I see that I have some viewers from the Ukraine. What ever side of the "issues" you are on, I am sorry you guys have to go through this. I'm not going to condem or condone any of the issues, nor the foreign involvement (on both sides), but I will say that it is sad that a people have to go through such difficult problems in "modern" times. So, whatever side your on, know that people will always try to do what they feel is right, and they should not be blamed for this, but communication is not something to be taken lightly, and it can solve a lot of problems sometimes.
Feel free to yell at me and say what you want, but I just wanted to say that it sucks, that's all.
20 May 2014
08 May 2014
Sourcing honey
Honey is the most important ingredient in mead (duh!), and using quality honey is the first step to making quality mead. But how do we get it? Where can I find it? And what is it?
Let's start with what quality honey is. I'm going to say that unheated, minimally filtered, fresh honey is the best; we'll call this "raw" honey. Having said that, not all "raw" honey sold meets this definition: many products labelled as such have been heated and filtered beyond what I would prefer. It is very important to get to know your beekeepers for this reason, but I'll get to that in a bit. You should also be aware that not all honey that matches my definition tastes good, some types of honey, from certain vintages or floral sources, just tastes downright bad. Some honeys taste great, but make bad mead. And some honeys taste terrible and make great mead. Some need to be blended with other types and end up being very interesting, or they can ruin a batch. This is all part of the risk in using exotic honeys, or trying new honeys that you haven't had before; and there is very little advice anyone can give for many of these as they may work great sometimes and turn out bad other times, it's a matter of personal taste.
Where to find honey
Start local; it will be fresh and you may know exactly where it came from. It also give you a sense of "terrior" in your mead making (sorry to use the controversial wine term, but it's the best way to get the idea across). I will also say that small does not always mean better; a large honey producer who cares about his product is better than the small "honey guy" who has no concept of quality.
Your first stop should be any of the several homebrew/meadmaking/winemaking forums. Post something saying where you are and try finding mead makers in your area. You can also try your local homebrew shop; ask if anyone makes mead in the area, they might also have local honey and a quick conversation with the owner may get you somewhere.
Next stop is the USDA honey board locator. While it will not list all the producers in your area, you are bound to find some. They usually list some form of contact information (website, email, phone, etc.) that you can use to contact the producer. The site also lets you see what the common honeys produced in your state are.
Local farmers market are your friends when it comes to finding local producers. Any good farmers market should have a honey booth (or several), and if it doesn't try another one. Try as many as you can drive to, and try them several times a year as some honey producers don't show up year round. When you do find a honey booth, try every sample they'll let you have, if you have to give the guy 5 bucks/quid/euro/whatever do it.
The next thing to try is a local Whole Foods, health food store, or other hippie store (no offense, again best word for the job). Go to their honey section (usually near maple syrup) and look for any products labelled as local, or start looking at the containers to find the producers address and try to find one that's near your area. Buy some honey from the producers you find and start tasting it; if it's good, try to contact the producer. If you don't have a hippie store in your area, move (seriously, it's probably a bad indication no matter what you views are). Local supermarkets (the publix/target type, not Walmart) sometimes carry local honey as well, try to find some and contact the producers.
After this, if you can't find anything local your in a tough spot. You can try contacting your local university extension office and see if they have any registry of apiarists, or a local club. Even a hobby beekeeper can produce a decent surplus that you can buy or trade some mead for. Don't be afraid to stop at roadside honey venders either, they usually have their own hives or buy from someone local.
Honestly, if you can't find a local beekeeper your either not looking hard enough, or your in a place that humans should not live. However, there are a number of alternatives.
Many large scale apiarists have websites and commonly ship honey cross-county. Beefolks has high quality honey at a good price and can ship you many different varieties. Dutch gold, while limited in offerings and processing their honey a little too much for my preference, is another such company.
The last resort should be generic store honey. Costco's, BJ's and Sams club all have large containers of honey. I find Costco's to be the best of the three, but all are cheaper than regular supermarket honey.
Befriend your beekeeper(s)
While not necessary, it is a very good idea to get to know your beekeeper. He'll let you know what crops aren't good in a certain year, and can point you toward some interesting rare honeys he might get. After you've tasted his honey selection and deemed it worthy, bring a bottle of mead and offer it to him, if he refuses for reasons other than religious or philosophical, check to make sure he's not a Dalek, cyberman, or other "bad guy". Often times a reduction in price can come with buying a certain volume or bartering with mead, and a good level of trust in the person supplying your most precious ingredients is not something to shy away from.
