Bubbles!

Well good news! The mead has finally started to ferment. I suppose the yeast just needed a few days to get going. We'll see what happens!

To mead, or not to mead?

So we decided to try and make mead which is a white wine made simply from honey. Sounds pretty simple, and it was but this seems to be our first roadblock in the winemaking process. Read on:

The recipe-

Approx 2/3 gallon of water
3 lbs honey
1 tsp yeast nutrient
3 tsp acid blend
1 crushed campden tablet
Champagne yeast

The process- as always remember to sterilize everything first
1.) Boil the honey and water together and skim off the proteins
2.) add to your primary fermenter
3.) Let the must cool completely and then add the crushed campden tablet (sulfur dioxide- it keeps the must sterile), acid blend, and yeast nutrient.
4.) Fit with a stopper/airlock and let sit 24 hours
5.) hydrate yeast in 1/4 cup of water at about 100 deg. before adding it to the must
6.) Refit airlock and place in a warm area to ferment.

Now a couple of things:
First of all you will see some new products listed above such as acid blend and campden tablets. acid blend is a mixture of three acids which is important in high sugar musts or else the yeast will more or less get sugar overkill. Campden tablet are sulfur dioxide which is a sterilizing agent. All that stuff you can get from any winemaking supply shop.
Secondly- The process of adding yeast (or pitching) in the making of mead is apparently a delicate process. Too early, and the sulfur will kill off the yeast. Thats why you need to wait the 24 hours. Also sometimes such a high sugar content (remember, its honey) will make for very slow fermentation or none at all. This is where we seem to be hitting our first problem.
So far (I pitched the yeast yesterday) we have no bubbles which means no visible fermentation. Also when removing the airlock there is a very sulfury smell coming from the must. I've done some reasearch and seen a few schools of thought.
Some say that meads take 24-72 hours to start showing signs of fermentation. Some say that the sulfur smell (from the campden) sometimes happens and should go away as the yeast becomes more active. Still others say that the sulfur smell means that its no good. SO I have decided to wait a few more days and see what happens. I'll keep you posted as things change and as I learn more!

Stay tuned for March's batch - Wild Blueberry.

Re-rack 1!

So the time has come to re-rack the cranberry batch. I'm going by what I've read and instinct as well - when the bubbles start to slow down a little bit in your primary fermenter, it is time to re-rack into your secondary fermenter. This can be the same container as your primary which is what we did, you just need to clean out the container. So heres the process:

1) Sanitize a container that can hold 2 gal.
2) Remove airlock from the primary and siphon your wine into the 2 gal container making sure to transfer as little sediment as possible
3) Once the entire mixture is transferred, use a wire sieve to strain the remaining juice from the must
4) THOROUGHLY clean out your primary fermenter
5) Transfer wine back into the primary (now secondary) fermenter
6) top up the wine with about a cup or so of boiled water (cooled) until the wine reaches to just below the spout opening. - sorry should've told you to boil some water and cool it before starting!
7) Replace air-lock and there you go!

The idea is to ferment for another couple of weeks to a month to allow all the remaining yeast to do their work and let the sediment fall out of the wine, thus leaving a clear red wine that is ready to age. Now from what I've read, some of the fruit based wines like this will tend to not clear unless you at a pectin enzyme or something of that sort, but I will cross that bridge as I come to it!

Keep ya posted!
-G and E