2014 batch 1: Cyser (9) - Which chili was used for the Capsi-Cyser

I finally found out which chili I have been using for my CapsiCyser. It is an asian chili type called Birds Eye of the genus Capsicum Annuum.

As it turns out the chilies are known to be very pungent, which means that you can actually smell the fruit even though only a little has been added.

The chilies are quite strong. On the Scoville scale they are 100,000 to 225,000 which is in the bottom og the range of the strongest commercial chili - the habanero which has a Scoville strength up to 350,000.

Because of that I only add 1/2 chili without seeds for 500 ml of mead. Using only the red chilies I thought it looked a bit more appealing. 

And it still tastes great. I think it is going to be repeated next year :o)

MellaNova Meadery

As the time has gone by I have often thought of starting a commercial mead production. I must say that I have been very inspired by following meaderies in US, and also by reading the American Mead Maker magazine (which by the way is free on Issuu - HERE).

Well I am not in a hurry, and I am not expecting to have an actual sale within at least the next two years, so I am not going to quit my day job. But as a start I have set up my own web-page at mellanova.dk (HERE). I was very surprised how easy it is to build a web page. I use the web hotel unoeuro (HERE) because they are quite cheap - yes, you guessed it: about 1 euro/month. As a guide how to set up a web page I recommend webdesigner (HERE). The guides are very easy and straight forward and in danish.

I have also associated a facebook page (HERE) and also a twitter acount (@MellaNova_Mead) so at least now the name is acquired at the most relevant sites :o)

The sites are not fully updated yet but I hope that the pages will be presentable within the start of the new year. Any tips tricks and ideas are very welcome

Why MellaNova? As most mead makers would know, "mell" means honey in latin. "Mella" means "honey-water" which is the essence of mead. The use of the term "Nova" (New) indicates that the mead I make is NOT according ancient recipes but made under the best conditions that are available today, with innovative use of known and new ingredients. Put in another way, I wish to associate mead with a modern exclusive product and not with Viking drinking orgies. Finally, MellaNova is just very easy to say and remember.

Picture 1: CapsiCyser anno 2014: Samples for tasting - very unprofessional picture but a start :o)

Everybody should know great mead!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

2014 batch 3: Bochet (7) - Back sweetening (continued)

Gravity after back sweetening with late summer honey:

Oe: 24-25 degrees :o) just perfect

The only issues was that I changed between and old and a new fermenter of different brands. I think the volume scales on the side are a bit different because I get bigger fluctuations from the calculated values when changing between fermenters of different brand than when I am changing between 2 of the same brand. Still +-1 degree Oechsle is within acceptable uncertainties.

2014 batch 3: Bochet (7) - Back sweetening

Now that the black berries had been removed I racked the bochet mead today. I started with 21 L and had to stop racking with 2 L left because of lots of yeast and residual mushy berries. The volume is now reduced to 19 L but hopefully it will only be 0.5 L losses per racking from now on.

As mentioned in my last post about my bochet I measured Oe to 16 degrees. I would like to back sweeten it to 25 degrees, and using my Honey-Oechsle equations for addition of honey I can calculate that I need to add 542 g of honey. (see HERE). Using 550 g as target I still ended up adding 558 g to a kitchen bowl - well within the uncertainty of the calculation with is +- 30 g. I use my late summer honey for sweetening since I am out of spring and summer honey. Amazing how fast you can use 50 kg of honey :o)

The honey was stirred gently with about 800 ml of the bochet mead to slowly dissolve the honey. The kitchen bowl was emptied into the new fermenter and a second portion of about 800 ml was added to the bowl to rinse out the rest of the honey. This portion was also poured into the fermenter, which was then closed and the air lock attached.

I will wait until tomorrow to to check the gravity just to let the honey dissolve fully.

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (10) - Removing oak chips

After tasting the currant mead I decided to remove the oak chips today (15th dec) The taste had not changed during the last week, so I do not think I will much more out of the chips for now.

The taste is quite good. I am very surprised about how well the oak combine the acidic currents with the sweetness of honey. It has really rounded the mead off. It is also quite interesting that after fermentation I could pretty much only taste the red current with high acidity. Now, after oaking, the black current taste is much more present - almost overpowering the red current.

I highly recommend the use of oak but also to take a sample of the mead before oaking, so that you can always taste the difference BEFORE the mead becomes too oaked. I am not kidding, at first I don't really notice a significant oak taste but when tasting the starting sample, the change is huge. If adding much more oak you would really taste the oak and it would be the first thing noticed. This was definitely not my intentions, so I will stop here. The alternative was just to add another "package" of oak chips if I was not satisfied. 

Measurements

Oe: 25 (Perfect)

pH: 3.42 (Still low)

It is quite interesting that pH is still 3.4 whereas the the taste is much more smooth. Before oaking the acid was stinging in the mouth, but now it is not that pronounced.

