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Mead Lovers Digest #1501
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1501, 23 November 2010
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1501 23 November 2010
Mead Discussion Forum
Contents:
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1499, 10 November 2010 (Eric Haddix)
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Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1499, 10 November 2010
From: Eric Haddix <eric@ehrichweiss.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:52:21 -0500
(replies to several responses)
> All of your questions are answered with the same advice. Use your
> hydrometer more often.
I did and forgot to write my readings down; this happens a lot since I'm
often interrupted when brewing.
> It will also answer questions you
> might have about what is going on with your mead. So instead of
> "waiting another month to see if it'd restart" and "figuring that it
> attenuated", you take a gravity reading and then you know if there are
> any remaining sugars for the yeast to work on.
It would not, however, have answered my questions after I added the
extra honey/nutrient/oxygen and the yeast didn't restart as I would have
expected, would it.
> I see that you took a
> gravity reading at the end, I just don't understand why you didn't use
> that tool to help you understand the progress of your mead rather than
> working off of guesses and adding this or that based upon that guesswork.
Again, I get interrupted a LOT...I tend to remember the readings I get
in a general sense and then simply look for a visual change on the
hydrometer.
> First, welcome to madness.
>
> Just to help you with the terminology, mead is not "brewed". Brewing
> is an extraction process, and although there are types of mead that
> can use extraction, the cherry melomel you described, and indeed most
> meads do not use such a process.
Actually, that's not entirely correct...
"Brewing specifically refers to the process of steeping, such as with
making tea, sake and soy sauce. Wine and cider technically aren't
brewed, rather vinted, as the entire fruit is pressed, and then the
liquid extracted. Mead isn't technically brewed, as the honey is used
entirely, as opposed to being steeped in water."
....but I do see "making" used in titles of books so maybe it is more
appropriate.
> It would help to have the initial hydrometer reading (you did take
> such a reading?), but my rough calculations gave an initial gravity of
> 4 gallons of water and a gallon and a half of honey to be in the
> neighborhood of 1.26. A final gravity of 1.008 should yeild an
> alcohol content in the 26% range, the additional sugar from the cherry
> juice making up the difference.
That's about right. I don't remember the initial reading but it seems
about right.
> I suspect the actual situation is that the super yeast got up around 22-23%
> and the error you are not accounting for in the calculation too you the rest
> of the way to 28%.
This is possible..That's why I was questioning.
> Just to be sure we've got the numbers right, you've now got a 5.5 gallon
> (roughly) batch? I'm figuring at the nominal 12 lb per gallon of honey,
> so you started with 4 gal liquid and 1 gal honey, then later added another
> half-gallon of honey. How much cherry, and was it fruit or juice?
5 gallon *total*. Around 1 gallon honey(12 lbs), a quart of sweet cherry
puree and filled to around 4.5 gallons(at the time I was afraid I might
get overflow like I get from my beer). Racked it and added honey, which
brought it to almost exactly 5 gallons.
> OK, we need to know what you -really- used for your measurement.
Yeah, it was a refractometer..couldn't think of the name for the life of
me the day I wrote that.
> I also use an ebulliometer for final alcohol measurement as well a lab
> distillation setup for much more accurate determination.
Wow, those are expensive, even the one I could find on ebay was
$1500...but they're something to consider at least.
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #1501
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