, cheapest, universal wine yeast basically produces the same effects if it has enough nutrients and if you're helping it along by releasing all of that CO2. I actually did have fermentations that lasted for 3 weeks and more, but it was during the beginner phase when I was doing the primary fermentation in narrow neck carboys. What I'm saying is, once you upgrade to fermenting in buckets, whether they're the proper type of plastic (perfectly fine for primary), or stainless steel, where you open that thing up and mix it for the first 3 - 4 days, your fermentation is usually done in 7 - 10 days. Not only that, but it's literally hard to make it finish at 1.000. and not lower. It's why the professional winemakers' wines usually end up at 0.990 - 0.994. I've had meads finish at 0.988. and they can go even lower. That's why I asked: how does he know the fermentation is done after one measuring that showed 1.000. I mean, if you're going to stabilize it immediately after that first and only measurement, that's fine from the safety standpoint, and that's also fine when you're making white wine. However, if you're making red wine or mead, the whole point is NOT to stabilize after the first measurement or as soon as you see 1.000, because that prevents you from going through the secondary, malolactic fermentation...and secondary malo fermentation, performed by a type of bacteria, is what gives the red wines and meads that distinctive velvety mouth feel. In order for them to do what they're supposed to tho, they need to be alive and kicking. Not suppressed by k meta and sorbate or killed off by pasteurizing. If you just get your mead to 1.000 and immediately stabilize, first of all, your mead is never going to be as good as it could've been had you just left it doing its thing. Secondly: if you get it to 1.000 and after one measurement say; that's it, it's over with the primary, but without stabilizing, and you bottle...that thing can go 8, 10, 12 points lower, which in terms of the pressure means really explosive bottle bombs.
You could have always just measured out a 1/2. A pound of honey and add it all. There are different ways of knowing alcohol content immediately at the end.
And here I am throwing things together. Wish me luck
New at making mead and very much appreciate these in-depth tutorials without it being overwhelming. Thank you! Love this channel
I'm super happy to help!
"So I'm actually gonna save some of the water I'm creating here in a second"
>dumps it all out
"I'm gonna get a little bit more water in here"
>fills it all the way up
"So I filled this up with water"
Hahaha you're too funny :)
Incredible video! I’ve got all of my starting supplies coming in for Father’s Day so I can try my first batch. Your video is really helpful to visualize all of the text research I’ve done over the last week. Super excited to brew my first mead!
I'm super happy I can help! Happy brewing!
Really useful and important video for novice mead makers and those who are hesitant in getting their toes in the water but even while I know this is nit-picking - two comments.
1. For mead makers an hydrometer is not really necessary to measure your starting gravity - after all, one pound of honey dissolved in water to make one US gallon of must will have a reading of 1.035, and two pounds will read 1.070. An hydrometer is NECESSARY to monitor the progress of the fermentation. If fermentation stops after two or three weeks, has the yeast fermented ALL the sugars? Has the fermentation stalled at 1.050? Did it ever really get off the ground? We monitor the progress (or failure to progress) of the fermentation using an hydrometer.
2. CO2 produced by the yeast does not in fact "expand" the fruit. What the CO2 gas does is force the fruit towards to the surface and if the mead maker has chosen to use a carboy to make a mead or a wine with fruit, that fruit forced upwards by the gas will form a cap that can (and often will) trap the gas as good as any cork, and the result will be an exploding carboy caused by the pressure of the gas on any weakness in the glass. If you are fermenting 2 lbs of honey, approximately one pound (weight) of gas will be produced by the yeast. One POUND of gas. Best , in my opinion, is to use a food grade bucket when the mead maker is thinking about adding fruit to the primary fermenter. The issue is not simply the ease of squeezing fruit into a carboy or removing fruit at the end of the day.
Great vid! Realy helpful for the beginner mead maker. Loved how you showed the full frame of the whole process. Not a detail missed! P.S. Chitosan is pronounced ky-toe-san ;) tomato, tomato - ha!
Literally just mixed my first batch. Just a simple traditional with 3L of water to 1 kg of orange blossom honey for a gallon total volume. That was assuming a 1.4 g/cm3 density of honey but I'm afraid this one was very dense hahah. I was shooting for like 1.075 and it got up to 1.088. So excited for it!
That sounds awesome!
1088 is a good starting gravity. It's very close to my target number. If all goes to plan you should have around 11½%. That's prefect for my taste.