2014 batch 3: Bochet (6) - ....and removal of blackberries

Today (monday the 15th of december) I removed the berries from the mead again. They have now been extracted for a good week. The small chucks of berries now look pale and mushy, so I do not think I will get much more fruit taste extracted into the mead.

The taste is quite interesting. You can taste the berries but not so much the burned honey, except in the aftertaste. It does have some acidity due to the berries but it is not bad - just not really smooth. But this one thing long term storage will do for you :o)

The fermentation appeared to have completely stopped, and the mead was clearing, but after removing the berries the fermenter started to pressurize and the airlock began to bubble (?). I think disturbing the mead it started to degas rather than restarting to ferment.

Measurements are as follows
Oe: 16
pH: 3.64 (could very well be over-saturated with CO2)

The Oechsle value is a bit low and I would like to back sweeten the mead to 20-25 degrees. pH is low but still OK. I think it will go up a bit if the fermenter is degassing, and then it should be perfect.

2014 batch 3: Bochet (5) - Addition of blackberries

This Sunday (7/12) I measured the Oe of my Bochet to 18 degrees. The bubbling had slowed significantly, so I figured than now was the time to add the blackberries. I have saved 2 kg (2 bags of 1 kg) very ripe blackberries in our garden and store them in our freezer.

Basically I just put the frozen berries into a clean fermenter, added about 3 L of the bochet must and left it for a while to thaw while occasionally stirring and hacking with a spatula :o)

Once the berries were reasonably thawed I mashed them like you would with mash potato to increase the surface area a bit for exaction. Then I just transferred the rest of the bochet to the new fermenter leaving behind as much yeast and unwanted "chunks" as possible.

Actually, the thick layer of foam had almost completely been fermented and only a little residue was floating on the surface.

I measured the temperature shortly after I closed the new fermenter to about 14-15 C. Since the extraction had just started it did not make sense to measure Oe. next day the fermentation was running again and Oe was about 20 degree. The total volume was reduced by approximately 1.5 L but the berries corresponded to about the same volume, so no significant change - not until I remove the berries at least :o) This would means the the must had been diluted about 8%. If ABV was about 14%, then it was now about 13% and the yeast now have a little more work to do.

Oxalic acid treatment of the bees

Its been a season with lots of varoa mites, and I have been treating my hive twice with formic acid already. Now it is time to do the oxalic acid treatment.

Oxalic acid works well on mites on the active bees in the hive, but it does not work on mites in the closed breading cells. Therfore oxalic acid should be used after be bees goes into the winter cluster and are no longer breading.

This weekend we had a bit of good weather Saturday (6/12), so I went to check the hive.

Yes, the bees were sitting in a small cluster and they were very inactive.

Oxalic acid treatment is quite simple. The solution used is

75g oxalic acid dihydrate
1 kg of sugar
1 L of water

Fortunately I could pick up some from my bee association, so I did not have to mix it myself. Anyway, of this solution 35 ml is used for one hive of consisting of 10 frames (12x10). The solution is added drop wise on the the bees allowing them to move around before dripping again. The bees do not really take notice of the treatment, so it is easy to do it quickly and close up the hive again before too much heat is lost.

Now I will just leave them undisturbed until spring and hope that they get well through the winter.

2014 batch 1: Cyser (8) - Capsi-Cyser: The taste....

After 12 hours extraction, I removed the chili and served the CapsiCyser trial as a shot at a X-mas party

CapsiCyser is a go!!

The amount of chili needs some adjustments though. The chili taste was way to sharp, so it might be more adequate to add one chili to 1 L (10x dilution) AND removing the seed. The idea is to store the bottle with the chili inside, so it does not matter if the extraction time is longer.

2014 batch 1: Cyser (7) - Capsi-Cyser experiment

I set up a little taste experiement - A Capsi-Cyser. Perhaps the taste will feels as good as pronouncing the name :o)

I used a small chili which I cut open on 3 sides. I did not remove the seed.

It is the compound Capsaicin which gives the burning sensation and it is not particularly water soluble. This means I cannot add it to my fermenter which is of plastic since the capsaicin will adsorb quickly to the inner surface of the fermenter. If I will add chilies/chili extracts it will have to be in the glass flasks - but first I will have to see if the taste is worth aiming for.

2014 batch 3: Bochet (4) - Fermentation progress

Well, I felt that the fermentation did not really take off as I had hoped. I had to wait somewhat longer for the first bubble than I did with my previous mead. It did not really feel like the yeast got off to a good start. The bubbling rate also seem significantly slower. The reason could very well be that I prepared the activator straight honey, and poured the activator into the bochet must. Then the yeast cells had to get accustomed to the new environment first. The activator was at least very much alive when I poured it in. The liquid surface was vibrating due to tiny bubbles of CO2.

