This is a continuation of the Applenoon Delight Saga.

So it has been some time since I have paid attention to this site. It is not for a lack of thinking about it, but life sometimes has a way of stealing time. If I see a little person, I oft look weary in their direction feeling that their thievery is why I do not complete as much as I do, bloody Time Bandits.

Anyway, enough of that completely unnecessary diatribe. The second batch of Applenoon Delight has been transferred to a secondary fermenter. Due to the fact that I have been out of town, the mead sat in the primary fermenter for a month. There was little to no activity from the bubble lock, letting me know that the yeast had converted all to most of the sugar into alcohol. Remember, the conversion process produces 2 chemicals, ethanol and carbon dioxide, and the airlock releases the carbon dioxide without letting any outside containment in the fermenter. Without opening the lid, and taking a reading with a hydrometer, the airlock is a good indicator when the fermentation process starts and stops.

I normally allow the mead to ferment initially for a month. The first Applenoon Delight only sat in the primary fermenter for 2 weeks. However, I believe letting it sit for about a month ensures that the sugars are all converted.br /br /The terminal gravity for this batch was 1.000. A little math for you. The hydrometer measures the specific gravity at 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.56 degrees Celsius). To calibrate your reading for the correct calculation, you add 1.001 for 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and from there add 1.002 to every ten degrees afterward, so at 80 degrees Fahrenheit you add 1.002 to your reading. My reading was taken at 73 degrees Fahrenheit; however, I am rounding my correct reading to 1.001 for easy of calculation of percent alcohol by volume (ABV). The formula for ABV is OG-TG X .1275. When calculating you use everything behind the decimal. So, my terminal gravity for the calculation is 1 and my original gravity is 128 (from 1.128). My calculation is (128-1)X.1275= 16.2 % ABV. That is a nice amount of alcohol.

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Posted by admin on August 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Applenoon Delight, Cyser, Mead

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This post is an update to the Applenoon Delight journey.

I have been away for awhile, although many things have been happening. There is another post that I am working on that was suppose to be finished prior to this post, but life happens. It will be forthcoming in the very near future. For now, Applenoon Delight has completed the hard part- it is a mead! It finished fermenting after 2 weeks. Sometimes I allow for the fermentation to occur a little longer, but I felt with the minimal “bubbles” from the airlock, and my busy schedule the time was right to allow the mead to age.

So the Applenoon Delight has been moved to the secondary fermenter. First, you can see that the honey at the bottom of the carboy has been “eaten” by the yeast. I was unsure are of what would occur since I did not mix the apple juice and honey together well.

I first cleaned out the carboy that is the secondary fermenter very well. I also cleaned the racking cane, tubing, funnel, spoon, rubber stopper, honey jug. You may be thinking, “Rob, why are you cleaning some much stuff to move the mead from one container to another.” Glad you asked, I am making another 6 gallons of Applenoon Delight with the same yeast. Reusing yeast is a way to save on cost, and since you are sanitizing might as well sanitize enough equipment to make more mead. The important pieces of equipment here are the racking cane and tubing.

The racking cane is a hard piece of plastic that you attach tubing to for easy transferring of mead from one place to another. In the past I have used an auto-siphoning starter, but over the years it was lost, stolen, destroyed, pooped on (one of these is true), so I have reverted back to using a regular racking cane. Some people just use tubing and curl it slightly to minimize transferring of sediment. I prefer the control of the racking cane. I slightly tilt the primary fermenter to have all the mead on one side was I siphon it out towards the end of the process.

You can see in this picture that I have placed the primary fermenter higher than the secondary. Gravity is your friend in this endeavor. Once the flow is started, gravity does the rest with ease. You do not want the flow to stop and start, creating air pockets and bubbles. Depending on the length of tubing you need to have it full stretched out, no “u” shapes in the tubing from primary to secondary. The tubing in the secondary fermenter needs to be placed at the very bottom or along the side of the carboy because you do not want to aerate the mead. It has finished fermenting, and some yeast will travel with it; remember yeast needs oxygen to help with the conversion process, so minimal aerating is a must. To start the siphoning I use the “sucking” process (I have no idea if they refer to this process as such, but overtly homosexual writing makes me giggle like a 10 year old boy). I suck on the end of the tubing to start the siphoning process. Here you can see me cleaning my mouth of bacterial, so as not to contaminate the mead.

In this picture I have taken a little and poured it into a glass. It had a very warm, alcoholic taste to it, but underneath I could taste the beginning of a very tasty Cyser. Part 2 will follow with the reuse of the yeast.