Diversify
The best strategy for any investment portfolio, and trust me, mead making is an investment, is to diversify your sources. I get most of my honey from two local sources, one in central Florida (Webbs honey) and one in south Florida (Smak attack, or something like that) by me. The first is a larger producer who can sell by the barrel, and I get great consistency from him. The latter is very small and gets certain rare honeys that are hard to come by. There is a price difference, but there's also a difference in hive locations which allows for more complex meads via blending (either within varietal boundaries or not). I have also bought from larger online producers, and roadside vendors, and even used generic bulk honey for some melomels (though I tend not to anymore). The more options you have, the more creative you can be, and the better bargain you can get. I think the strategy of "infinite diversity, in infinite combinations" is a very good one to adopt when it comes to honey varieties and mead making (is my geek showing?).
Let's start with what quality honey is. I'm going to say that unheated, minimally filtered, fresh honey is the best; we'll call this "raw" honey. Having said that, not all "raw" honey sold meets this definition: many products labelled as such have been heated and filtered beyond what I would prefer. It is very important to get to know your beekeepers for this reason, but I'll get to that in a bit. You should also be aware that not all honey that matches my definition tastes good, some types of honey, from certain vintages or floral sources, just tastes downright bad. Some honeys taste great, but make bad mead. And some honeys taste terrible and make great mead. Some need to be blended with other types and end up being very interesting, or they can ruin a batch. This is all part of the risk in using exotic honeys, or trying new honeys that you haven't had before; and there is very little advice anyone can give for many of these as they may work great sometimes and turn out bad other times, it's a matter of personal taste.
Where to find honey
Start local; it will be fresh and you may know exactly where it came from. It also give you a sense of "terrior" in your mead making (sorry to use the controversial wine term, but it's the best way to get the idea across). I will also say that small does not always mean better; a large honey producer who cares about his product is better than the small "honey guy" who has no concept of quality.
Your first stop should be any of the several homebrew/meadmaking/winemaking forums. Post something saying where you are and try finding mead makers in your area. You can also try your local homebrew shop; ask if anyone makes mead in the area, they might also have local honey and a quick conversation with the owner may get you somewhere.
Next stop is the USDA honey board locator. While it will not list all the producers in your area, you are bound to find some. They usually list some form of contact information (website, email, phone, etc.) that you can use to contact the producer. The site also lets you see what the common honeys produced in your state are.
Local farmers market are your friends when it comes to finding local producers. Any good farmers market should have a honey booth (or several), and if it doesn't try another one. Try as many as you can drive to, and try them several times a year as some honey producers don't show up year round. When you do find a honey booth, try every sample they'll let you have, if you have to give the guy 5 bucks/quid/euro/whatever do it.
The next thing to try is a local Whole Foods, health food store, or other hippie store (no offense, again best word for the job). Go to their honey section (usually near maple syrup) and look for any products labelled as local, or start looking at the containers to find the producers address and try to find one that's near your area. Buy some honey from the producers you find and start tasting it; if it's good, try to contact the producer. If you don't have a hippie store in your area, move (seriously, it's probably a bad indication no matter what you views are). Local supermarkets (the publix/target type, not Walmart) sometimes carry local honey as well, try to find some and contact the producers.
After this, if you can't find anything local your in a tough spot. You can try contacting your local university extension office and see if they have any registry of apiarists, or a local club. Even a hobby beekeeper can produce a decent surplus that you can buy or trade some mead for. Don't be afraid to stop at roadside honey venders either, they usually have their own hives or buy from someone local.
Honestly, if you can't find a local beekeeper your either not looking hard enough, or your in a place that humans should not live. However, there are a number of alternatives.
Many large scale apiarists have websites and commonly ship honey cross-county. Beefolks has high quality honey at a good price and can ship you many different varieties. Dutch gold, while limited in offerings and processing their honey a little too much for my preference, is another such company.
The last resort should be generic store honey. Costco's, BJ's and Sams club all have large containers of honey. I find Costco's to be the best of the three, but all are cheaper than regular supermarket honey.