The development so far looks like this

date       pH     Oe   Additions

29/11   4.45   114   Nutrient pack 1

30/11   3.90   110   Nutrient pack 2

1/12     3.69   100   Nutrient pack 3

3/12     3.68     62   Nutrient pack 4

5/12        -        30   -

As the data shows the pH drops to 3.7 after two days, and stays stable. This pH drop is due to generation of CO2. It is also interesting that the initial drop in Oe is so slow the first 2 days. Only 14 degrees in 2 days. 

After adding nutrient pack 3, I figures I would skip a day before adding the last pack, to avoid to high concentration of nutrients. As it turned out, this was a good call. Two days after Oe had dropped 38 degree so the fermentation had gotten up to full speed at this point. I expect a maximum drop in Oe of 110 for this yeast, so I estimate that 60 degrees corresponds to approximately 50% of the fermentable sugar. Additions should not be done when the fermentation is past this point according to Ken Schramm. I assume he has done his share of trials and errors on this point so no need to repeat them :o)

In graph it looks like this:

My honey won 2nd price

I send off my late summer honey for a competition in my bee association - NBV's Honey Sensory Competition. The entered honeys were split in two categories: crystalline (stirred) and un-treated. I entered My honey was untreated and still very fluent - basically just tapped from the bucket.

The judges statement: "A rounded and mellow, sweet honey with moderate acidity. Tones of wood vanilla and flower together with touch of fresh citrus. An interesting honey with good complexity"

Nothing is too god for my meads :o)

2014 batch 3: Bochet (3) - SNA scheme

My SNA scheme for the Bochet mead

Copy to "paint" and save as picture. This is easier to read than the scanned version but no hand written notes available. Hope it is readable.

I dare you to find calculation errors :o)



2014 batch 3: Bochet (2) - Fermentation start

Ingredients

Sweet Mead Wine Yeast (WLP 720)

144 g of spring honey

10.25 g of Fermaid K

18 g og MAP and 12 g of MAC

    (Corresponding to 10 g of DAP)

10 g of Potash (K2CO3)
and of cause the 19+ L of Bochet must :o)

Initially the yeast was taken out of the refrigerator so that it could warm up for minimum 3 hours before being used.

As you might have noticed I saved some of the honey used for the bochet. This was for an yeast activator to prepare for fermentation. The 144 g of honey was dissolved in 800 ml of boiled water and the solution was covered and cooled to room temperature in the refrigerator. When the yeast was ready, 0.25g og Fermaid K was added, and the beaker was placed om my magnetic stirrer. The yeast was then added, and the beaker was covered.

I set it up Friday night and planned spiking the starter/activator to the bochet must Saturday night. Friday was also the day I did the "burning" of the honey.

Again I will use a SNA scheme to spike the nutrients. Though, I changed the SNA to 4 days instead of 5 because my currant mead had fermented so fast that I did not get to add the fifth aliquot. (See HERE and HERE). Otherwise the setup was pretty much the same:

1) Initially high addition of Fermaid K and slow decrease

2) Initially low addition MAC/MAP and then increasing

3) Initially low addion of potash (base) and then increasing as CO2 levels (acid) go up 

In total I am adding:

281 ppm YAN

283 ppm Potassium

(See scheme in the next post)

Saturday night I did the standard measurements on the bochet must. It had an unpleasant thick dark foam covering the surface that has to be scraped aside to do the measurements:

Oe: 1.114 degree - bit low compared to expected 1.120 degreee

pH: 4.45 (no nutrients added) - bit low due to caramelization

Temp: 23C - super

Pink solution is the reference - pH 4.0. SNA aliquots in vial with blue lid. Beautiful color of the Bochet mead to the right :o)

All ready to go. I added the first aliquot of my SNA scheme, then the yeast activator and gave the fermentor a great big stir before sealing it.

I use the sieve to catch the stirrer magnet

When will I hear the first bubble in the airlock.......can't wait.

2014 batch 3: Bochet (1) - Burning the honey

For a long time I have been wanting to try to make a bochet mead. From the internet it seemed not the be the easiest. Also, various people claim that the used kitchen ware was not possible to clean. So I have been hesitating and reading a lot to kind of being prepared. As it turned out it was not so difficult.

Here we go....

For 20L Bochet:
7.4 kg honey (water content 15%)
Biggest pot I have (15 L)

I had put aside 7.4 kg of spring honey from this year for the purpose. Of this 7.25 kg (~5 L) was poured into my biggest pot which holds 15 L. I had read that the honey would expand a lot and that I needed a pot which were 4 times the volume of the honey. I figure 3 times would be enough. As it turned out this was a super critical bit of information!!!!

I had also read several statements about the temperature of the burnt honey, some extremely high. To shed some light on this I bought a thermometer which could measure up to 250C. I prepared a holder for the temperature probe which I made out of a cheap wire hanger (see pic below). And I was ready to go.

As the temperature was rising the first I noticed was a dramatic drop in viscosity shortly after I reached 40C. Also, the honey became very unclear.

