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Mead Lovers Digest #1499
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1499, 10 November 2010
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1499 10 November 2010
Mead Discussion Forum
Contents:
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1498, 7 November 2010 (Keith Conley)
Re: Introduction and question... (mail-box)
Re: Cherry Melomel, Introduction and question... (Chazzone)
amateur competitions in canada (Martin Pare)
RE: Introduction and question... (Tim Leber)
Introduction and question... (Dick Dunn)
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1498, 7 November 2010
From: Keith Conley <keith.conley@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 10:08:02 -0600
It is verry possible. I have 15 gallons of mead that I made using White Labs
WLP-099 High Gravity Ale Yeast. My vinometer's scale stops at 25%, but if it
has a line for 26%, that's where the reading stops every time.
I expect this mead to take a long while, 2 years minimum before it ages and
mellows some. Right now, I call it jet fuel. It's a very high octane brew!
Keith
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Introduction and question...
From: mail-box <mail-box@comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2010 12:12:02 -0500
On 11/7/2010 9:19 AM, mead-request@talisman.com wrote:
> Subject: Introduction and question...
> From: Eric Haddix<eric@ehrichweiss.com>
> Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 17:50:32 -0400
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm a n00b when it comes to brewing mead; I've done 4 batches now and
> all seem excellent thusfar; I've brewed beer though for about 2 years
> and have brewed wine on and off for the last 15-ish.
>
> Anyway, here's my question...
>
> My first batch was a sweet cherry melomel(12 lbs of honey for a 5 gallon
> batch) on which I used Wyeast 1084. 2 months go by and fermentation
> stopped cold. After waiting another month to see if it'd restart, I
> figured it must have attenuated so I mixed together another 6lbs of
> honey and some yeast nutrient/energizer, and then added a bit of oxygen
> to make sure it started. And it did NOTHING for another month. At that
> point I didn't want it to be THAT sweet so I figured that the poor
> yeasties took a bad hit and that they'd need a re-up and I'd just gotten
> this 20-23% alcohol yeast and wanted to give it a try just to see what
> it'd do. Well, it took off again and 10 days later petered out yet once
> again(the yeast instructions say this is about the length of a good brew
> for it). I let it sit another week and it did nothing so I measured the
> FG(1.008) and decided to stabilize it.
>
> Now comes the fun part. Today I used my spectrometer on the mead and it
> reads that I have 28% alcohol. How is that even possible? I assume that
> the additional honey/nutrient could have done all the work in addition
> to the yeast but 28%!?!?!?!
>
>
Hi Eric,
All of your questions are answered with the same advice. Use your
hydrometer more often. The hydrometer will tell you the OG, the FG, the
% alcohol, and a little algebra will allow you to calculate for
secondary honey additions as as well. 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. 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.
Cheers,
Ken
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Cherry Melomel, Introduction and question...
From: Chazzone <chazzone@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 14:06:59 -0500
Hello Eric,
A couple of things in response to your post/query.
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.
The proper term for mead is "making".
Now to your question of alcohol content. I did the math as best I
could, based on the limited information that you gave, and I see no
reason to expect that your reading is off by much.
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.
How is this possible you ask? Simple. alcohol tolerance is based on
several factors, and when it comes right down to it, yeast is gonna do
what it's gonna do.
BTW, in my experience, there is no substitute for the hydrometer,
whether making mead, wine or beer.
It gives you a real point of reference to know where things are, as
well as where they came from. Part of the procdess is linear, and as
such requires these coordinates to make any sense of where one is.
Best,
- -zz
------------------------------
Subject: amateur competitions in canada
From: Martin Pare <vitiqc@yahoo.ca>
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2010 15:49:21 -0800 (PST)
Hi,
are there competitions in canada beside those of the amateur winemakers
in which mead is grouped with country wines ?
otherwise the closest will be mead free or die, i guess
martin in Quebec
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Introduction and question...
From: Tim Leber <brewer@leberhall.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 21:27:22 -0800
snip
>
>Now comes the fun part. Today I used my spectrometer on the mead and it
>reads that I have 28% alcohol. How is that even possible? I assume that
>the additional honey/nutrient could have done all the work in addition
>to the yeast but 28%!?!?!?!
Are you using a spreadsheet to compensate the readings for the alcohol
content in the must? That could be your problem right there. Ethanol has a
different refractive index than water so it throws off the readings. You
can find these online with Google, you just need to put in the
pre-fermentation reading to have the calculations work correctly. That
being said, an alcohol content of 28% is pretty high, but within the range
of the super yeasts you reference if the conditions are 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%.
Tim Leber
- --
Illic est haud solvo prandium
------------------------------
Subject: Introduction and question...
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2010 11:50:11 -0700
Eric Haddix wrote:
> My first batch was a sweet cherry melomel(12 lbs of honey for a 5 gallon
> batch) on which I used Wyeast 1084. 2 months go by and fermentation
> stopped cold. After waiting another month to see if it'd restart, I
> figured it must have attenuated so I mixed together another 6lbs of
> honey and some yeast nutrient/energizer, and then added a bit of oxygen
> to make sure it started...
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?
So it fermented down to 1.008 (after some trials and tribulations, snipped)
and...
> Now comes the fun part. Today I used my spectrometer on the mead and it
> reads that I have 28% alcohol. How is that even possible? I assume that
> the additional honey/nutrient could have done all the work in addition
> to the yeast but 28%!?!?!?!
OK, we need to know what you -really- used for your measurement. It
wasn't a spectrometer. It might be a hydrometer--a long glass bulb in
a tall skinny jar that you fill with liquid and see how high it floats.
Or it might be a refractometer--a gadget where you put a drop of liquid
on a small glass plate, close a cover, and look through an eyepiece to
a calibrated scale. It might be a vinometer--a thin glass tube into
which liquid is drawn by capillary action, with a scale alongside. Or
it could be something else entirely.
Trouble is, the hydrometer won't help you figure alcohol unless you have
an initial reading. The refractometer doesn't give a direct reading on
a liquid containing both alcohol and sugar; you need an initial reading
plus some calculations to use the reading. The vinometer won't give
accurate readings when there's sugar present.
Could it be 28%? Simple answer is "no". You didn't say how much cherry or
cherry-juice you used, but even if you used just juice and honey (no water)
it wouldn't get you quite that high.
Give us some more details and we'll see what we can figure out.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #1499
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