@@bucknashlet's hope so! Following tosna with a fermaid o equivalent,, and gonna try to keep without fruit or anything, see if it turns into something tasty
ordered my stuff a couple days ago, cant wait to get started. these videos really help
I’m super happy I can help!
Thank you so much for these videos. These are super educational. I watched all the way through and learned a lot. Looking forward to watching more, should be making my first gallon ever in a week when my equipment arrives from Amazon.
I’m super happy I can help!
I'm getting ready to make my first batch of mead, and this was really helpful! I'm making a simple traditional mead with D47 yeast and high quality local honey. I'm hoping everything will work out!
I'm happy it helped! Have fun!
If you fill the carboy half way with water and the honey in, would it not allow you to shake it easier and oxidize the water better for the yeast to thrive? Then fill the jug with water to its desired amount. It may allow you to dissolve the honey faster.
7:00 "start with more mead than you need" is literally impossible because you always need more mead :)
I'm attempting to make mead for the first time by way of this recipe. It is very instructional, but one aspect that I wish would have been emphasized is that some honey is solid and takes quite a long time to melt into a pourable state.
Just a tip to people adding anything powdered to an active fermentation (nutrient or w/e) just dissolve what you're adding into a small amount of warm water (nothing that will make a difference usually for me I use 50ml)and once it's dissolved just pour directly.
I'z Getting Bored with nothing in Season to Brew . So I got enough Blueberries 🫐 out of the Freezer for a 6.5 Gallon Batch . That's a Little Too Heavy to pick up and Shake as your Video was suggesting . I Rely on ( WILLY THE WONDER WAND🎉😂 ) JUST A 2 Piece Pool Stick . I unscrew it for the short stuff and leave it together for the Taller stuff . I Know , it Don't have a Paddle on the end , but that Leather Tip is smooth sailing , quiet 🤫🤐 gets Up in the corner pretty good and makes it go Round and Round . I always try and Aim for 1.100 O.G. But , this time I went a little over , 1.105 . Oooow well , Make Do With What You Get . 🐯🤠
Excellent video! Thanks!
Thank you very much for this instructional video! I always wanted to learn how to make mead, but didn't know where to start. Your video was the perfect guide for me and I was excited to try making my first batch. The result exceeded my expectations! Thanks to your video, I now know how to make this delicious drink and I'm sure my friends will appreciate it at their next party. Thanks again for your valuable advice and detailed explanation of the mead making process. You are well done!
I'm super happy I can help!! Have fun mead making!
Happy to see you use this honey. I've seen it at Sam's the last few times and wondered if it was OK since they've been out of the Nate's brand in my area for a while.
I would love to hear an opinion for what the average time frame you would feel comfortable aging in a swing top, a screw top, in the carboy itself. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me
Thank you for the information
You bet!
I found this quite fascinating, Would I ever attempt to undertake making mead? Probably not, but maybe because I am here. But I am curious, does the mead have a bready/beer smell during the first few days? Like how proofed yeast smells when making bread?
Awesome!
I have been making mead for 3 or so years and never used nutrients. Fermaid O is not available in my country and I'm terrified of buying something very chemical-y. I wonder what the difference would be if I did use a nutrient, because the brews never got any off flavours and are usually between 11-15% ABV
I've heard in one of his videos that if you boil yeast it dies and can be used as nutrients for the mead
Back in 2020 I ordered 60 pounds of honey 5 gallons for $146.99 off of eBay back then it was under 2.50 a pound.ive made about 10 gallons of mead out of that since then and still have plenty of honey left
I have a question about sanitising. I have sanitised everything well beforehand. During the process, I did rinse my gallon and airlock a few times with a regular towel, the airlock contains plain water from the tap and once I used a pipette that I forgot to sanitise for a moment... Could this cause a problem? Or is this normally not too bad?
You’ll be okay! You shouldn’t have any problems!
Intro was super sick!
Really Enjoyed Your Video , Thanks ! 🐯🤠
In my experience with regular wine it usually takes 2-3 months to clear after pasteurizing.
Hi @ManMadeMead
I am following this video as to do my first Mead :D. I had only 8l jug, so I scale up it a little bit and I got ~1.096 OG. Is that good?
That’s great! Thats a great start!
its easier to mix honey with water if you have less water. mix when its around 1/3 full. add rest of water afterwards
I use crushed rice.
so putting your fingers all over the bottom of the stopper doesn't cause any bacterial problems?
It's normally good to dip your fingers in some sanitizer!