At about 110C the honey started to foam. This was expected since the boiling temperature of water is 100C and the honey contains about 15% of water. When the temperature hit 115C, the mead started to foam like crazy, and the foam level kept rising almost to the top of the pot. Fortunately it did not overflow - It would have taken forever to clean the kitchen. I turned down the heat to slow down the foaming, still keeping the temperature at 115C.

Since water is evaporating the temperature will not change if the heat is turned up. Instead more water will evaporate at the same time and the foam would have increased. As the water evaporates the honey will heat up slowly but it will never reach excessive temperatures as long as the sugar is mixed with water.

Now here is the interesting thing. Shortly after the foaming started the honey also started to brown. This means than the honey is not being burnt but is actually boiled.

The temperature slowly went up to 125C (give and take 5C) and never got above 130C throughout the heating. During the entire boiling time I was stirring the pot to ensure that the honey did not stick to the bottom at any time - then 1½ hour is a looong time

From homebrewtalk (HERE) I found this great picture that is worth showing again. It is a picture by Sharkman20 (credit where credit is due).

With reference to familiar terms from the roasting of malt, I figured I will use the following definitions

30-60 min: Mild-mel

75-90 min: Cara-mel

105-up: Choco-mel

:o)

I am actually not all that fond of a strong burnt taste, so I decided to stop when I reached a cara-mel. Using the same set-up, I followed my progress. 

Times from the top left the time was: 45min, 60min, 70min, 85min, and just before cooling 90min

The smell and taste of caramel was really strong with a light bitter aftertaste. I think this mead will taste like nothing I ever tasted before.

For cooling I filled my kitchen sink with cold water and slowly lowered the pot into the water. Then I poured cold water into the honey bit by bit until I could no longer hear the hissing of evaporating water. The pot was then removed from the sink because the honey started to clod on the sides, but with a bit of stirring the cloding melted again. Then I just added cold water to about 10 L, checked the temperature (about 60C) and poured the content into a sanitized fermenter. I rinsed the pot twice with cold water which was then also added to the fermenter. Finally I filled the fermenter to somewhere above the 19 L mark, put the lid on and left it to cool down. And best of all. No burnt black honey and a pot that was very easy to clean.

So in conclusion: With a pot large enough to hold 3-4 times the volume of honey and with good temperature control of the stove, it is not difficult to "burn" honey for a bochet mead in a controlled manner.

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (9) - Oaking using chips

I have been planning this for a while so now it is time to try. The use of Oak is praised on pretty much every page talking about oak and mead so I have to try it out too.

I purchased 250 g of American Oak chips which should give taste quickly, though less complex. Other options would be French or Eastern European oak. French should give a more complex Oak taste but should also be able to over power a mead quickly. Eastern European oak should release taste slower and the taste should be much less intense. With absolutely no experience with oaking mead I figured the American oak chips would be the best chips to start with :o).

Furthermore the oak can be toasted to several levels. The main types used are light toast, medium toast and heavy toast, each imparting different taste notes. Apparently medium toast is by far the most recommended to start with. so American oak chips - medium toast it is :o)

I have also been looking for a guide for dosing the oak. The best I could find was actually from where I bought the chips (Dansk Hjemmeproduktion). Here the recommendations are:

White wine: 50-150g / 100L
Red wine: 100-250 g / 100L
Extraction time: 4-12 weeks.

Again I figured I would start somewhere in the middle - something that would go for both red and white wine, i.e 125 g / 100 L or 25g / 20 L.

Just found another reference HERE from E.C.Kraus. This is by far the best web page I found so far regarding oaking. And as a bonus there is a bit about the history of oaking.

So here we go:

The chips I bought contains lots of little bits that will be able to go through the "hop bag" that I will use for the chips. The get rid of these I just used my spaghetti strainer with a plastic bag underneath.

In this way I lost about 45 g of the 250 g bag that I bought. But now, at least, most of the chips should stay in the hop bag. This is definitely one good reason to use oak cubes next time if available.

I weighed out 25 g in a hop bag, and tied the bag up at the opposite end, so that the chips would not be pressed together in a small space - more free and available surface, better extraction.

Then I boiled the bag shortly. The water quickly got colored, and I became unsure whether this was the taste components I wanted in my mead, so I just boiled for 10 sec or so. I am not so worried about contamination since the mead has finished fermenting with a high content of ethanol (14-15%). This should be too harsh for most wild yeast.

Also in the picture below I took a sample of the mead for tasting, so that I can compare "before" and "after" oaking.

Finally I drained the pot for water and left the hop bag in the pot to cool for a few minutes. Hereafter I just dropped the hop bag into the currant mead, and closed the lid.

Now I will just have to wait. I will test the the mead weekly to see how it develops.

I read that the chips will sink once they get fully soaked. Come to think of it, I should perhaps have tied a string to the bag which I could have attached to the edge of the fermenter. In this way I would not have to "spoon" the bag out later. Fingers crossed that it will not be that difficult and that the sediment will quickly settle again.