Befriend your beekeeper(s)
While not necessary, it is a very good idea to get to know your beekeeper. He'll let you know what crops aren't good in a certain year, and can point you toward some interesting rare honeys he might get. After you've tasted his honey selection and deemed it worthy, bring a bottle of mead and offer it to him, if he refuses for reasons other than religious or philosophical, check to make sure he's not a Dalek, cyberman, or other "bad guy". Often times a reduction in price can come with buying a certain volume or bartering with mead, and a good level of trust in the person supplying your most precious ingredients is not something to shy away from.
Diversify
The best strategy for any investment portfolio, and trust me, mead making is an investment, is to diversify your sources. I get most of my honey from two local sources, one in central Florida (Webbs honey) and one in south Florida (Smak attack, or something like that) by me. The first is a larger producer who can sell by the barrel, and I get great consistency from him. The latter is very small and gets certain rare honeys that are hard to come by. There is a price difference, but there's also a difference in hive locations which allows for more complex meads via blending (either within varietal boundaries or not). I have also bought from larger online producers, and roadside vendors, and even used generic bulk honey for some melomels (though I tend not to anymore). The more options you have, the more creative you can be, and the better bargain you can get. I think the strategy of "infinite diversity, in infinite combinations" is a very good one to adopt when it comes to honey varieties and mead making (is my geek showing?).
01 May 2014
Sugar breaks and SNA timing
This is mainly about calculating when to add nutrients during SNA (Staggered Nutrient Additions), not the benefits of specific dosages, or dosage regimes; that's for another post.
So what the hell is a sugar break? Think of it as a mile marker, that's all it really is, there's no physiochemical change in yeast performance (there are changes, but that just clouds the water of our clear atoll here), or important kinetic changes inherent at these events (though some appear as a byproduct of choices made regarding treatment at certain mile markers).
Let's talk wine for a minute to get a picture.The average grape wine (traditionally) starts around 23*Bx (SG ~1.097), and it will probably finish close to -1*Bx (SG 0.996). So a total consumption of about 24*Bx or 101 gravity points worth of sugar will have been consumed:
(this is the historical format for SG which is 1000 times our standard fractional SG form of 1.XXX)
So, when is fermentation half done? Half of 24 is 12, so when the yeast have eaten 12*Bx of sugar, they are half done (ie, 23 - 12 = 11; 11*Bx is the halfway mark). The same calculations work with gravity points (1,097.0 - 50.5 = 1,046.5).So, when you here wine people talk about the 1/3 sugar break, you can calculate it like this:
FG: -1*Bx FG: 996.0
23 - (-1) = 24 1097 - 996 = 101
24 * 1/3 = 8 101 * 1/3 = 33
23 - 8 = 15 1097 - 33.7 = 1063
1/3 sugar break = 15*Bx 1/3 sugar break = 1.063
That's all well in good for wine world where you know both your initial and terminal gravities, but we don't always know our FG in mead land. What if I have a mead with an OG of 1.130? It probably won't finish at 0.99X, it will probably be sweeter. That's where yeast tolerance comes into play. Let's take D47 as an example:
D47 tends to chew through about 100 +/-4 gravity points (~23.8*Bx)
That's all well in good for wine world where you know both your initial and terminal gravities, but we don't always know our FG in mead land. What if I have a mead with an OG of 1.130? It probably won't finish at 0.99X, it will probably be sweeter. That's where yeast tolerance comes into play. Let's take D47 as an example:
D47 tends to chew through about 100 +/-4 gravity points (~23.8*Bx)
D47: 23.8*Bx D47: 100 points
30.2 - 23.8 = 6.4 1130.0 - 100 = 1030.0
FG ~ 6.4*Bx FG ~ 1.030
30.2 - 6.4 = 23.8 1130.0 - 1030.0 = 100
23.8 * 1/3 = 7.9 100 * 1/3 = 33
30.2 - 7.9 = 22.3 1130.0 - 33 = 1097.0
1/3 sugar break = 22.3*Bx 1/3 sugar break = 1.097
When calculating the 1/3 sugar break for meads, it is necessary to estimate the FG based on the yeasts alcohol tolerance or average amount of sugar consumed (as gravity points or *Brix).
