As I have stated before, I started homebrewing with beer. I strictly brewed beer for over a year. I enjoyed the process, the multitude of ingredients, combination of ingredients, and how it was cheaper to brew a huge batch of quality beer for less than picking it up in the grocery store. I had many batches turn south for one reason or another, but from reading and testing, less batches had to be thrown out. There really is nothing worst than dumping 5 gallons of beer because of your mistakes. I started with extract brewing and moved up to partial mash brewing (grain heavy). The fact that I was a homebrewer first makes more sense as the store continues.

About a year into homebrewing, Ben mentioned the ease of making mead. A fan of literature, especially of Norse Mythology, I knew of the existence of mead, but never saw it in stores. Admittedly, I did not seek it out with gusto, but that it was a common drink of yesteryear, I knew. Ben purchased about  4 to 5 lbs of local honey, I had some ale strand of yeast lying around (I can’t even remember the exact strand), and there were those buckets. I don’t think we boiled the honey at all, but I can’t recall all the steps, as I was not taking careful notes of my procedures and ingredients at the time.

So, we mixed the ingredients together in one our the homebrewing 6 gallon buckets and let it sit for 2 weeks. . . Ellipses to signify the first major mistake. I know you are wondering why this is the first mistake. I was using an ale strand of yeast that I did not create a starter with to have an entire civilization of yeast active before pitching, and I did not have any nutrients or energizers when pitching the yeast. Therefore, it would take the yeast longer to become active, and the yeast would not finish processing all of the sugars into alcohol after 2 weeks. I believe the only reason that any of the sugar was processed is that the yeast was White Labs and had enough little guys to get the process moving, and the relative low amount of honey to process did not hurt. These are just conjectures, and I may be wrong.

Two weeks after first pitching the yeast, we bottle the mead. Being homebrewers, we decided that a little fizzle in our meadizzle was appropriate. I went there and I’m staying there. The same amount of corn sugar that we used to carbonate the beer was used to carbonate the mead . . . Here is where all the bad things converged and became an explosive, messy concoction. All my homebrewing beers (a.k.a. bottles and bottles of beer) was stored in the pantry of my apartment.

After about a week or two ( the exact time eludes me), my roommate at the time went into the pantry to retrieve some morsel of food, and the second he closed the door there was a muffled “pop” followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass and something hitting the pantry door from the inside. Carefully opening the pantry, a mead bottle had shattered. We quickly closed it and another bottle shattered. Over the course of the next few months (could have been longer), our pantry had became a game Russian Roulette with mead bottles when something was desired from the pantry. It did enhance horror movies. Also, there was a sweet, pungent, sticky smell that emitted from the pantry.

More explanations:

Carbonating a fermented beverage is done by allowing the residual yeast to create carbon dioxide in an air  tight container. When filling bottles of homebrewed beer, a space is left to give the gas some room, otherwise it will create enough tension to pop the top of bottles and sometimes explode, although this is rare. How did I unwittingly create Mead Bombs?

1. As stated, I didn’t let the yeast finish fermenting.

2. Adding the same amount of corn sugar for carbonation of mead.  So there was already a lot of sugar left from the honey from my quick fermenting process, and adding a lot more gave each bottle a lot of sugar to consume. This created an over abundance of carbon dioxide, which created over pressurized bottles and that lead to explosivo.

That was a fun trip down memory lane.

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Posted by admin on October 12th, 2009 :: Filed under homebrewing, meadmaking, yeast

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This article is a continuation of my journey in creating my cyser- Applenoon Delight. This is 2 of 2.

This article touches on yeast, contamination, and the start of fermentation. You can see my recipe for this mead at the bottom.