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (8) - Check

After finishing up with the cyser I just did a check on the currant mead.

Oe: 26 (OK)
pH 3.45 (Uh, somewhat lower than I wanted)

The color is great - bright red - and not pink that I was initially afraid of since the amount of juice was quite limited. It has also cleared quite well already.

I need to lift pH a bit which I will do with potassium carbonate. I just need to test how much to add.

Finally I covered the mead with a layer of CO2 (See "CO2 generator" under Knowledge Tools), sealed the lid, and attached the airlock.

2014 batch 1: Cyser (7) - Back sweetening

Time to back sweeten the cyser. Opening the cyser it is almost clear and the milky smell is not pronounced in any way any more. The current Oechsle value is now 18. Last time I measured it, the values was 16 so I assume that the high level of dissolved CO2 interfered with the measurement. The taste is nice - like sherry -but it does need just a little bit more sweetness, so I decided to add honey to 25 degree Oe. Using the same scheme as for the currant mead I get:

My plan was initially to the honey that was left for this batch since I only used 4.8 kg of the 7.2 in stock. But I used it all for back sweetening my currant mead (first to lift the Oe after addition of juice and the rest for back sweetening). Instead I will use the late summer honey. It is quite fragrant compared to the summer initially used for this batch. Hopefully it will give more honey odor initially before the sherry like taste sets in. .... and mask any residual yogurt like smell from the malolactic fermentation.

The procedure is the same: 470 g of honey in a clean bowl. About 1.5 L of cyser, stir for quite a while (but not vigorously) to dissolve the honey and and pour the solution back into the fermenter. Rinse the bowl with another 1 L of cyser.  Then give the fermenter a quick stir and attach the lid and airlock

The next day I checked the mead after it had been settling:

Oe: 25
pH: 3.64 (a little low)

Almost Perfect :o)

Since it is not fermenting any more, I want to cover the mead with a layer of CO2 to avoid oxidation. For this I used my trusted CO2 generator. You can find directions for the generator in Knowledge Tools in top right corner of this blog.

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (7) - Racking

When I did the back sweetening I noticed that a layer of solids up to the 5 L mark of the fermenter. When I poured in the currant juice there was plenty of solids in there (cellulose?) which I also observed shortly after juicing the berries. I figure the yeast would break these solids down during the fermentation. This did apparently not happen :o( Also, I did not see a the thick layer of yeast at the bottom even though the top liquid had cleared. I guess that the yeast adhered to the solids to make a fluffy bottom layer that just did not sink below the 5 L mark.

So, today I tried to rack the mead. First I racked the top layer the normal way and put this aside. Looking into the fermenter I got a bit discouraged, but decided to give it a shot.

First I put a large coffee filter in a sieve and tried to filter the mead through this. Did not work. The liquid stop dripping shortly after I filled the filter.

Next step was to use a diaper cloth, which I rinsed on boiling water to ensure that it was clean. I put it in the sieve without folding it, and filled the sieve again. This time the liquid came through, but after a short time, the flow through the cloth was also blocked.

In the end, and after a lot of patience, I stopped. I poured the 1 L I did salvage into the new fermenter too, and the total volume was now only about 20 L.

The last 4.5 L was then poured............ in the toilet. !"¤%&¤#"?.

Now here is another lesson learned: Rack first, back sweeten afterwards!!!!!! And to step in it a little more: 4.5 L, or about 20%, means that I wasted 20% of the honey I back sweetened with - around 350 g down the drain.

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (6) - Back sweetening

It seems like the fermentation is still going but at a very slow rate. I measured the gravity to just 1.002 so this is likely part of the reason. I am surprised that my Sweet Mead Yeast has pretty much used the entire amount of sugar - Sweet Mead my a.. :o).

Tasting the mead, it has plenty of acidity and a slight taste of red currant. The smell and flavor of the black currant is gone, but the color of the mead is fantastic - a strong light red color. 

This is something to remember - use one third red currant for acidity and two thirds black currant to make up for color. 

Due to the acidity I figured some sweetness from honey would be welcome, so I decided to target a final gravity of 1.025. Using the calculations in last post in a spreadsheet looks like this:

With a target Oechsle of 25 and a starting Oechsle of 2 in a total volume of 23.5L, I need 1713 g. In fact I had about 1775 g left from my cyser (calculated using the tara value of the container)

I poured what I could into a clean bowl and dissolved it in 1.5 L of the mead. This takes a loooooong time when the liquid is not heated. With some patience it slowly dissolves. Then I poured the content of the bowl back into the fermenter and rinsed the bowl repeatedly with the mead. Then I poured some mead into the honey container to rinse it too. Judging from the tara value I had gotten about 1760 g out. This corresponds to a new Oechsle of 26. 