When to feed? That depends on your SNA schedule, but generally there will be at least 2 feedings (one at onset of fermentation, and 1/3 sugar depletion). Some may have many more, but the trick is to spread them out evenly (or close to even) over the first third of fermentation. Let's see some options for a must with an initial gravity of 26*Bx (SG 1.110), assuming a terminal gravity of -1*Bx (SG 0.996):
OG: 26*Bx OG 1110.0
FG: -1*Bx FG 996.0
26 - (-1) = 27 1110 - 996 = 114
27 * 1/3 = 9 114 * 1/3 = 38
26 - 9 = 17 1110 - 38 = 1072
1/3 break = 17*Bx 1/3 break = 1.072
When calculating the 1/3 sugar break for meads, it is necessary to estimate the FG based on the yeasts alcohol tolerance or average amount of sugar consumed (as gravity points or *Brix).
Here are more possibilities:
Just follow the same color.
Red = 10 feedings (1/27th breaks)
Blue = 7 feedings (1/18th breaks)
Green = 5 feedings (1/12th breaks)
Yellow = 4 feedings (1/9th breaks)
White = 3 feedings (1/6th breaks)
So what the hell is a sugar break? Think of it as a mile marker, that's all it really is, there's no physiochemical change in yeast performance (there are changes, but that just clouds the water of our clear atoll here), or important kinetic changes inherent at these events (though some appear as a byproduct of choices made regarding treatment at certain mile markers).
Let's talk wine for a minute to get a picture.The average grape wine (traditionally) starts around 23*Bx (SG ~1.097), and it will probably finish close to -1*Bx (SG 0.996). So a total consumption of about 24*Bx or 101 gravity points worth of sugar will have been consumed:
(this is the historical format for SG which is 1000 times our standard fractional SG form of 1.XXX)
So, when is fermentation half done? Half of 24 is 12, so when the yeast have eaten 12*Bx of sugar, they are half done (ie, 23 - 12 = 11; 11*Bx is the halfway mark). The same calculations work with gravity points (1,097.0 - 50.5 = 1,046.5).So, when you here wine people talk about the 1/3 sugar break, you can calculate it like this:
FG: -1*Bx FG: 996.0
23 - (-1) = 24 1097 - 996 = 101
24 * 1/3 = 8 101 * 1/3 = 33
23 - 8 = 15 1097 - 33.7 = 1063
1/3 sugar break = 15*Bx 1/3 sugar break = 1.063
That's all well in good for wine world where you know both your initial and terminal gravities, but we don't always know our FG in mead land. What if I have a mead with an OG of 1.130? It probably won't finish at 0.99X, it will probably be sweeter. That's where yeast tolerance comes into play. Let's take D47 as an example:
D47 tends to chew through about 100 +/-4 gravity points (~23.8*Bx)
That's all well in good for wine world where you know both your initial and terminal gravities, but we don't always know our FG in mead land. What if I have a mead with an OG of 1.130? It probably won't finish at 0.99X, it will probably be sweeter. That's where yeast tolerance comes into play. Let's take D47 as an example:
D47 tends to chew through about 100 +/-4 gravity points (~23.8*Bx)
D47: 23.8*Bx D47: 100 points
30.2 - 23.8 = 6.4 1130.0 - 100 = 1030.0
FG ~ 6.4*Bx FG ~ 1.030
30.2 - 6.4 = 23.8 1130.0 - 1030.0 = 100
23.8 * 1/3 = 7.9 100 * 1/3 = 33
30.2 - 7.9 = 22.3 1130.0 - 33 = 1097.0
1/3 sugar break = 22.3*Bx 1/3 sugar break = 1.097
When calculating the 1/3 sugar break for meads, it is necessary to estimate the FG based on the yeasts alcohol tolerance or average amount of sugar consumed (as gravity points or *Brix).
When to feed? That depends on your SNA schedule, but generally there will be at least 2 feedings (one at onset of fermentation, and 1/3 sugar depletion). Some may have many more, but the trick is to spread them out evenly (or close to even) over the first third of fermentation. Let's see some options for a must with an initial gravity of 26*Bx (SG 1.110), assuming a terminal gravity of -1*Bx (SG 0.996):
OG: 26*Bx OG 1110.0
FG: -1*Bx FG 996.0
26 - (-1) = 27 1110 - 996 = 114
27 * 1/3 = 9 114 * 1/3 = 38
26 - 9 = 17 1110 - 38 = 1072
1/3 break = 17*Bx 1/3 break = 1.072
When calculating the 1/3 sugar break for meads, it is necessary to estimate the FG based on the yeasts alcohol tolerance or average amount of sugar consumed (as gravity points or *Brix).