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Posted by admin on August 4th, 2009 :: Filed under Applenoon Delight, Cyser, Mead, meadmaking

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In my previous post, I have mentioned that I have not brewed anything in about 3 years. However, of everything that I have brewed, I am the most proud of this mead, which I named Applenoon Delight. It is a Cyser mead. By the way, I was watching Arrested Development, where a particular episode inspired the name of this mead. Anyway, let’s start off with the ingredients, and my beginning processes.

Ingredients:

Red Delicious Apples

Golden Apples

Fuji Apples

I only had enough apples to make 1 1/2 gallons of juice.

4 gallons of fresh pressed apple juice (store bought, but not made from concentrate)

9 pounds of Orange Blossom Honey

WLP 775 English Cider Yeast

Yeast Nutrients

Yeast Energizer

Light Dry Malt Extract (DME)

About 2 days before the main event, I create a starter yeast. I follow Ken Schramm’s directions on this. Boil 6 cups of water with 1/4 teaspoon yeast energizer and yeast nutrient, and 1 tablespoon of DME for 5 minutes. Afterward, I add about 1/2 cup of honey. I always use the same style of honey so the yeast can acclimate better to the process. Quick chemistry lesson: yeast converts glucose (a sugar) into carbon dixoide and ethanol (alcohol). Honey, unlike beer does not have enough nutrients for yeast to florish as well, so nutrients are a big part of meadcrafting.br /br /The yeast nutrient that I use contains food grade urea and ammonium phosphate. The yeast energizer contains diammonium phosphate (DAP), yeast hulls (Biotin), magnesium sulphate, and vitamin B comlex. I will discuss a little more on the nutrients later when I talk about the fermentation.

Before I began my process, everything is cleaned and sanitized. My girlfriend told me that she wished I cleaned everything as well as I do my brewing equipment. I responded that if everything provided such a delectable drink I would clean better. I think she won that argument. I clean with 5 Star PBW powder, and finish with iodine to sanitize. I’m pretty anal about this because I create a no heat must. A new word, cheers. Must is the concoction of honey and water before pitching the yeast and fermentation starts. In beer brewing this is referred to as the wort (pronounced wert).The yeast essentially eats the must to create mead. Who knew you would learn so much in one sitting? I’m sure you are retaining every piece of morsel-knowledge that I am providing.

I did not weigh the amount of apples I picked up. I knew I would not have enough to create the whole batch, but wanted some fresh pressed apples. You can see the number of apples I cut up at the top because I do not have an apple presser; rather, I used a juicer, which failed in the ability to “juice” a large number of apples. I tend to stay away from concentrate juice not because you can’t use them, but it is a preference on my part. The fresher the better. One day, I hope to have an apple presser and create 5 gallons of all fresh apple juice.

I did create 5 1/2 gallons of juice before I added the honey. I have 60 lbs of Orange Blossom Honey, which you can see next to the carboy. I went all glass when I was a strictly brewing beer.

The main reason is that my buckets were ruined during one of the hurricanes of 2005. However, I wish that I had a bucket on this day because I made a “whoops.” First, I used 9 lbs of honey, and poured it in through a cleaned/sanitized funnel. I do not create a hot must, which is where you heat water and add the honey to ensure to mix it together because I believe you cook away some of the honey flavor and aroma. Others believe that helping to rid of foreign or bad bacteria supersedes full integrity of the honey. I have never had a contaminated mead, so I’m sticking with anal retentive cleaning and no-heat must. Also, you have to cool down the mead, which has the possibility of becoming contaminated. Did I mention that the creation of the must and the first few days of fermentation are the most vulnerable? Well, now you know. Why is it the most vulnerable? The yeast has not created the alcohol yet to fight off bad bacteria.

Anyway, the reason that I wish I had a bucket is because of the picture below. I forgot that the reason buckets are good for no-heat must is because I can use a cleaned/sanitized spoon to stir the water (or in this case apple juice) together with the honey. I tried as best I could to mix it but found it too difficult. You can clearly see the majority of the honey sitting at the bottom. Another mistake was that I forgot to take a reading on the OG before adding the yeast with my hydrometer. OG stands for original gravity before yeast is added to the must. The hydrometer tells me how much sugar is dissolved in the solution. Needless to say, but I have a need to say it, my reading wouldn’t have been as accurate because of that bottom feeding of honey. This seems like a good place to stop for now. So we have our must ready for the roaring colony of yeast to take that sugar and make alcohol out of it.

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Posted by admin on July 21st, 2009 :: Filed under Cyser, Mead, homebrewing

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