You can usually find people selling complete kits for very cheap on marketplace. I've been buying up tons of cheap equipment second hand and then assembling beginner kits for friends, which I'll usually give them for free or roughly my cost. To get bottles I just spent a few months drinking only from bottles that I would like to refill.
Why would tequila or a high Spirit evaporate less quickly than water? Ethanol evaporates more quickly than water and how spirits have a lot of ethanol in them so I would think they would evaporate more quickly. I just don't know how that works.
What is the ratio of stabilizers to be sufficient? I'm producing a batch with different proportions and I'd like to get it right.
I always use 1/2 tsp of sorbate per gallon and .3 grams of metabisulfite (or 1 whole camped tablet) per gallon
Can I mix the honey and water in an open bowl, using a hand mixer?
Great video!!!!
Thank you!
Star san dont care for the foam does it alter your brew in anyway ive been using and having great luck with one step but would like to try the star san for soaking older bottles etc any advice would be appreciated.
Nope! Doesn't alter the brew in any way!
@@ManMadeMeadI think I'd cringe and not trust my drink if I left it on my bottle. What is in that sanitizer that makes it harmless to the yeast, and safe to drink?
Great video! Thanks!!
Happy to help!
Why not make the must in a saucepan on the stove, or is it bad to heat the honey?
It’s not bad to heat honey, it’s just not totally necessary!
Would fructose and cane sugar work.
Tap water?
Spit to add micro-organism’s
What is the temperature you use to pasteurize?
I like 140F for 22 minutes!
Can't you use pectic enzymes to clear at the end as well?
Only if you used fruit
Can it be aged in oak barrels?
It absolutely can!
My first mead came out tasting like turpentine and I have since made adjustments..lol . but I was wondering if you just keep the sanitation liquid or keep making batches through out? currently I am using one step no rinse sanitizer.
I normally just make new sanitizing water every time, but you can definitely keep it!
I am really not comfortable with that foam :)
why not just rinse it out a bit? Are you sure that you want that stuff in your must? At the very least it will kill off some yeast even if it food safe in this concentration. Maybe it has a chance to create off flavors as well? I would not tempt it to be honest
It won't impede fermentation or add any flavor! I promise!
Does clearing or not the mead affect the taste in any way?
Not in my experience!
the water that you are using is chlorinated?
Tap water.
That cylinder didn't get sanitized at all, there was zero contact of the Star San with the insides. Then you potentially contaminated the must. Well done.
For someone that runs the "sanitize everything that touches the must" narrative, that was quite a weird thing to do.
Man, you seem like a grumpy person.
But, he's not wrong! Lol
@@ManMadeMead Nothing like an ad hominem to a genuine feedback. I wasn't even sarcastic. Maybe it's not me who's grumpy, maybe you just snowflaked a bit.
Water.
good video
Have you ever just bought some canned co2 I've seen people use it to fill the bottle with co2 when bottling beer and wine would it work in a situation like that since co2 is heavier then oxygen
I haven't used it before, but it sounds interesting! Also here people talk about how the whole c02 is heavier than oxygen as a fallacy... I don't really know!
CO2 would have an extra carbon atom than O2 so it should be more dense for a given mol of gas at a given volume.
i think camden is techinally sodium metabisulfite
I've made a few batches of mead now and backsweetened most with honey. My problem I seem to come in with is that once I backsweeten the wine seems to taste too much like honey instead of the fruit it's made with. I'm sure it's as simple as sweeten less. I was just curious if others have struggled with this same situation.
You can always backsweeten with the fruit juice if you’re able to find it! Otherwise, I would just backsweeten with less honey
why sanitize when you can sterilize?
Because all the new brew tech and solutions for sanitizing are awesome!
@@ManMadeMead nothing beats a good autoclave or uvC
If part of your equipment is made out of plastic, an autoclave wouldn’t do as it uses heat to sterilise… unless there are autoclaves that use different technology that I’m aware of.
@@eddavanleemputten9232 you can still sterilize with sodium metabisulfite and water in case of big plastic pieces, dont need to autoclave, boiling or a vapor bath will do the job, little 70% alcohol bath after and leave it to dry, uv-c if you want to go the extra mile
@@eddavanleemputten9232 basically so2, that will kill all microorganisms except viruses
how tall are you?
4.3 parsecs. It's in his bio.
Anyone want to help my project at 911 Westcott?