Here are more possibilities:
Just follow the same color.
Red = 10 feedings (1/27th breaks)
Blue = 7 feedings (1/18th breaks)
Green = 5 feedings (1/12th breaks)
Yellow = 4 feedings (1/9th breaks)
White = 3 feedings (1/6th breaks)
22 April 2014
What do you want from an experiment?
Please, I beg that the few of you reading this post a comment so I can make up my own mind. (Who could be expected to do that on their own?!)
The next experiment I'd like to do is to test pitching rates on a standard gravity (23*Bx, SG 1.097) mead; a duplication of an experiment from a scientific journal. My problem? What would you care about: many gravity and pH readings to see how the different pitching rates effect kinetics (ie. high sample rate of 4-8 hrs between samples), or modest sample rate (~12hrs between samples)? Obviously the former is better, however, I work; I'm a real person! (Sometimes?)
Basically, if people are OK with a low sample rate (inconclusive fermentation kinetics data), then I can start soon; if people would prefer accurate kinetics data I would have to wait for several weeks, possibly months. It's your choice, wait (even longer), or deal with only moderate understanding of how pitching rate effects fermentation kinetics.
If no one feels like commenting, then don't complain! (Not that you'll post your complaints, but I'll still here you!!!)
18 April 2014
Yeast Rehydration
Why?
Choosing a yeast strain is vital to the final quality of mead (and beer, wine, sake, even spirits), as is the care that is taken to nurture them. For the purposes of mead (and wine, because we are mostly using wine yeast strains), we will most often encounter dried yeast as they are more numerous in selection, cheaper, and there is no damage caused by the drying process (beer yeast, especially lager yeast, are rather difficult to cultivate in a medium that permits drying, and can often have mutations result from the process; though techniques have improved drastically over the last few decades). The funny thing about the drying process is that it is not all that harmful to yeast, but the 'waking' is turbulent and rather tiresome for our little helpers. We are basically starting from very weak little creature who are just waking up and we want them to run a marathon; granted it's in their genetics, but without proper conditioning they may pass out at 26 miles instead of the 26.3 they were supposed to run.
They yeast companies have done a good job feeding the yeast many things that they will need to actually get out of dormancy (high oxygen, nutrient dense, and low osmotic pressure media give them the reserves they need for the trauma about to occur), but once awake, they have to deal with their environment which can be rather harsh (lack of nutrients, and relatively high osmotic pressure), and they may give up. The number of yeast cells that die upon 'sprinkling' (the common technique of just opening the pack and adding the yeast to the must/wort) ranges a considerable gamut with some sources saying as low as 20%, and some claiming almost 2/3! I tend to think the mode number of 50% is most accurate, but even if it were only 20%, that's a lot of helpers you are killing off. The cells that do survive and work are not in very good shape either: having depleted their energy reserves (glycogen and trehalose usually) they have to spend a considerable amount of time and further energy to rebuild these levels in order to get to the point where they can actually start working.
In an environment like mead, where there is always a shortage of yeast assimilable nitrogen, lack of micronutrients, low pH buffering capacity, high osmotic pressure (usually very high compared to other fermentations), why would we want to use yeast that were even the slightest bit unhealthy? Why risk a stuck, stinky, or non existent ferment? "That's never happened to me and I don't rehydrate.", me either, but at least I've got money on the high half, first third and a zero while your all on 31! (sorry, roulette/james bond reference)
Pitching Rates
A quick note on pitching rates is in order here. Pitching rate is measured as CFU/mL (colony forming units per milliliter), but can be approximated using g dried yeast / L of must; assuming 20,000,000,000 (2*10^10)CFU/g dried yeast, we can estimate the resulting pitching rate of X grams of dried yeast added to a liquid whose total volume is Y. Great, how much do I pitch? 0.005-0.5g/L is a good range, that's 10^5-10^7 CFU/mL. More specific? Almost all manufacturers recommend 0.25g/L (~1g/gal), winemaking textbooks say 0.1-1% by volume (which is ~10^5-10^6 CFU/mL), researches have found that 0.5g/L works best for high brix musts, and brewers pitch anywhere between 6*10^6 - 2*10^7 CFU/mL! The best 'rule' to follow is
<24*Bx (SG 1.101) gets either 0.25g/L or 1g/gal, whichever measurement you prefer;
25-28*Bx (SG 1.106-1.120) gets 0.3g/L or 1.2g/gal
>28*Bx (SG 1.120+) gets 0.5g/L or 2g/gal.
