Frederictonian Sparkling Mead

[Richard]

Just took a thief of this; SG is currently 1.030 (after some number of weeks), fermentation is still rolling along (albeit slower - I may extend my nutrient schedule for future mega-gravity meads). Tastes $#*@ing fantastic

This one (and the strawberry sack) are going to be real killers.

[Kyle]

yeah, I just left the hyrometer in my mead, its gone from 1121 to about 1020 in 9 days. I have been keeping an eye on the temp, but it has been rather warm. It smells amazing. The fermentation is still going strong.

[Richard]

Hmmm.... Might sanitise mine and drop it in now. Nice plan.

[Richard]

That does seem real fast though... I've had mine at a near-constant 18C.

How did you roll with the nutrient schedule?

[Kyle]

I should mention I made a starter with the lalvin 1118 and I very throroughly aerated the liquid before dumping it into the fermenter.

The nutrient schedule as a function of the amount you gave me was:

1/4 in the brew pot (brought up to 178F)
1/2 on day three
1/4 on day seven

Two cups of blueberry juice was also added on day 6

[Richard]

I see... yeah that's a much larger nutrient bill than I used. I used about 6-8 teaspoons total... I figure you've used about 2-3x that amount given the golf-ball sized chunk I gave you.

[Brian_S]

Re-spin on the Frederictonian Mead based on last batch.

Ingredients:

• 20lbs non-pasteurised honey.
• 1 cup lemon juice - the bottled stuff (ascorbic + citric acid)
• 3 tsp Yeast Nutrient (blend including yeast hulls).
• Enough water to make the above fill a 6 gallon carboy with a few inches of headspace.
• Lalvin 1118.

Method:

• Sanitise 6 gallon "wine bucket", and large plastic spoon.
• Pour honey in bucket.
• Add cold water to make to 6 gallons.
• Stir like crazy until you somehow manage to make the damn honey dissolve.
• Add the yeast nutrient.
• Add the lemon juice.
• Transfer to carboy.
• Pitch yeast.
• Wait until visible fermentation has stopped.
• Rack to secondary onto toasted oak chips.
• Wait a month or two (or more as I'm planning)
• Fine.
• Sugar prime (150g dextrose/22L) + Bottle.

OG should be about 1.120, fg should be about 0.995. Total ABV 14-15%.

So you go from bucket to carboy on day one and the rack sometime after?   I've not made mead yet but could you not just ferment in the bucket then rack?

B

[Richard]

I'm not too hot on the bucket fermenting, but I guess that would work too.

I usually rack from primary after about a month. This time has been somewhat different in that I pushed the OG to silly levels. I suspect I'll wait another couple of weeks for things to calm down a little.

[sdixon]

Brian - I realize this is an old post. I would tend to agree with Richard, that it's better to rack into carboy from beginning, but I have had success with both. As a matter of fact, the sparkling mead I brought to the last meeting, I had forgotten in the primary for ~ 1 year. It had a bit of a musty off-flavor, but I racked into a carboy, mixing with bentonite... let clear, then after a couple of weeks primed (with honey of course) half of the batch and the other half I added chokecherries to (it's still in carboy).

[Dave Savoie]

the reason for the bucket was to stir it all up one would assume

[Richard]

Like I think I said - I use the bucket for about 10-20 minutes to stir the hell out of the honey. It's pretty much impossible to get honey in the neck of a carboy pre-dilution.

Anyone who still insists on boiling or heating their honey in any way needs to try my most recent batch of Mead

[sdixon]

I would love to sample your mead