🥷🏿
You couldn't convince me to leave them foam, oh my lord. 💀
Same, not only using tap water (lol, some sanitized environment), not sanitized the measuring vessel at all (placed opening down, he expects the vapor to sanitize it?) ,then poured content into the must, and left a foam from a chemical, that is intended to kill microorganisms :D
Wild.
Where do you get the Fermaid-O in that quantity?
I normally get it through amazon! It's kind of expensive... you can get it in smaller amounts. But this is what I recently bought and put into that plastic container: amzn.to/3tIq6j4
3 - 6 weeks?? It's one of the many reasons why I never ferment in one of these narrow neck glass carboys.
Also how do you know it's done at 1.000? I haven't had anything finished at precisely 1.000 for a couple of years.
Just made a cyser within 9 days in a bucket where I opened it up and mixed it every day for the first 4 days. The OG was 1.127 and the current gravity is 0.996. It's at 17.5% ABV. and still fermenting after being racked into a glass carboy. It'll definitely go a few more points down over the next few days.
3 - 6 weeks is a pretty normal time for a primary fermentation to run through (and for it to have any time let sediment drop to the bottom). Most of my things end at 1.000!
Mine usually goes to between 17 plus and 19 plus a.b.v. . I have had Cucumber 🥒 go to 21.33 a.b.v. . When mine goes Dry I'll Sweeten it Up and let it Work some more . Step Feed is what I call it . Cucumber 🥒 Taste like a good quality Chardonnay , especially At 1.000 . Most People I know like Their's Dry . Anything but that I like to try and Hit 🎯 1.010 . 🐯🤠
P.S. Cucumber 🥒 will go Dry , Below the Scale Reading on the Hydrometer . about the distance of 6 Points Below the Last Reading . Just something in it that makes it GO . Some people don't like a Brew so Strong , I'll sometimes add Apple 🍎🍏 Juice or Grape 🍇 Juice to some for people I give it to . I'll let Em stand there and Taste and pick out what they want , and Doctor it up to please Em . One Person has even said , THIS is for My Church Group , it has to be Good . 🐯🤠
Sounds like you’re using EC-1118.
@@magacop5180 Nah. I've actually never used that yeast, although the strongest yeast I've ever used was on par with it or stronger - at least in terms of alcohol tolerance...it was Mangrove Jack's M05.
Thing is, the regular, cheapest, universal wine yeast basically produces the same effects if it has enough nutrients and if you're helping it along by releasing all of that CO2.
I actually did have fermentations that lasted for 3 weeks and more, but it was during the beginner phase when I was doing the primary fermentation in narrow neck carboys.
What I'm saying is, once you upgrade to fermenting in buckets, whether they're the proper type of plastic (perfectly fine for primary), or stainless steel, where you open that thing up and mix it for the first 3 - 4 days, your fermentation is usually done in 7 - 10 days. Not only that, but it's literally hard to make it finish at 1.000. and not lower.
It's why the professional winemakers' wines usually end up at 0.990 - 0.994.
I've had meads finish at 0.988. and they can go even lower. That's why I asked: how does he know the fermentation is done after one measuring that showed 1.000. I mean, if you're going to stabilize it immediately after that first and only measurement, that's fine from the safety standpoint, and that's also fine when you're making white wine.
However, if you're making red wine or mead, the whole point is NOT to stabilize after the first measurement or as soon as you see 1.000, because that prevents you from going through the secondary, malolactic fermentation...and secondary malo fermentation, performed by a type of bacteria, is what gives the red wines and meads that distinctive velvety mouth feel.
In order for them to do what they're supposed to tho, they need to be alive and kicking. Not suppressed by k meta and sorbate or killed off by pasteurizing.
If you just get your mead to 1.000 and immediately stabilize, first of all, your mead is never going to be as good as it could've been had you just left it doing its thing.
Secondly: if you get it to 1.000 and after one measurement say; that's it, it's over with the primary, but without stabilizing, and you bottle...that thing can go 8, 10, 12 points lower, which in terms of the pressure means really explosive bottle bombs.
In 2023? You mean 2024? Great video as per usual!
We are like 4days Into 2024, he aged it for 4 months
I meant to share this in 2023, but it didn't end up working out! That very first clip was recorded in like August of 2023 haha
Milk
Yeast should be activated in warm water.
For best results.
Meh
I just decided to leave the sanitizer in, who cares.
You could have always just measured out a 1/2. A pound of honey and add it all. There are different ways of knowing alcohol content immediately at the end.