In Mead, Part 2 , I laid out a simple mead recipe and gave instructions and recommendations for making and fermenting your must. Racking mead is carried out much the same way as racking beer, especially if you are brewing in buckets. As always, everything should be absolutely clean and sanitized.
This includes a carboy I prefer glass for mead because of low DO permeability, and use a padded and bag lined crate as a safely measure , a racking cane or auto-siphon, and any hoses.
A spray bottle of StarSan or SaniClean is handy for this process. It is also important to remember that the outside of your fermenter or at least mine gathers some dust and possibly some drops of must or honey along the way. Remove the lid carefully. I use a plastic lid opener which makes short work of a tight fit. I immediately move the lid away to clean and sanitize, along with my hands. If I need to walk away for any extended period of time, I will put the lid loosely over the mead.
Let the mead settle in the fermenter after any bumps or movement. The goal is to leave behind as much of the lees as possible. I like to move my fermenter into place the evening before, remove the lid, and replace it after cleaning. Your mead should be finished or at the sweetness level that you prefer. Racking can be used as a strategy to stop fermentation early, and is particularly effective when used with sulfites and sorbates. I prefer to let the mead finish completely, usually off-dry, and back sweeten with a sweet mead.
Raw honey can be used, but lends a raw flavor that many mead judges find to be a flaw. For racking out of a bucket, I prefer my auto-siphon with silicon tubing. Silicon fits easier onto the siphon and seals better than vinyl. I can also boil or pressure cook the silicon to sterilize when needed!
You can skip this step, but it is insurance with fruited or spiced meads to reduce oxidation during handling. It will dissolve into the mead during transfer. Gently start the auto-siphon, watching where the tubing fits to the cane and make sure no bubbles are forming.
Tip the hose up at top of the auto-siphon to allow any air to evacuate. I will then let the siphon lean against the front edge with the end resting just above the lees. As the fermenter empties, gently tip the fermenter to ensure the end of the siphon remains covered.
When you start to see cloudy transfers, stop the flow. Minimizing headspace reduces chances of oxidation and is a best practice.
There will still be some yeast activity which combined with the sulfites should manage oxygen intake for a few weeks. Place a tight fitting hood or airlock and set the carboy in a cool and dry location.
Room temperature should be fine and help the yeast finish up fermentation, but cooler can be better if the mead is finished at the desired FG. If you are trying to stop fermentation, then I would suggest crash cooling to near freezing temperature. Always — cleaned and sanitized — then set the racking cane depth and place the hood tightly onto the carboy and blow into the little filter.
The mead flows quickly, but again watch for air bubbles around the cane and the hose. At this point, I begin to worry much more about oxidation, so I handle extremely carefully, and will use K-Meta if I feel it is needed. Normally, I am moving to clear the mead and eliminate yeast in the second racking, so I will often rack onto finings gelatin, isinglass, SuperKleer.
There are two real purposes for racking mead. While I have never tasted autolysis in beer, I have in mead; it sucks. The second is to clear, clarify, and stabilize the mead. Once fermented, at least if doing a standard or traditional mead, the yeast are in a inhospitable environment — lots of ethanol and a relatively low pH.
Continual racking after sedimentation forms greatly reduces the amount of yeast that remain viable. Cold temperatures and fining products will accelerate this process, as will filtering. The goal is to have a stable product that will not continue to ferment, go cloudy or sour. Proper sanitation regiments greatly reduce the risks of contamination. Only you can determine when your mead is ready to package.
There are rare circumstances when cloudy or turbid meads are acceptable, so clarity is the first clue. The second is taste. Hot alcohols, yeasty flavors, or lack of integrated flavors especially with fruit or spiced meads need additional age and mellowing. The lack of sedimentation over a period of time is also an indication.
It is important to consider the overall body and sweetness level that the Mead is targeted for, and choose from the range of yeasts along with the correct amount of honey in order to obtain this end result. Successful yeasts for making sweet Meads include Montrachet, Chardonay, Ale yeasts and believe it or not, the liquid "Dry" Mead yeast.
Depending on the starting gravity, these Yeasts typically result in a medium to high sweet Mead. Again, depending on the starting gravity, these yeasts typically result in a dry to medium dry Mead. For numerous reasons, it is highly recommended that all dry yeasts are dissolved prior to pitching. In addition, regardless of dry or liquid yeast, it is also strongly recommended that you do a starter about 2 or 3 days before making your Mead.
This will boost the population of yeasts thus decreasing the time it takes for the batch of Mead to start fermenting, as well as limit to risk of other microorganisms beating the yeast to fermentation in the carboy, thereby minimizing the risk of an infection. The ultimate goal set forth by any Meadmaker, is to create the perfect Mead. Although the "perfect" Mead is debatable and dependent upon the pallet of those who taste it, it is possible to create a Mead that best suites your own pallet.
But first, it is important for you to define what that pallet is. One way to do that is to try a variety of different white wines for example, to help determine what sweetness level and body you wish to emulate in your Mead. As a general guideline, most Meads are created with about 1 to 2 gallons of honey, filled to a total of 5-gallons in a glass carboy, with a specific yeast type for fermentation.
