Need some Advice on a Mead Experiment

[BTReese]

Now that I have my 3 Gallons of Elderberry wine bulk aging in the secondary. I am ready to turn to some mead. Thinking of using Ken Schramm's recipe for a medium show mead to make 3 or 5 gallons of mead and then racking it to 1 gallon glass jug with different fruits to get several different different melomels.
Recipe as follows:

 

[Wade E]

I dont see the recipe and whats the question?

 

[BTReese]

Well.....huh seems only part of my post went up. I will repost later when I can use the home pc. Typing on ones phone is a bit rough

 

[BTReese]

Now that I have my 3 Gallons of Elderberry wine bulk aging in the secondary. I am ready to turn to some mead. Thinking of using Ken Schramm's recipe for a medium show mead to make 3 or 5 gallons of mead and then racking it to 1 gallon glass jug with different fruits to get several different different melomels.
Recipe as follows:

12.5-14 pounds of honey
4 gallons of water or enough to make 5 gallons
2 tsp. yeast energizer
2 tsp. of yeast nutrient
and yeast starter
According to the recipe I should have a starting gravity of around 1.094-1.112. With the mead finishing around 1.010. I am confused as to what point I should transferr the base mead to my gallon jugs with the fruit. So if anyone could point me in the direction of a gravity reading or time frame, it would help. Also feel free to offer suggestions as to what fruit would make a good melomel to try out. Due to the season I will have to depend on frozen fruits from my local grocery. Just wanting to get a idea of what melomels I would like to persue larger batches of in the future. If I am going about this in the wrong way feel free to let me know that also would rather do this right the first time.

 

[mmadmikes1]

You will need to add acid blend or some source of acid to the above batch. Honey is neutral and yeast does like an acid environment. I use lemon juice and / or pineapple juice to lower PH. I shoot for 3.6 PH. If you dont you will wait forever for fermentation to start. Also do not figure be4cause SG is at 1.01 that the mead is finished fermenting. I would bet it goes lower.

 

[fatbloke]

12.5-14 pounds of honey
4 gallons of water or enough to make 5 gallons
2 tsp. yeast energizer
2 tsp. of yeast nutrient
and yeast starter
According to the recipe I should have a starting gravity of around 1.094-1.112. With the mead finishing around 1.010. I am confused as to what point I should transferr the base mead to my gallon jugs with the fruit. So if anyone could point me in the direction of a gravity reading or time frame, it would help. Also feel free to offer suggestions as to what fruit would make a good melomel to try out. Due to the season I will have to depend on frozen fruits from my local grocery. Just wanting to get a idea of what melomels I would like to persue larger batches of in the future. If I am going about this in the wrong way feel free to let me know that also would rather do this right the first time.

You haven't got a hope in hell of the ferment finishing at the 1010 level on it's own.

Most wine yeasts will ferment that dry without even blinking.

Yes, I'd guess that you would have a starting gravity of that sort of area but it might still be either side, and would probably depend on the % of water in the honey (there's a way of working that out, but whether it's practical for the home brewer, I don't know). I'm guessing that you'd have to mix the batch with the lower amount of honey and then test it, adding more honey if the numbers didn't come up to that range.

Then run the ferment to completion, sulphite/sorbate to stabilise, then back sweeten to 1010 (if you haven't already cleared it, I'd use honey to back sweeten). Then rack it onto the fruit, adding some pectic enzyme, which not only helps with pectin but also colour/flavour extraction.

You could equally, run the ferment until it gets to about 1010 and then rack it onto the fruit - again with pectic enzyme - then some of the fruit sugars would also be fermented - you'd probably still need to back sweeten it to the 1010 number though.

Depending on yeast selection and fermentation management, 1094 would (presuming that you take dry/finished as 1000) give about 12.77% ABV, whereas 1112 would (1000 being dry/finished) give 15.21% ABV. So allowing for those numbers and appropriate fermentation management, you might have some residual sugar if used a yeast like 71B, D47 etc etc but how much would depend on the end reading and how eager the yeast was to much through the sugars. Though I'd probably be thinking along the lines of D21 (Maury yeast - and reputed favourite of the late Brother Adam of Buckfast Abbey Bee breeding/mead making fame) or K1V-1116 (which is considered by many, to be the "swiss army knife" of yeasts).

The reason for not putting fruit into primary are that a lot of the flavours/aromas are just blown out the airlock during the early fermentation stage and the inclusion of the fruit into either secondary or tertiary (i.e. after the ferment has finished) is because you often get a mead that is ready for drinking earlier and requires less ageing.

So it's really up to you how you do this or what kind of styles/flavours you want......

If there's any recommendations in Kens book then it'd be fine to use those as a guide - he does know his stuff, or just read around the various forums to get an idea of what you might want to do/follow etc and work/ask questions from there......

dunno if that lot helps any

regards

fatbloke

 

[BTReese]

You will need to add acid blend or some source of acid to the above batch. Honey is neutral and yeast does like an acid environment. I use lemon juice and / or pineapple juice to lower PH. I shoot for 3.6 PH. If you dont you will wait forever for fermentation to start. Also do not figure be4cause SG is at 1.01 that the mead is finished fermenting. I would bet it goes lower.

Will keep my eye on that. Thanks Mike!

 

[BTReese]

Then run the ferment to completion, sulphite/sorbate to stabilise, then back sweeten to 1010 (if you haven't already cleared it, I'd use honey to back sweeten). Then rack it onto the fruit, adding some pectic enzyme, which not only helps with pectin but also colour/flavour extraction.

You could equally, run the ferment until it gets to about 1010 and then rack it onto the fruit - again with pectic enzyme - then some of the fruit sugars would also be fermented - you'd probably still need to back sweeten it to the 1010 number though. -Fatbloke

Thanks for your input also, for whatever reason I was under the impression that I had to rack onto the fruit during a active ferment to produce a melomel. I must be losing my mind! LOL! Now that I know it is good form to ferment to completion and sulphite/sorbate it, then rack to the fruit , and achieve melomel I am going this route. Thanks again for the info!

 

[fatbloke]

Then run the ferment to completion, sulphite/sorbate to stabilise, then back sweeten to 1010 (if you haven't already cleared it, I'd use honey to back sweeten). Then rack it onto the fruit, adding some pectic enzyme, which not only helps with pectin but also colour/flavour extraction.

You could equally, run the ferment until it gets to about 1010 and then rack it onto the fruit - again with pectic enzyme - then some of the fruit sugars would also be fermented - you'd probably still need to back sweeten it to the 1010 number though.

Thanks for your input also, for whatever reason I was under the impression that I had to rack onto the fruit during a active ferment to produce a melomel. I must be losing my mind! LOL! Now that I know it is good form to ferment to completion and sulphite/sorbate it, then rack to the fruit , and achieve melomel I am going this route. Thanks again for the info!

It's not a case of correctness etc, melomel is just a mead made with fruit - hell a cyser is a melomel as well, though to be cyser it's mead made with apples specifically.....

So it doesn't really matter how you make it.

It's just that fruit in primary can often lose a lot of the fruit flavour, which is why a lot of us mead types will put it in secondary or tertiary. As the whole point of a melomel IMO, is that it should taste of the fruit, with possibly some after notes of the honey (though that would also be why you might make it as a dry mead, then steep the fruit, then back sweeten with honey).

There's many techniques for achieving the desired flavours - there's no wrong or right, just different.......

regards

fatbloke

 

[mmadmikes1]

I do add fruit to primary and like how it finishes. Like Fatbolk says we all do things different.