Recent content by Brandon M

Bottled my first mead today. It's already not bad, maybe a tiny bit harsh, with a verrrrrry slight odd odor. Maybe I didn't sanitize enough, or maybe that's how mead smells (I'm new to mead). But generally I'm pretty happy. Will be interesting to see how it matures. If it improves, I'll try...

I suppose this post would apply to wine also (yeah, I know, mead is just honey wine) but I'm making mead this time, so there's no fruit lees involved. The forum has a lot of advice on primary-to-secondary, but it's quite widely varied. I have a few questions about which I can't seem to find...

It's our vacation spot every year, and only about 3 hours away, so no big deal. We LOVE going there in the fall. I've found that, at least for the vines we harvest, wild grapes love growing on slopes but not far from water. So they seem to like roadsides where there's a damp ditch just at the...

I suppose I can add a bit to this topic. First, I should say: I'm so jealous. We visit the Shenandoah Mountains every year in western Virginia, and one of our favorite activities has always been harvesting the wild grapes along Skyline Drive (the Blue Ridge Parkway) and near the top of...

My first-ever batch of mead seems to be going well so far. It's a simple mead - nothing but 2-3/4 lb of honey plus water to reach 1.1 gallons, and the various nutrients and a bit of lemon juice and acid blend to get it down to pH 3.6, plus a bit of tannin powder. Initial SG was 1.100, Brix...

So maybe this is better? 5) Once the first third or so of the sugars have been consumed, intentional oxygenation may be harmful. Punching down a fruit cap is still necessary - but not oxygenation. The yeast are mostly past the multiplication phase where O2 is needed, and moving into the...

Does K-meta kill yeast or bacteria? Or is it purely an oxidation prevention?

Thanks, all. To summarize the various answers: 1) "Colony" is a misnomer: commonly used, but factually incorrect. If someone says "colony," just grin and ignore it. They mean well. 2) The yeast are everywhere in the must. Not clustered; maybe higher concentration at the bottom if the bubbling...

I'm making mead for the first time, time, and a lot of pages recommend fairly vigorous shaking or stirring until it gets below a certain SG and the yeast switch from multiplying to conversion of sugars to alcohol. When people use the phrase "yeast colony," that implies to me a specific location...

Well, I'm quite new at this too (maybe 10 batches into winemaking) but I do have a couple thoughts. I also had a crazy lot of liquid stuck in the fruit cap. The cap was probably half the volume of the primary ferm bucket. Straining it did absolutely nothing - it hardly dripped at all. So I...

...Sounds like making and drinking plenty of mead is a good way to do this research. :D

Thanks for pointing that out - this made me realize I could just pour that pint back into the bucket now. Muuuuch easier.

Okay... fine. (he said grudgingly LOL) I moved it into a 2-gallon bucket. It was already pretty heady with foam in the carboy, so probably a good thing. I sincerely appreciate the advice each time I've posted something.

I have done that for all my previous grape/fruit batches. I was specifically recommended by a local homebrew supply shop person, as well as numerous online recipes, to skip the open container and go straight to the carboy since honey has essentially no solids (not neglecting to aerate a few...

Nope. Which is why I'm thinking to just separately ferment this pint.