Embarrassed to even ask about this one...

[Brewgrrrl]

Okay, I am usually a fairly consciencious wine-maker. However, I got really jammed up for time last fall and I sorely neglected a mead. I started to make the "mambo mead" recipe from "The Compleate Meadmaker" in October - I added all of the first round ingredients (about four gallons of fairly well concentrated honey water) to a fermentation bucket, left plenty of head space, threw in some yeastand sealedthe whole thingwith an airlock.

Then - well, life happened and Iended up ignoringthe whole batch until... last weekend.

The first step of this recipe uses a very concentrated amount of honey water. The next step (which should have happened late last October or early november) was to add fruit to the secondary. Well, I hadn't been able to find the fruit I'd wanted, so it all just sat around in that sealed bucket until last weekend when Iobtained a half-gallon of concentrated blackberry juice.


So last weekend I opened the bucket. It smelled powerfully of alcohol (but thankfully NOT of vinegar or any off-flavors). I did not taste it due to fear of becoming instantly intoxicated. Instead Iracked it all into a free carboy and topped it off with the concentrated blackberry juice and some water (making the full 5-gallons the original recipe was for). Because I used a vacuum asperator, the melomel was also degassed during this process... which I am now thinking might not have been the kindest thing to do to the yeast, considering that I was hoping for them to wake up and attack their newly added fruit juice.


So my question is... is there hope for this batch? There the overly concentrated plain mead was, aging quietly alone... and now I've stuffed it full of new fermentables. I am completely embarrassed about how long I neglected this project, but I am wondering if it might work out all right - or if anyone has suggestions on what might be needed to save the batch.


One last note: since racking it over, I have not noticed any significant bubbling activity, just a few tiny, tiny bubbles at the top that could be super-slow refermentation or just residual CO2 coming up from the vacuum racking.


????

 

[vcasey]

I don't think you'll have any problems with this one. It is not unusual for mead makers to leave the mead in a plastic primary for a year at a time. I know it's not what many consider ideal but mead is very forgiving and loves to just sit and age gracefully.

Did you take an SG reading when you racked and then another when you added all the new fermentables? You may want to get a starter going and itch that in the mead to help encourage it to start working.

 

[Cracked Cork]

If you are worried about your yeast just make a new starter and add it to the mead, something like EC1118 would take the alcohol you have now and keep fermenting. Crackedcork

 

[Brewgrrrl]

Thanks you guys! I actually started the batch with EC1118, but - no, I did not take an SG reading (argh). I think I'll just watch this one and then if nothing changes I'll try the yeast starter.

 

[Brewgrrrl]

P.S. Do you think it's all right that I degassed it when I racked it over?

 

[Wade E]

Luckily this is a mead in which honey is a good preservative all by itself and then when alc is added to that situation it holds even better. Did you want to ferment this further though as you stated it is already high in alc? What was the starting sg and sg befoe you added the stuff the other day and since you feel its already high on alc why didnt you add sulfite and sorbate before adding these ingredients and just let the fruit macerate in there to infuse its flavor?

 

[vcasey]

P.S. Do you think it's all right that I degassed it when I racked it over?

I think it will be fine, if it ferments more you may need to degass it further.

 

[Brewgrrrl]

Hey Wade - the alcohol was high because it was so concentrated. Sadly, I don't know how high because I didn't take an SG readings. I didn't add any K-meta because I was following a recipe I didn't want to stop the yeast from fermenting the new sugars in the fruit. I'm going to wait it out and see what happens. And VCasey - THANK YOU for the reassurances! WHEW!

 

[Cracked Cork]

Brewgirl, when you racked it over you didnt degass it very much, and remember that yeast even like oxygen when they get started. Also, the honey is no longer preserving anything because it has been diluted and eatten by the yeast. Even if you are following a recipie you need to take an SG, if this batch turns out to be the best you ever made how are you going to repeat it exactly and how are you going to know when its really done? Blackberry mead was a good choice, they are very very good. Crackedcork

 

[vcasey]

I hate to admit this, but when I am following any of Ken's recipes I very rarely take an SG reading for the purpose of duplicating the recipe. Only to make sure the yeasties are doing the job, that they are not stressed and that the mead is stable in the end.
Mead makers tend to be a make it and forget it bunch. Once they've added the staggered nutrients and the SG has dropped to a certain point they just snap on the lid, put it away and let time do its thing. You just can't underestimate the staying power of honey, fermented or not and you can't just think out of the box, you've got to throw away the box.
Brewgrrl, last years mead day mead sat in the primary for 4 months and while its still young and needs time for the alcohol to mellow (20% with no extra fortifying), I gotta say its really, really good.