As discussed in the section above, by nature, honey does not want to ferment. It is our job as Meadmakers to correct this problem. It is also important to note that while honey may contain microorganisms in dormant forms, it is not necessary to boil it for sanitization.
In fact, boiling honey will strip it of most of its wonderful aromas as well as further break down the sugars resulting in a solution of more simplex sugars and water instead of to complicated array of sugars.
Keep in mind that this does not mean there are no living organisms in honey to worry about. In fact, there is potential for microbes to be present in spore or dormant form, but they are not active enough in the normal state of honey to cause the organism reproduce and contaminate the honey. Though there is some concern that these spores can cause a problem once the honey is diluted to fermentation levels. It is necessary to first dilute the honey to reduce its osmotic pressure and allow it to sustain single celled organisms, such as yeast.
It is a good idea to take the 1 to 2 gallons of honey and dilute is with an equal amount of water prior to adding to the carboy. The reason for the heating process is not necessarily for sanitation purposes, although it does reduce the potential for the spores to begin to populate and develop.
The primary benefit for heating the honey is to help it dissolve and more importantly, allow the proteins and waxes found in the honey to be removed.
Using a screen skimmer or spoon, continue to scoop up this layer as it forms. In addition to removing proteins and wax from the honey solution, heating allows the volatile and unstable peroxide H 2 0 2 to break down and become water H 2 0 and free Oxygen O 2.
Once the honey solution appears to be clean and the top layer is no longer appearing, pour this solution into a sanitized carboy and continue to dilute to 5-gallons. It is an old myth to state that it takes 1-year to ferment Mead. Those who say that may have not attempted to use proper and acceptable techniques that decrease this time to a more reasonable 4-weeks. Highest on the list of techniques, is to increase the acidic 3.
Most yeast perform their best at a pH close to neutral 7. There are a number of techniques that can be used to add fruit to a Mead and creating a Melomel. Most common among the fruit types are Cherries, Blueberries, Blackberries, Grapes Pyments , Strawberries, Raspberries, and an assortment of others.
It is important to note that the three most important things about adding fruit are as follows. Tasted my results by the way. Not unreasonably dry, and delicious if a bit strong One thing I was wondering however, there is some unused space in the 5 gallon glass carboy probably due to the amount I reserved for SG readings and taste-testing. Should I be concerned? There IS still some fermentation activity going on, so my inclination is not to worry, but better ask than be wrong Nurmey I love making Beer Lifetime Supporter.
I don't think your mead is finished if you used Redstar Curvee. My understanding with beer is that you still want a slight bit of activity of fermentation going on The reason is that the slight bit of fermentation that is happening still in the secondary will create a c02 barrier and prevent the beer or wine from getting oxygen exposed to it. I do my transfer sooner rather than later.
If you waited till the primary was long overdue and put the wort or must into a secondary you would be allowing oxygen get to it so I transfer into my secondary when I start to see a slow down. If there is no activity at all I blow some c02 from my tank into the head space of the secondary to make a barrier myself.
So far so good. When to transfer will vary depending on your recipe. With Mead you want to transfer it a few times leaving behind the layer in the bottom until what you end up with is clear and pure. I am a novice with mead but I will still apply what I learned with the beer.
Keep the oxygen out by keeping the siphon hose in the bottom the secondary and I'll purge the carboy with co2 etc. This is a subject that I was trying to wrap my head around a while back. When I did some longer fermentations where the primary would last a month I was like huhh?
I'm always learning more as I go along. Relaxing and having a homebrew is one of those things that stands out in life. Descender Well-Known Member. You want the smallest amount of headspace possible for secondary. Put some marbles in there till it gets almost to the tube.
Then leave it alone for at least a month. Joined Nov 20, Messages 11 Reaction score 0. I don't know If I ruined 5 gallons of mead or is it still fixable. I use 4. The alcohol scale on your hydrometer is the "potential" alcohol if you were starting at that gravity. As the sugar gets converted to alcohol the potential goes down. The scale that you're really interested in is the one with numbers from 0.
It'll go down towards 1. Thank you for the quick and very helpful responce. You must log in or register to reply here. Similar threads S. Secondary fermentation helps separate the sediment from the final product until you have a clear, golden mead. Your mead is ready to be bottled when it has cleared and the fermentation has stopped. You should be able to look into the glass carboy and see that the yeast has fallen to the bottom.
Mead should sit in secondary fermentation for a minimum of eight weeks. You can also determine when the secondary fermentation is finished with a gravity reading. I made Cyser as a mead virgin. It fermented 5 weeks and I racked it into a carboy. When it sat for 2 weeks I racked for my secondary and added spice, ie. How long is enough time to flavor the Cyser?
Thank you. Hi Keith! I would taste it after 3 days and see how you feel about the flavor. After the first 3 days, check the flavor every day and pull the bag of spices out when you are satisfied.
Typically, days is plenty to spice mead, cyser or cider. Your email address will not be published. Save my name and email in this browser for the next time I comment. There are plenty of reasons to brew on a stove. You might have limited space for storing equipment. You may just prefer not to buy Induction burner brewing is one of the easiest and most effective methods for indoor homebrewers. Learn more about how it works, plus the pros and cons.
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