Honestly I tend to binge your videos so a long one is no issue for me. Just more brew fun to watch. As always appreciate your approach, and I have learned soo much from you over the years. Thank you and keep being awesome
I appreciate the length of the video. Its alot of steps and i prefer the longer single video than several short videos. Its nice to listen to whilst driving and not have to video scan for the next one.
I used to use the no mix method a LOT for my meads... you CAN dump all of the honey in up front and let the yeast find it as it slowly dissolves into the must... 👍
It doesn't really take that long to dissolve, just a few days. The only thing is that you have to guess (calculate) the original gravity instead of measuring it directly. Your honey may vary but the variance is miniscule. Crystalized honey has less water but not by much.
The yeast choice was probably a huge factor for the brew working. no fancy fruit esthers or floral tones, just a fermentation ANIMAL of a yeast. Also brownian motion.those yeast clumps and bubbles from the fermentation do move the brew in the fermentor quite a bit, and got the honey mixed. Would be pretty cool to watch a time lapse video to see how long it takes to get mixed in.
I was so sad Brian didn’t thwack his packet when they started this, he gave it a couple teaser bumps but I really missed the thwacking!! Love the vids guys!!
As i calculated, your drink is having 10.5 gr of residuiual sugars per litre. So it its semi dry and close to semi sweet. Really good video and experiment.
Sitting and watching this while drinking a cognac infused cherry mead that you inspired me to do a while back. Not only is it delicious, but you are now inspiring me to try to do a dump mead 😁😆😅🤣😂
You should have done this. And then that. After you should have spinned around three times. Jumped over it five times. And done twentyfive burpees. It is hard to make mead. Not! Very nicely done as always. Thank you for sharing.
Bit of a brew clarity/sediment reduction hack: pasteurize in a large vessel before bottling and let it come back down to room temp under airlock for a day or two. Yeast and other sediment in suspension should settle and you can rack off of it to bottle to avoid sediment in the bottles!
With a big underscore under "wait" part. I didn't because I wasn't patient and after 2-3 days I assumed I did something wrong. Lo' and behold, I have a half an inch of sediment at the bottom of every bottle from that batch... 🤯
Just wanted to say I've been binge watching your videos and they are super helpful. Your attitudes especially towards younger meads are greatly appreciated. As a new-bee I was turned off after making my first batch since most folks say you can't drink until 6mos-1yr. Aint nobody got time for that! Just finished tasting my 4wk acerglyn and will be serving(showing off) to friends next weekend!
In 2008 I bought two dozen quarts of pure honey ($4.00 quart then) from a fellow who had his hives in a peach orchard. Big storm, peaches fell, bees swarmed. Even 14 years later honey tastes like peaches. Watched your video, threw together a batch last week. Used local apple cider instead of water. Cooking right alone, smells wonderful. Thinking of "Dumping" more honey after watching this video...after it settles down of course..
Thank the both of you. Fun video, and experiment. You pointed out that it was a long video, I will still watch your videos long or short. I know they are going to be good Take care, and Brew on...
Very interesting to me. I have been stressing a little about head space in my fermenters and my "conditioning" vessels when I rack my meads. I see that head space in your vessel was not a problem and I know it was active basically from start to finish, just took more time. What this showed me was not to stress over head space unless it's alot. The saying" don't fret the small stuff" comes to mind. Truly an eye opener. I did notice you guys kept the high quality of sanitation thru the whole process. Thank for this!!!
If you leave it from start to finish, or rack after about a month, head space is not an issue because you'll always have CO2 in there because it takes a few months to fully degas on its own. . If you should degas it, then I would worry about it, or, if you leave it for many many months... I was so confused by the different ways everyone was making mead when I started 18 months ago. Right now it's so simple - I pour in honey and water, add a tea and raisins, mix it well and leave it for 3 months. I don't use airlocks, I don't bother with gravity readings to see if it's done, I don't degas, I usually leave it on the lees (some I rack after 1 month), and they always come out amazing and 4/5 clear nicely in 3 months by themselves (some need 6 months).
No complaints here. Gonna start my first mead next week. Glad to know that even if I dont do it just right it still has a good chance of working out. Thanks.
I think the fermaid o helped immensely. It would be interesting to see you do the same recipe and process minus the nutrient and see how that batch compares.
You said it right and you're welcome. I use the caps on all my one gallon fermenters now. I had to adapt them with a small piece of thin drain tube to get the air locks to fit though.
You guys are a huge inspiration for me. I just started two batches of mead, one purely traditional, and one using the beginner tisane (with a slight modification, apple peels instead of orange zest. I amk so happy you are still making content, and i cant wait to see more!
Thanks for the shout out, Brian. We normally brew in five gallon buckets, so we usually have a good bit of liquid left at the bottom with the lees. Sometimes I like to dump it in a big cup, and sit it in the fridge overnight. It will settle out, and I can easily get an extra 6-8oz of wine, or mead that would have otherwise been dumped down the drain. Other times I like to put the glass in the freezer for an hour, or two. The leftovers turn into a slushy. I don't really notice the extra grit when it's mixed in with the ice crystals. Follow me for other wine milk tips, and recipes!
