2014 batch 2: Currant mead (12) - More oak....

Tasting my currant mead against the sample I took before I added oak first time, I found that the difference between the two was evening out with just a bit of aging, so I decided to give my mead one more shot of oak. Same oak as before: American oak chips - medium toast.

I added 25 g again, but this time I did not boil the oak. Instead I just rinsed the chips and hop bag in cold tap water and put the bag in the microwave for 60s at full power.

The smell of the wood was quite intense, and it must have been all that great stuff I boiled off last time. Then I took a small sample of the mead for reference before I finally I dropped the bag into the mead and sealed the fermentor.

Today, after 1½ week, I did a tasting and compared with the sample I took before the second oak addition. The fruitiness was still present but now the oak was quite significant but not overpowering the mead. So I decided to remove the oak again. Also, the mead feels sweeter with the oak, and the fruit acids had been mellowed out quite a bit. I get the feeling that when using oak I should probably not have sweetened the mead to 25 oechsle but rather stopped at 20.

Still, it tastes great, and I would like to have used a much larger glass for tasting....... :o)

2014 batch 3: Bochet (8) - Racking using pump

The Bochet has now been resting for quite a while, so it was time rack it to get rid of more sediment. For this purpose I tested my newly acquired pump.

I prepared the clean fermenter by pouring boiling water into it, and over the tubing going to the pump. I figured I would used the bottom part of my old racking cane to have a controlled distance to the bottom of the fermenter.

Then I attached the hoses to the pump and pumped the hot water out of the fermenter. I still needed to draw the water to the pump because it is not able to pull air. Finally, I just shook of the water out of the tubes and I was ready.

- Turn on the pump,
- Dip the tip of the racking cane into the Botchet,
- Suck the liquid to the pump
- Put the exit tube into the new fermenter
- and then just focus on the keeping the racking cane below the surface of the mead.

I set the power supply to 7.5V. Judging from the litre scale of the new fermenter, it took about 25s to move 1L which is about 2.3 to 2.4 L/min, which was just perfect.

Not much sediment was present in the bottom of the fermenter, so I will now leave it for maturing now. Next step will be bottling.

Cleaning the pump was done by pulling about a litre of boiling water through it, after removing the racking cane tip. Finally is pulled a bit of demineralised water through the pump and tubes because the water here is quite hard.

Was it easier? First of all I did not have to lift the full fermenter to a table and risk disturbing the sediment. For larger volumes it will hardly be a option to even move the fermenter. Hereafter, I think the work load was pretty much the same. One more advantage was that when I pull a bit of air into the racking cane, the flow did not stop, but the pump just pushed the bubbles through. My old racking cane would have stopped flowing right away. I also like that I can clean the pump with boiling water. My old racking cane cannot be cleaned in boiling water and need to be washed with detergents. All in all, I am very pleased with my new "toy".

New pump to be used for racking

This weekend I received my new toy - a small pump to be used when racking meads.

The pump was purchased at solarproject.co.uk. It is a small 6W pump which is specified for home brewing among other uses. The pump specifications are:

Voltage: 12 V DC (7-14V DC)
Power: 6 Watts (500 mA at 12 V)
Temp. range: -40 to 105 C
Flow: approx. 6 L/min unrestricted flow
Vertical head: 2 m

It is great that it can pump freshly boiled water, so it will be easy to clean and sterilize before use.

I also purchased fittings and tubing (2m) at the site, but not the power supply, since it would not fit Danish power sockets.

Well 6 L/min might still be a bit high so I guess I will be running at a lower voltage. Using 7V I need a little less than 1000mA. I found a power supply from GooBay which can deliver 1000mA at 3, 4.5, 5, 6, 7.5, 9 and 12 V DC. It comes with several different connectors, so any can be picked.

The pump is on the other hand is delivered without connector, but I found a plug (female) which can be attached with screw locks instead of weldings at Brinck Electronik in Copenhagen. It works great and it looks good too. Solarproject should sell something like these too and the kit would be complete.

I tested the pump with water, mostly to ensure that I did all the connections correctly :o)  - nice steady flow, but the pump is not able to pull air, so I still need to draw the mead to the pump initially when racking, since I do not have an outlet in the bottom of my fermentors.

I will hopefully get to try it out on my bochet later this week.

2014 batch 2: Currant mead (11) - pH adjustment

I finally found time to do the pH adjustment of my currant mead. I have measured it earlier to about 3.4 and I want to have pH in my mead within the "sweet spot" of 3.6 to 3.8.

To raise pH I use pot ash or potassium carbonate (K2CO3). Potassium has no risk limit in foods because it is considered harmless and just as important, potassium does not impart a salty taste. CO3-- is on the other hand a quite strong base, and should be handled with care.

So, as titrator I used a 0.10 M K2CO3 solution (Mw 138.2g/mol) by dissolving 0.70 g in 50 ml of tap water using my old but trusted analytical scale and a 100 ml glass measuring cylinder. As titrand I used 40 ml of currant mead again measured with a 100 ml glass measuring cylinder

To add the titrator in a controlled fasion I used a 1 ml plastic syringe with needle. The needle provides a sufficiently small exit hole to control and "cut" small droplets. After each addition to the mead, I gave the solution a quick stir on my home made magnetic stirrer (ref HERE), and measured pH with my pH meter (ref HERE).

Adding in total 2 ml moved pH from 3.41 to 3.89. I found that adding 1.2 ml resulted in a pH of 3.70. Targeting this pH, I would likely be within the "sweet spot" with some error in the volumes used.

Converting the addition in ml to add K2CO3 in g to 1L the graph looks like this:

Some of the fluctuations from linearity might be due the various pKa values but with the general uncertainty of all numbers involved, I figured I could approximate the data as linear.

So, to get pH 3.7 I would need to add 0.42g K2CO3 to 1 L of currant mead. Since my batch size now is about 19 L I would need to add a total of 7.98 g. I have tested my scale with analytical reference weights and found it to be off by 6% and the error is proportional. Therefore I can just correct the target mass by 1.06 and I would need 7.53g K2CO3 and the actual mass will be 7.98g.

The entire amount was gently sprinkled into the fermenter and the entire volume was stirred well afterwards. I left the fermenter for 10 min to let the K2CO3 dissolve fully and mix with the mead. Then came the crutial check: Target 3.70 -> measured........

PERFECT !

Check-up on the bee hive

It was great weather today (4/1) so time to check up on the bees. After 2 formic acid treatments and a late Oxalic acid treatment I had my fingers crossed the the hive was still alive and well and that I had finally gotten rid of the extreme numbers of varoa mites.

A quick look around the hive, there was no dead bees - so far so good. Also, there was not off smells indicating diseases. Putting my ear to the hive I could hear a happy buzzing, so all looks and sounds good.

Pulling out the tray in the bottom of the hive also looked great - only 4-5 mites which might as well be the last of the clean-up after the oxalic acid treatment in december about a month ago.

Finally I weighed the hive. Total mass was 26.05 kg which is a drop in mass of 4.1 kg since end October. Still it is a little more than one kg more than last year where the starting mass was pretty much the same at the end of October. It could mean that the winter family is a bit smaller than last year or that there has been something to feed on for longer (?)

Anyway, I look like I will have a healthy family in the spring ready to collect honey for mead :o)