Mead update

Things smell pretty good in my house right now. ^ _^ Well, except for something under my desk, but I'll clean later, it's time for more meading right now!

I strained the berries out of the blueberry batch, but sorry I didn't get any pictures. It was a tedious and messy process and I didn't want to get my sticky berry hands on the camera. When I say 'messy' I mean like move the kitchen rug out of the way, go barefoot and wear clothes that you don't mind being stained purple messy. But look at its pretty colors! I really like how the Montrachet yeast gives up a nice deep burgundy. I used it on some raspberry mead once and it was positively pink!

Some little bubbles. I also forgot to take a gravity reading, but I bet it's almost completely done fermenting considering how lifeless the airlock is.

See? Barely pushing the lock thinger up.

And here's the big kahuna dry! Very done fermenting, now just enjoying a nice calm clarification period.

I'm always fascinated by how the temperature affects my little yeasties. Come sundown the water level will be, uh, level. During the day they get a little warm and upitty and push the water a tiny bit. I might hear a bubble once or twice a day, compared to before when it was a pleasant blooping more than once a second.

Yeast graveyard at the bottom. Thanks for your service, little ones!

Now we wait and let them clarify naturally. I probably won't touch them again until just before Amanda and Mike's wedding.

Tamarack Blueberry mead

Blueberry mead!

I started a batch of blueberry last week for my lovely farmers and friends at Tamarack Hollow Farm, but I really goofed up and added too much sterilizer to the berries. Time to try again. Here I've got 10lbs of their tasty blueberries crushed into a vessel with 2.5tsp of pectic acid and 0.5tsp (0.5tsp, Sarah. Not 5tsp >_< ) of potassium metabisulphite mixed in. I let this sit for a little over 24hrs to make sure any wild yeasties or bacteria on the berries were killed off.

I prepared the honey the same way as in Tamarack dry mead but without the citric acid, then mixed it in to my berry must along with enough water to get to the gravity I wanted. This batch has a gravity of about 85 (it's higher than the dry mead because the berries lend some sugar, too). A gravity of 85 will yield an alcohol content of 11.something%.

I'm going to do a fermentation on the berries for a day or two to really pull the berry flavour and colour out. This is just after I pitched the yeast (I'm using RedStar's Montrachet) and you can see it's already getting a little bubbly.

Oh hey, look what I woke up to this morning...Maybe I'll change its name from Tamarack Blueberry to Boomshakalaka Blue. I scooped out some berries, resterilized the bung and airlock and popped them back on, and began scrubbing my walls...- _ - Hopefully everything will be ok, we'll know in about a week!

Tamarack dry mead, part deux.

More mead time!

The dry mead for my lovely farmers and friends Amanda and Mike at Tamarack Hollow Farm has been bubbling away nicely for about a week, but it's calmed down now and it's time for some racking! To quote my cute little book All About Mead by S.W. Andrews that I got for $1 at a church book sale "The golden rule is to rack whenever an appreciable amount of sediment is observed on the bottom of the container." I think this batch qualifies now. Another good indicator for when to rack is if the fermentation has slowed down; less than a bubble per second from the airlock.

Racking is the act of using suction through a tube to pull the liquids you want off of the liquids you don't want. Yeast is wonderful and amazing, but too much of it doesn't make your mead taste good in the long run. Racking gives you a way of transferring the clearer liquid without shaking up the dead yeasties at the bottom. Be sure to sterilize your racking equipment; tube, the vessel you'll be racking into, other bits and pieces such as bungs, airlocks, funnel and cloth for straining, the hydrometer and its test tube.

Got some suction going! It's a good idea after sucking the liquid into the tube to dip the piece you put your mouth on in to some sterilizer before putting it into the other vessel.

Be sure to take a sample. ^ _^ it's still a little cloudy, but that's to be expected at this stage. As the batch goes through its second less vigorous fermentation it'll clear up nicely, so long as we don't jostle it too much.

Take a gravity reading, looks like this one is almost completely fermented!

Done racking! you can see I saved some of the liquid that was right at the bottom in some smaller bottles. Now I gotta lift that thing. -_ -

It's official when you transfer the label and update the gravity recording. ^ _^

Tamarack dry mead

I'm excited! Mike and Amanda, the awesome farmers from my CSA at Tamarack Hollow Farm are getting married this September! That's cool enough on it's own, but even cooler for me they've asked me to make them 10 GALLONS of mead for the celebration! They provided me with 20lbs of honey, 10 lbs of blueberries, and 2 months. Let's see if I can do this!

This is the most honey I've ever had in my possession in my entire life...^_ ^

Heat up some water, not to boiling.

Measuring. That's so much honey!

Be sure to lick the spoon you used to squeegee the honey out of the giant bucket.

Some additives to make the taste nice and dry and help the little yeasties grow big and strong.

Today we learn about density, kids. Just keep stirring and make sure it doesn't boil, it's bad for the flavors. THINK OF THE FLAVORS.

150°F should pasteurise our raw honey nicely. It's a good idea to do this just so nothing else grows. Raw honey lasts fine on its own, I think it's too thick for anything unfortunate to grow in it, but we're diluting it with lots of water.

Now we wait for the honey syrup to cool to 70°F. This is a good time to proof your yeast by adding it to a bit of warm water and letting it sit. Cover it though so nothing nasty gets in it.

Dump the honey syrup in a nice, clean, STERILE fermentation vessel. Mike and Amanda loaned me a monster 6gal carboy. Add water until your desired gravity is reached. Hydrometers are awesome and inexpensive. This batch is at a gravity of 70 which will hopefully equate to about 9.something% alcohol if our yeasties do their job well.

It's so big! Cap with an airlock and enjoy how awesome your place is going to smell for the next 2 weeks.

I pitched this (that means added the yeast; it's essentially when your meading begins) on 7/31/2012, and it's been bubbling away nicely for the last few days. I'm trying to get a picture of the bubbling airlock, but my skillz are not so skillzful.

Curried peanut zucchini noodles thingers

I STILL HAVE ZUCCHINI! ^ _^

What else is in the pantry? Ummm...Spaghetti, red onion, garlic, hot peppers, hot sauce, peanut oil, curry powder and some veggie bouillon...

PEANUT NOODLE TIME!

Guess who forgot to take a picture of everything chopped up and started throwing onions in a hot skillet with peanut oil? Me...

Sauté, sauté.

Sautéed. Huh, never knew that word had two 'e's when in the past tense.

Time for water, bouillon, curry powder, and an appropriate amount of peanut butter.

Waiting, waiting, get thicker sauce! Adding drops of hot sauce if I don't think it's spicy enough.

That's better!

Oh crap, as always I forgot to start the noodles.

Ok, 6 minutes to choppy choppy.

Glomming time! I used my hands. It's easier.

NOMS!