That is not to say that many people don't cross these boundaries and make unsatisfactory meads, many people do for many reasons, it's just a guideline. Also, there has been research that suggests lower pitching rates enhance the flavors of mead, but I would stick to these guidelines for now (sometime soon I will be starting a pitching rate experiment focusing on the lower end of the spectrum).
Basic Procedure
1g yeast strain of choice
1.25g Go-Ferm Protect (or what ever their (lallemand's) newest one is, I think evolution)
25g water
-multiply all numbers by your chosen amount of yeast (pitching rate * volume)
- Boil the water for a few minutes (pasteurization), I would recommend boiling more than needed and weighing afterwards
- Put into a thoroughly sanitized flask (Erlenmeyers work the best), if you can autoclave it (truly sterile), I would
- Wait until the temp is down to ~110F
- Add Go-Ferm 'whatever' and swirl (this is why erlenmeyers are best)
- Wait for the temp to drop to 104F
- Add yeast, swirl gently to break-up clumps
- Wait 15-30min, don't exceed 30min or the yeast will start to starve
Notes
There are actually a range of temperatures that work best for rehydration, from 95-105F, and it depends on the specific yeast strain, but most seem to prefer the upper range with a mode of around 104-105F (40C).
You'll note that the amount of water is by weight not volume, why? 50mL of water at 110F weighs less than 50mL of water at 40F (about 454mg less); if you measured the volume after boiling (while hot) you won't use enough water, and if you measure before boiling you wont be able to account for evaporation. Therefore, weight is the way to go for precision.
As to the type of water, clean, potable water with no chlorine or chloramines is recommended. The Go-Ferm will not replace minerals found in water, therefore, the water must have a certain amount present for healthy rehydration. The hardness is a vital factor for yeast health with best results being achieved between 250-500ppm hardness.
This entire process is basically proofing the yeast and allowing their cell membranes to form properly, it does not acclimate them to the must, nor add any special property to they yeast, however, it does not damage the yeast as would happen by the 'sprinkling' method.
Add-Ons
These are extra steps that can/should be added to the basic procedure when the circumstances dictate.
Temperature
The best 'add-on' is an acclimation phase for temperature. Simply put, take your slurry and add some must to it so that the yeast aren't shocked too much by the temperature. More technical you say? For every 18F (10C) difference between your must and starter, add an amount of must equal to the original starter size to the flask.
So, I have 6gal of mead must and want to pitch 8g D47.
I rehydrated with 10g Go-Ferm in 200g of water. I now have a starter/slurry of about 200mL (give or take), that is at 84F, and my must is at 66F.
I need to take 200mL of must and slowly add it (over a few minutes) to my slurry and wait 15-30min.
If the slurry was at 92F and my must at 56F, I would need to make 2 x 200mL additions to my starter.
This process works to slowly acclimate the yeast to the temperature, gravity and pH of the must. Because it works for gravity and pH also, it is usually recommended to do this even if the temperature is within the 18F tolerance.
Very High Bix Musts
For very high brix musts (>35*Bx, SG 1.154), there are more delicate steps that should be taken to avoid osmotic shock that can happen even if utilizing the routine above. The method I describe here was put forth by Kantkanen et al. fot the production of ice wines. They tested several procedures across 2 pitching rates (4*10^6 and 10^7 CFU/mL): acclimated rehydration vs simple rehydration, and utilization of Go-Ferm vs none in the rehydration step. The starting gravity of the must was 37*Bx (SG 1.164), and the results showed that only those fermentation pitched at 0.5g/L (10^7 CFU/mL) were able to reach 10%abv, and that utilizing the following process with a lower pitching rate did not achieve desirable results; starters that underwent acclimation showed an increase in consumed sugar compared to non acclimated starters.
Interestingly, while the use of Go-Ferm decreased fermentation time and acetic acid production, it also decreased the amount of ethanol produced as a function of sugar consumed (ie. sugar was consumed quicker than the non Go-Ferm batches, but it's utilization for ethanol production was relatively lower).