The title of the article has several implications. The first is to ensure that everyone knows I’m a huge geek, although I was a big Star Wars nerd growing up, I am not as much of a fanboy as I use to be, but I really enjoy that composition. Also, come on, that lightsaber fight was (insert high pitch nerd voice). The other implication is the somewhat frailty of must before it becomes mead. So really just two The yeast has not created ethanol, which kills most harmful bacteria and fungi. I will try to cover this a bit more later. Brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)/span is part of the Fungi kingdom, but it is “good” fungi because it converts sugars into ethanol (alcohol). Fungi and bacteria that are outside the normal use in fermenting sugars to alcohol are considered harmful because they will ruin a batch of mead. They can create off flavors and odors. I have had this happen to me before, when I became a bit lackadaisical about my sanitation methods. It is one of the most depressing moments to taste all of your hard work and spit it out, thus throwing away 5 gallons of homebrew. However, there are preparations and precautions that can occur to prevent any type of contamination. Cleaning and sanitizing your equipment is imperative, but having your cleaning solution linger in your homebrew will contaminate it. There is a boundary between sanitation and sanitation-contamination. However, sanitation is key if you do a no heat must. The other way of creating must is through a boil. I use a no heat method for personal beliefs, but there is nothing wrong with the boil method. I will cover no heat versus heating methods later (I’m building up a lot of topics for “later”).

So, I have created the must with 9 pounds of honey and 5 1/2 gallons of apple juice. My yeast culture had a day to grow in size and become active, they are warmed up for the big time. This is where I forgot to take my original gravity reading with the hydrometer. Remember the hydrometer lets you know the dissolved sugars in a solution, in our case must. I’m still kicking myself for this misstep. The original gravity and the terminal gravity (using the hydrometer) with a little formula can give you the mead’s alcohol by volume (ABV) percent. Also, the original gravity tells you if yeast will be able to handle the level of alcohol. I am rarely concerned about this as I generally use yeast with a high alcohol tolerance. Plus, I used a relatively low amount of honey. Overall, it is good record keeping, and if there is a problem with the mead it can provide some useful diagnostic clues.

Some quick information about the yeast I use. I have been using White Labs since I first started brewing. I have used Wyeast brand yeast once will good results and a dry yeast once with poor results. This is not to say that these other brand/types are poor, I just do not use them. As my lunchlady in high school would say after asking what I wanted to eat, “Go with what you know, baby. Go with what you know.” I still live by these words. The yeast for this batch is WLP775 English Cider Yeast, which has medium to high alcohol tolerance, and optimal fermentation temperatures is between 68-75 degrees F. This is really good in a hot state like Louisiana. I do not have a refrigerator anymore to control the temperature, and keep the must cool.

Before I put my yeast in the must, I added 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient and 2 teaspoons of yeast energizer. I poured out some of the solution of the yeast starter, ensuring that yeast does not accidentally fall out into the sink. Then I poured the yeast into the must. Oxidation is critical for the yeast. Some people purchase a oxygen injection kits, but I use the tried and true method of shaking the bucket or carboy around with the top open to get as much oxygen going through the must as possible- plus it is fun as long as none of it spills out. I capped the carboy and stored it in my room. The temperature gauge on the carboy is broken; therefore, I have no idea the temperature, but my apartment has been between 7o-75 degrees F. I do not like it getting close to the high end of the optimal temperatures, but I do not want my electric bill to be astronomical.

The cap on the carboy has a hole for the an airlock. The airlock allows for the release of carbon dioxide, and protecting the mead from containment agents. The airlock is filled with water or vodka. I usually use vodka, but I didn’t have any lying around. The second or tertiary fermentation periods I use water for two reasons. The second and tertiary periods are aging periods, thus longer time between periods when I need to do anything. Vodka evaporates at a higher rate than water, and after primary fermentation the must is a mead with a high amount of alcohol. It can take care of itself.

The airlock (which indicates that the process has started) started bubbling within 12 hours. I believe this to be good signs. It is still going strong.

Quick review of mistakes/things I normally do but didn’t:

1. Did not mix must well, and majority of honey is sitting at the bottom.

2. Forgot to take OG reading.

3. Didn’t use vodka in the airlock.

4. A trick to keeping the homebrew cooled, is to place bucket/carboy in a pan, filled it with cool water, and drape a towel over the container, while touching the water. This allows for the cooled towel to draw out some of the heat off the fermenter. You don’t want cold/icy water, as it may freeze the yeast and becoming dormant. Also, change towels because you don’t want mold to start growing on them.

Recipe for Applenoon Delight:

9 lbs of Orange Blossom Honey

5 gallons of apple juice

1 teaspoon yeast nutrientbr

2 teaspoons yeast energizer

White Labs English Cider yeast

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Posted by admin on July 22nd, 2009 :: Filed under Mead, fermentation, yeast

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