I left the fermenter overnight to fully dissolve the honey and measured the gravity the next day:

I read this as just slightly below 1.026, and well within expected uncertainties. The total volume is now 24.5 L so there will be mead enough for all.....

The equations work :o)

Back sweetening - The Honey-Oechsle equation

"Three is the magic number" as the saying goes, and that is right for honey too. I always use 7.2 kg of honey for 20L must because I know I will have a gravity of 1.120 or Oechsle value of 120 degrees. The ratio between Oechsle value and honey concentration, which I call the honey factor, is then equal to 0.3333, and hence the inverse of this factor is exactly 3. 

Using this factor, it then becomes very easy to calculate how much honey to use to reach any target Oechsle value.

Now, this factor can also be used when adding fruit juice, by expressing all the sugar content of the juice as honey. This calculation also takes into account the additional volume. In the end the honey factor is eliminated. As the examples show, you can either calculate the new Oechsle value when adding a fixed volume of juice/extract, or you can calculate how much juice/extract you need to reach a target Oechsle value.

Finally you can use the same set-up for calculating how much honey to use for back sweetening. This time you will need the inverse honey factor and the density of the honey. I usually use the value 1.35 g/ml for the density which is used to calculate the volume increase. As before, examples illustrate how you can either calculate the new Oechsle value when adding a fixed mass of honey, or you can calculate how much honey you need to reach a target Oechsle value.
  

These calculations work great in Excel and they are a great help if you, for example, want to add honey to a target Oechsle value and be spot on first time :o)

Limitations

What are the limitations? The equations do not take into account that the gravity is lowered due to the content of alcohol. If all has been converted to ethanol, the density should not be lower than 0.970, i.e. a correction of 3% would be needed. But 3% is likely well within the error of all values going into the equations, and it would not improve your result significantly.

The inverse honey factor are of cause dependent on the water content of the honey. As a mead maker you will of cause be using high quality honey where the water content is only 15-17%, i.e. within a quite narrow range. Hence, this variation in sugar content will also be small.

The biggest contributor to error is, as I see it, the density of honey. I do not have data showing the variations in density in various honeys. Never the less, the density is used to calculate the added volume, and this volume will always be small compared to the volume of the must, i.e. a large error will not influence the new Oechsle value very much.

Mixing volumes might not be exactly equal to the sum of the individual volumes, but again the correction would be smaller than the error of other values. 

2014 batch 1: Cyser (6) Adding yeast stopper

Sometimes in between kids dinner and diapers and bed time my head is just not screwed on right. When I did the racking of the cyser yesterday and even realized that the mead is almost to lactic, I forgot to add the sodium metabisulfite/potassium sorbate that should inhibit the malolactic bacteria. Even though the airlock is not bubbling regularly the process could still be ongoing at a slower rate, and I do not want any more lactic acid in the cyser if I can avoid it.

So today I added the sodium metabisulfite/potassium sorbate today and gave the fermenter a good stir, but no splashing. Thank god I remembered

Just as last year it comes in a prepacked mix that should be adequate for 20 L batches. The total mass of content should be 7 g. So another thing on the to do list is to figure out how much of each component there are in a package.

2014 batch 1: Cyser (5) Racking and sampling

Also racked the Cyser today. It has stopped bubbling and the water in the airlock has leveled out. The data was

SG: 1.016
pH: 3.68
Temp: 24.7 C

I took another sample for the TLC analysis that I have not yet had time to set up .... it will soon be on the top of the "to do list"

The transformation of the taste is quite significant. The stinging acidic taste of the malic acid is completely gone and the mead now has a slight yogurt like taste to it which will hopefully not become any more pronounced. It is quite pleasant to drink but I think back sweetening with honey to SG 1.020 - 1.025 will do wonders.

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (5) - Addition of currant juice

In the afternoon Saturday the 1st of November I took out the currant juice from the freezer. The juice was prepared this summer as described HERE. It is the steamed juice of red currant and black currant from the  ribes bushes in our garden. The volume is about 3.5 L and consist of approximately 1.25 L of red currant juice, and 2.25 L of black currant juice

Sunday the 2nd of November

In the morning I checked that the juice had thawed and the temperature was just below room temperature. I emptied the juice into a clean fermenter and then I just racked the batch onto it, stirred a bit, and closed it up. After the addition SG was 1.011 so there was plenty of sugar in. Secondly the total volume is now 23 L, so assuming that I was at about 15% ABV at the time of racking, I am now at 13%. Further more, if 1% ABV is generated from a gravity change of 0.00753, then the mead can potentially convert a gravity of 1.015 to 1.000, i.e. I am a bit short in sugar - 0.004 gravity units

So if 7.2 kg gives a gravity of 1.120 then I am 240 g of honey short. So I added 300g (actually 295g) which should add about 0.005 to the gravity.

