Breaking the Fruit Cap

Since this is my first time doing the whole "Melomel" thing, I have been documenting everything pretty extensively. This whole process requires a lot of doctoring throughout. While I know a lot of people do the fruit in the secondary, I went with the BYO article I saw and fruited in the primary. This creates a dynamic where you need to break up the fruit that collects at the top of the fermentor and allow the CO2 to escape while also introducing some O2 to the mix. I made a short YouTube video of the process:

Pretty interesting stuff right? It's actually pretty easy. I have been taking refractometer readings once or twice a day (when I break the fruit cap) and once I get to the proper gravity, I'll rack over into the secondary. So far it's moved about 10 brix since I pitched it. It's at a pace of 1 brix per day. My goal is 18brix (1.025). At this point, I just need to keep those little guys moving to get there! Cheers!

Mellow Meatball

Since my last shot at mead was named after my wife (Christa Meth), I figured it was only fair to name my first melomel after our mellow dog Meatball. So now we have Mellow Meatball.

The recipe was pretty basic as I wanted to get this whole mead thing right for once. Last time around it turned out WAY too dry and tastes like diesel fuel. I figure it can't get worse than that. I "brewed" this up last night (it's such a simple process that it's doesn't feel like brewing at all) and it was bubbling this morning so I think things are going well. Here is what I did, let me know if there is anything out of place:

Recipe
22lbs wild flower honey (bought from the local regional market) $65
20lbs frozen three berry mix (blueberry, raspberry and blackberry) $52
3 gallons of water - free
5tbs of yeast nutrient - had it
2packets of dried yeast (I threw away the yeast pack and didn't write down the type, but it wasn't champagne yeast) - $.89 each

Simple enough, right? I thawed out the frozen berry's in some water and dumped them into one of my buckets. I suddenly realized that there was a ton of extra water and I was concerned that there would not be enough space to have all the honey added so I strained off all the fruit. Once the fruit was strained, I mashed it with my hands to make a chunky puree.

In my second bucket, I sanitized and added the water and honey. I submerged all the honey jars into hot water to loosen up the honey. The honey was pretty loose and I was able to stir it into the water with relative ease. With all 22lbs of honey, there was just shy of 5 gallons of liquid at 1.155. I added that to the fruit and used my drill mixer to aerate the must.

For the yeast, I added both packets to 1/2 cup of water that was at about 106f. After this, I added some of the must to the yeast before dumping the whole thing into the mix. I stirred in the yeast nutrient and the yeast and it was time to cover up. Because the fruit was so close to the top, I decided to use a blow tube instead of a bubbler.

This morning I checked it and it was starting to bubble. According to the reading I have been doing, I am supposed to do something called "capping" which, from what I can tell, consists of popping the bung out once of twice a day to relieve the pressure because of the aggressive fermentation.

More to come on this, but I tasted it last night and it was good! Cheers.

***UPDATE***

I have been taking the gravity and so far it has moved from 1.155 to 1.131. I am also breaking the fruit cap and I will be posting up a video about that soon.

Meth Lab in my basement (*Updated!)

Got your attention right? I was looking to do a Mead using honey and some fruit (Cyser) and I got a recipe from a buddy on Beer Advocate that was for a Metheglin. I brewed this up without any cooking, heating or much else. It was quite easy and I made about 2 gallons of the stuff.

I am not going to be publishing the recipe as I told the author I would keep it on the down low. However, here are a few of my notes from that short brew day:

- After prepping all of the ingredients (some spices and ginger) along with cider and honey (that was from a local farm) I basically threw everything together and stirred for a while to aerate the mix.

- Me being the rocket surgeon that I am, I decided to put the cider in the fridge after I bought it and it was cold when I mixed everything. So I put my bucket into a sink with warm water until I got it up to room temp.

- I activated the tried yeast according to the directions and it did not seem to cause any problems. I am going to take a reading at the end of the week and see how I am doing.

- The OG was in the 1.200 range and should pan out to a nice strong drink. They say that it will take upwards of 6months for full maturation, so I get to wait on this.

I am going to bottle this up into 4 growlers when it's all said and done and it should be pretty good. I was put onto a great website called GotMead.com that has a lot of really useful information.

Cheers!

**Update**

So after the first week I took another gravity reading and there was no activity. I decided to stop of at EJ Wren's (my homebrew supply) and get a couple of extra packs of yeast to try and jump start this and Ed told me that I should get some Pectic Enzyme (like started fluid for your yeast according to him) and some Fermax Yeast Nutrient (like fertilizer for your yeast) to add into the mix.

I re-pitched last night after adding 1tbs of Pectic Enzyme and 2tbs of Fermax. I am still waiting on some results, but I think this might do it.

*one correction to make to the previous entry, the OG was not 1.200's, it was 1.100, I had taken the original reading a few days after I pitched and figured there was some action and tried to figure the difference, I had meant 1.120, but that was wrong as well. Anyhoo, it's a 1.100 for an OG and I am hoping for a lot of activity in the next few days.

** My wife has been asking me to name a brew after her so this will be Christa Meth!