Here's what you do using a 25mL slurry as made above (just multiply the volumes for larger amounts)
- Take sample of must and dilute with sanitized water to 20*Bx (SG 1.083)
- After initial 15-30min wait (above), add 25mL of dilute must to starter (the result should be a 50mL starter at 10*Bx)
- Place flask in water bath at 77F (25C), for 1hr swirled every 30min
- Take a second must sample and dilute it with sanitized water to 30*Bx (SG 1.129)
- After 1hr wait add 50mL of the second dilute must sample; resulting in a 100mL starter at 20*Bx
- Place flask in water bath at 68F (20C) for 2hrs, swirl every 30min
Be warned, this works really well and creates super tolerant yeast that can pass their alcohol tolerance by a few percentage points (actual abv accounting for shift in composite density). Technically this process results in a solution that is equal to
25g dried yeast / L of water,
meaning that you would need to pitch 20mL starter / L of must to equal the 10^7 CFU/mL (0.5g/L dried yeast) recommended.
If you want to ferment something higher than 40*Bx (SG 1.179), I would high suggest step-feeding (adding honey in multiple increments during fermentation). However, if trying a polish style mead, or some other absurdly high gravity style, and you do not want to step-feed, I might suggest trying this method with an additional step of adding another equal amount (100mL in our example) of must to the starter for ~3hrs with swirling at 30min intervals (or stirplate the whole time!). Note that each addition has made a 10*Bx jump; in keeping with this the gravity of several additions can be estimated:
20*Bx addition to make 10*Bx starter
30*Bx addition to make 20*Bx starter
40*Bx addition to make 30*Bx starter
50*Bx addition to make 40*Bx starter
60*Bx addition to make 50*Bx starter
Obviously I did not have to list those as they are in 10*Bx increments with a 10*Bx offset, but I did want to show that at 50*Bx and above, it is almost useless in trying to ferment without some sort of gradual addition of fermentable material during the process.
25 March 2014
Experiment: Boil v. No Boil (Part 2)
 |
| pH as a function of time (hrs). Nutrients added at roughly 24, and 82hrs. |
Boil
OG: 1.1080 --> FG: 1.0025
pH 5.60 --> pH 3.56
No Boil
OG: 1.1080 --> FG: 1.0015
pH 5.33 --> pH 3.56
Both fermentations were held within 1C of 20C (both had peaks of 21C @ 92hrs from pitch, right around the pH stabilizing). Nutrient additions and aeration were determined by gravity reading, not time after pitch.
 |
| Specific gravity as a function of time. Nutrients added at roughly 24, and 82hrs; aerated at roughly 24, 44, 58, 68, and 82hrs. |
Nutrients were added at roughly 24 and 82 hours after pitch, showing a slight change in slope in the gravity graph, and a 'bump' in the pH graph (the other 'bump' in the pH graph at ~44hrs seems to correlate to aeration).
It is clear that the yeast are active well before a drop in gravity, this is shown by the drop in pH before ~24hrs (when a drop in gravity was first detected). This corresponds to the acclimation period which yeast go through commonly called the 'lag phase'; it would seem that instead of active sugar metabolism, they are more concerned with making an adequate environment for themselves at this point.
As to the differences, it would seem that the boiled must had a higher pH throughout the process until the end of fermentation. This is contrary to common belief that boiling (and skimming) reduces the buffering capacity of mead musts, however, this may be an outlier as the honeys chosen for the must composition do naturally have higher mineral and ash contents than other honeys (avocado and lychee are particularly rich in both, the brazilian pepper had a very high pollen content, and the beach plants have a higher mineral concentration than average (White Jr)).
Also the boiled mead fermented a little faster (about 2 days, though the data is not accurate to the hour, hence it's non-inclusion in the graphs).
Both have been cold crashed for 2 weeks at 5C, and have been treated with sulfites (an addition of 1 campden (Kmeta) was added to each gallon container, this method was chosen for its prevalence throughout the mead and winemaking community). They will age for another 9mos before being racked and bottled. Bottle aging will be in 12oz beer bottles with O2 absorbing caps, and evaluation will be held at several points in their lifetimes (hopefully ~1yr, 2yr, and 3yr, but we'll see).
16 March 2014
I'm going to start tweeting links to new posts; that way, instead of nobody checking to see if I have a new post up, no one can follow me on twitter to see if I have a new post up! @BOB_1and_only is my twitter thing (I think it's a "handle"). If I sound like the robot from the hitchhikers guide than it's working; not that anyone cares. ;)
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