About 5 hours later I measured gravity and pH again

SG: 1.011

pH: 3.41

Temp: 24.7 C

I noticed that pH dropped significantly when adding the juice - from 3.7 to 3.4. Also the mead is now foaming quite a bit so there was plenty of proteins in the juice also. I am not sure this was a good thing. If the fermentation stops completely, some not so pleasant compounds might be present due to partially degraded protein. Well, now I will just have to see if the fermentation will run for at least 24-48 hours more and then stop before the batch runs out of sugar :o).

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In all calculations I do not take into account that ethanol lowers the density of the solution. All measurements are with quite large uncertainty anyways, so adjusting for ethanol content by extensive calculations just seems like overkill. 

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (4) - fermentation is ending after just week :o)

I continued to monitor the gravity, pH and temperature after the last addition. All measurement were done in the evening so that the intervals between measurements were as close to 24 hour as possible

Thursday the 30th of October
Sg: 1.040
pH: 3.69
Temp: 23.6 C

Friday the 31th of October
Sg: 1.022
pH: 3.68
Temp: N.A.

Saturday the 1st of November
Sg: 1.010
pH: 3.70
Temp: 22.7 C

So how does this SNA batch compare with the cyser. When plotting the gravity readings you get

I called it Sack as the currant juice has not been added yet, so as of now it is produced as a Sack mead. It is very clear what with Staggered Nutrition Addition you get a very fast and consistent fermentation (almost linear progress), which is at the end after 6-7 days :o)

Basically I had estimated that that a drop of 0.100 would correspond to 14 %. Hence if the yeast max out at 15%, it should not change gravity by more than 0.107 and should in this case have stopped at 1.013. Now it is 1.010 and it is still going strong even though the rate has been reduced a bit

The simple formula for calculating Alcohol by volume is:
ABV= (OG-FG)/0.00753 (ref wikipedia)
This basically says that the gravity changes by 0.00753, then 1% of alcohol is produced.

For high gravity there is a somewhat more complicated formula.
ABV =76.08*(OG-FG)/(1.775-OG)*FG/0.794
The idea is that more ethanol is produced at the end of the fermentation since the replication rate reduces. This means that more alcohol should be produces per gravity unit.

The high gravity formula (alternative formula) as it is returns ridiculously high ABV values - far higher than the yeast max, so I just adjusted the simple formula by using a factor of 0.0071. So 15%max x 0.0071 = 0.107.

Right now I am back to the original simple formula. Then, for an ABV of 15% the new low is 1.007 instead of 1.013.

pH meters - which one to buy

I have been looking at several blogs to see which pH meters were used by home brewers. It is a fantastic tool, but can also be quite expensive. Never the less I recommend that everyone with an interest in the details of how your wine, mead or beer develops to purchase a proper pH meter. But as always it is important to look around before you buy.

I came across 5 different brands with pH meters with products that could be used for home brewing. These were

Hanna Instruments

Milwaukee Instruments

Adwa Instruments

HM Digital and

Atago

Other brands are available on the web but as far as I know these are not available from danish suppliers. These are:
Omega (PHH-7011)
Hach (H series H160 or H170)
LaMotte (Tracer Pocket Tester)
.... (Let me know which ones I missed) ....

Hanna-, Milwaukee-, and Adwa- Instruments

Researching the web I made an interesting observation. Hanna, Milwaukee, and Adwa are very likely the same company. They all have office at EXACTLY the same address in Hungary. 

...Alsókiköto sor 11., H-6726 Szeged....

So if prices for these 3 brands are similar, it is not a surprise.  

It bothers me quite a bit that one company are giving the customer a sense of choice by producing different brand names but are in fact selling the same "crap in different wrapping".

So the choice was now down to HM Digital and Atago. 

HM digital

HM is a US company and their pH meters are produced in South Korea. They sell 2 different pH meters that are useful for home brewers:

pH 80 and

pH 200

The main difference is the resolution. pH 80 show results with one decimal and pH 200 with 2 decimals. 

Atago

Atago is a japaneese brand and sells only one pH meter - the DPH-2. This pH meter only has a resolution of 1 decimal. 

The Choice...

Hereafter it was quite easy for me to choose, and I purchased the pH 200 from HM Digital. As a bonus it was also cheaper than the "Hungarian Huddle" 

I will try it out for a while before reviewing it. As for now, it is fulfilling all expectations. 

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (3) - Fermentation progress

I have spend several days monitoring how the fermentation has progressed:

Monday the 27th of October
The following day I opened the fermenter and sampled for gravity and pH.

pH: 3.84
SG: 1.110
Temp: NA

Bugger, I forgot to measure temperature (?). Never the less it is interesting to see that pH had fallen from 4.7 to 3.8 due to the CO2 produced by the yeast. This is still in the start-up of the fermentation so yeast count is probably increasing. The resulting SG shows a decrease in gravity of 0.010.