 

[Brewgrrrl]

I am very aware that the honey has been turned into alcohol - the smell was amazingly potent when I took the lid off! WHEW! I am thankful that the nice CO2 layer produced during the fermentation preserved the mead without letting in O2.
As for SG readings, for Ken's "Mambo Mead" recipe, he actually says that taking an SG reading is pointless because you add so much fruit in the secondary. I was only following directions...

 

[Cracked Cork]

I am sorry, I didnt know I was being boxy using a hydrometer from beginning to the end. We like to make pure juice meads, no water added, just pure juice and honey, and our hydrometer works just fine at the start all the way through to the end Then we like to dump in some more honey to backsweeten and give it an overwhelming honey taste, and then stick it in a box for a year and see how it turns out. Crackedcork

 

[Brewgrrrl]

I need to use a hydrometer more, it's just that the point on those particular recipes was that (since the fruit gets added in the secondary) SG readings would only confirm continued fermentation. You wouldn't be able to estimate the alcohol content.

Your method for making melomels sounds delicious!

 

[Cracked Cork]

We have some 100% juice recipes posted on our boxy website, be prepared because all of our boxes got holes in them. Start with 4 gallons of juice, 1 gallon of good wildflower honey and off you go. A lot of people say you cant make mead like this, it should appeal to you guys, except if you dont use a hydrometer you cant feed it in stages to get the MOST alchohol possible without overwhelming the yeast with too much, and then you shock them to surrender backsweetening with even more honey. I just cant leave things things to chance, we have to help nature with some boxy rules to make something nobody else thought to put in a box. Crackedcork

 

[Brewgrrrl]

The ginger elderberry recipe looks really interesting - I wish I had bushes near me to harvest from (or some room to plan bushes). Your elderberryforest looks amazing too.


I don't think anyone thinks you're stuck in a box, Cracked Cork.

 

[Brewgrrrl]

BTW - I did add a yeast starter and extra yeast nutrient this morning just to give it a little help. We'll see what happens... (it does smell really great with the juice added to it though)

 

[gaudet]

I need to use a hydrometer more, it's just that the point on those particular recipes was that (since the fruit gets added in the secondary) SG readings would only confirm continued fermentation. You wouldn't be able to estimate the alcohol content.



Your method for making melomels sounds delicious!

Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but if you took a reading before you added the juice, then another one immediately after and subtracted the two. You could take that number and add it to your starting (OG) to give you a total of the fermentables. Then you could take your final gravity (when you either stabilized or were sure fermentation was complete) and get your ABV

Or am I complicating things?

 

[intoxicating]

The problem with checking SG right after adding fruit, is that most of the sugar comes out of the fruit a little at a time. If you add juice, you can measure before and after, but if you put in pieces of fruit, the sugar soaks out slowly, or maybe the yeasties go in after it.

 

[Brewgrrrl]

Yes, I am pretty sure that's why Ken's recipe (which used whole fruit in the secondary) stated that taking an SG reading was pointless. However, Gaudet is right in my case - because I substituted fruit juice I could have measured it.


UPDATE: No obvious activity after adding the yeast starter but it's so high in alcohol (based on the initial smell) that there may not be any more fermentation that can happen (or it may be happening very slowly). I am going to leave the whole thing alone for a few months, rack over/degas and then see where I'm at with it. I think that it is going to turn out all right though.

 

[gaudet]

If you can get the sugar content of the juice we can still estimate how much you added. Multiply the grams sugar times the number of servings. That will give you total grams of sugar added. Convert it to kilograms (divide by 1000) then convert to pounds (divide by 2.2)

When you get the answer to how many pounds, let me know the volume of your wine and I can see about how much gravity you added. I don't promise to be 100% accurate, but I can get you in the ballpark for when you take your final gravity.