Then I added the second nutrient pack:
Fermaid K: 2.0 g
MAP: 4.0 g
MAC: 3.0 g
K2CO3: 2.0g
Total: 64 ppm N and 57 ppm K+

I poured about 30 ml of must into the tube containing the nutrients, swirled it a bit to make a slurry and poured the content into the fermenter. To my surprise the must started to foam very aggressively, and I started to worry that I would be cleaning the floor for sticky honey. Fortunately, the foam stopped a bit before the edge. Then I stirred the must quickly to dissolve the nutrients, closed the fermenter and re-attached the airlock.

Evening Tuesday the 28th of October

pH: 3.64
SG: 1.088
Temp: 25.7 C (?)

So pH had droåped even further. Even though I add carbonate with both MAC and K2CO3 it might push pH a bit but it will fall again at least within one day. SG was surprisingly low. Gravity had fallen 0.022 in just one day - that is about 1/5 of the sugar available for fermentation, i.e. at this rate the fermentation could be over in just 5 days, WOW. Temperature was high, but I am not sure I trust the reading. The room was 23 C so the fermentation should have raised the temperature by almost 3 C - seems like a lot.

I then added the 3rd nutrient pack which was identical to the second one above. This time I did an effort to slowly dissolve some of the additives, pour it in, add more must to tube, dissolved a bit and pour it in, etc.
Never the less I still got a lot of foam.

Evening Wednesday the 29th of October

pH 3.63
SG 1.066
Temp: 24.1 C

It seams like pH has leveled out despite addition of carbonate so the must is probably now well buffered by bicarbonate. Once again SG had dropped 0.022 which I am still surprised about. Temperature is now within the expected range just a bit above room temperature - great

The 4th nutrient pack was added with was also identical to the second. Even though I planned for 5 nutrient packs I will not be adding the 5th. Since OG was 1.120 and I expect a FG to be 1.013 for an ABV of 15 % or a drop of 0.107 then an SG of 1.066 corresponds to 50% of the fermentation progress. Most articles says that you should not add nutrients past this point, so I will stop here and see what happens.
_________________

The 5th nutrient was a bit smaller than the previous packs

Ferment K: 1.0g
MAP: 4.0 g
MAC: 3.0 g
K2CO3: 2.0 g
Total: 57 ppm N and 57 ppm K+

My plan was to add 300 ppm N and 255 ppm K+. As it turned out I will have added only about 240 ppm N and 200 ppm K+.

In the coming days i will continue to monitor SG and pH. If the rate continues the fermentation should finished by Saturday - that would be a new record for me :o). And I will use this SNA scheme with 4 additions in the future.

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (2) - Fermentation start

Recipe:

7200 g of Summer honey, 2014

140 g of Spring honey, 2014

5 Nutrient packs according to SNA scheme

Water to 20 L

3.5 L of currant juice

Starter:

As always I am aiming at a starting gravity of 1.120 which is so high that it could become difficult for the yeast to really get started - So just in case I initiated the fermentation with a starter at a little less than half the gravity.

I dissolved 140 g of "spring honey" in 800 ml warm water, covered the glass and let it cool to room temperature. 

pH: 5.98
SG: 1.058

Just before adding the yeast I whipped the solution with with a kitchen mixer to get as much air into the solution as possible. Then I added the yeast which again was White labs, Sweet Mead, WLP715, covered the opening of the glass and placed it on my home made magnetic stirrer. The solution was stirred once in a while to ensure good mixing. 

The starter was up and running Saturtday the 25th of October at noon

Mead fermentation:
In the evening of the 25th of I prepared the must.

All the honey (7.2 kg) was poured into a fermentor. I just left the honey container up-side down for a while to get as much honey out as possible. Then I heated 10 L of water to 70oC and poured in into the fermenter too. Some of the water was used to rinse the honey container to ensure that I got it all out. I started to stirr to dissolve the honey. When no more honey was sticking to the bottom of the fermentor I added about 5 L of cold tap water so that the total volume was just below 20 L and stirred the solution well again. Then I left it overnight to cool down. Following this procedure the solution was 40 C when I finished.

Sunday the 26th of October:
During the day I was checking the starter. It was quite clear that the fermentation was running. When not stirring I could see plenty of small bubbles making the surface almost vibrate.

In the evening I added Nutrition pack 1 to the mead:
Fermaid K: 3.0 g
MAP: 3.0 g
MAC: 1.0 g
K2CO3: 1.0g
Total: 47 ppm N and 28 ppm K+

I left the solution for a couple of hours and measured

pH: 4.66
OG 1.120
Temp: 23.0 C

Notice that just honey and water gives pH around 6 whereas pH is 4.7 when nutrients are added. This means that the buffer capacity of the honey is almost non-existent. OG was on the target :o)

The starter was added and the beaker was rinsed with about 2 dl of water. So the total volume was just above 20 L. Finally the lid was closed and the airlock was filled with water and placed securely in the lid. Time to wait for the first bubbles from the airlock