Racked for second time and bottled my first batch of peach honey mead. It has stopped it fermentation after 5 weeks. Clear as Golden evening rays of the sun... (Got 3 more slightly altered each batches going.) Bottled half as mead. Fortified the other half with 100 proof vodka as per your directions from another video. Good God! Both are delicious! Gonna let both set a few months...Making mead is habit forming just for the work and results...So easy!
I got airlocks from amazon (UK) and the caps sealed the airlock!!!!! Yes. I put some pin holes in the caps and they work fine but I could never understand why they were sealed.. Love the show by the way.
Great video, or a compilation of many. Can't wait to get my hands on the equipment required and start with some apple/ pear juice cider before moving to mead. You guys are a fab couple, thanks for replying to my comment I made earlier today
I was so confused by the different ways everyone was making mead when I started 18 months ago. Right now it's so simple - I pour in honey and water, add a tea and raisins, mix it well and leave it for 3 months. I don't use airlocks, I don't bother with gravity readings to see if it's done, I don't degas, I usually leave it on the lees (some I rack after 1 month), and they always come out amazing and 4/5 clear nicely in 3 months by themselves (some need 6 months).
Love the vid, thanks guys. I loved this experiment, here is another (that you could do) you could buy fruit (grapes) from 5 different countries of origin in a shop and make a starter on each. Pitch it into 5 different brews. Would it smell and taste different? Would it go to different ABVs? I would love to see this experiment done by someone competent - not me :)
I accidently, slightly did this for my first Mead, when 2 weeks into primary fermentation I realised that you are in US Gallons, not UK. That explained why my OG was so low when I'd followed your recipe! So I dumped another jar of honey in. Looking good so far, I even added the spices from your spiced metheglin. Now I just need to do the 'stay out of its way' bit!
Thank you so much for this video series; I will be starting this mead this morning! On a side note, Florida Law says that if two (or more) different nectar sources comprise the honey, it has to be labeled as "Wildflower". I'm sure Bevy could give you the possible sources that comprised her Wildflower honeys (depending on the location and time of year the bees made it). Love your channel!
Have to admit I have a mega maid myself and I just pull the airlock out and pull a sample that way. To put my sample back I pull the plunger out of the syringe and use the barrel and tube as a funnel.
On the topic of airlock caps. Mine has 3 small indents molded into the inner top of the cap, so the end of the airlock will not fit snug right to the top. A third way of fitting. :)
This is how I make All my Brew. But little more primitive. I used bread yeast. One time I used dehydrated strawberries. IT turned into about a 14% strawberry jam. Very tasty stuff. Buttered toast & jam??? Forget about it ☺️. The toast that says "You drunk.... Am not drunk.... Face!" .....
Another informative video 👍 I'll have to watch this a few more times before I'll be "almost" ready to try one of your recipes. I'm waiting for the "big blue bucket of sterilization" and star-san to get here.😁 Looking forward to trying bananas with light brown sugar 👍
hey guys i recently watched a vid on fermented lemonaid aka skeeter pee on doin the moast where he used a blue berry ferment to start the yeast colony. since that was on a 10 gal. scale i was wondering if u could do this on a 1 gal. brew and how u would go about making the blue berry starter. if u could make this i would be just tickled. thanks love all ur content keep it up
*Long commet sorry* I made my first brew, apple cider, and it smells sour😬. Honestly I'm a little impatient by nature and checked it after two weeks . Tried it and tested to see if it was done fermenting, it went dry. Came back two weeks later to rack and now it sour smelling. Should I pour it out? Info on the brew is store apple juice and dark brown sugar starting gravity 1.060 ending 1.000. Fermented in one gallon glass jar, air lock, and every thing was sanitized with star san.
Word of warning on those caps, be careful they break. Maybe I'm just going the full Hercules when screwing them on or putting the airlock in, but they don't seem to last for me. I know some of the breaks were from putting the airlock in (crack in the center hole). I can only attribute the breaks along the top edge to be material failure. Because of this I have switched back to bungs. Maybe its just me, but I recommend keeping an eye out just in case.
Very cool. As long as it ferments below 82 degrees F, you should not get any smells from fermentation. You could put some cheap Vodka or sanitizer water in your airlock which will mask the smell extremely well and then some. I find that if I ferment right at or above 84 degrees F with the distiller's active dry yeast, I get that nasty rotten egg smell. Anything below that and I don't get that smell.
+1 For Mozart! I have a question about oaking. My traditional was done fermenting and super clear. I've added oak chips soaked in Cognac, after I've added them it looked like it started fermenting again. Foam on top and lots of bubbles. My OG was 1130 and the brew was on 1010 when it cleared, I used D47. My brew also lost the clarity it had before I added the oak. The oak was in for 2 weeks and I've just racked it. The taste is great. Oh the question did the oak chips somehow kicked off fermentation again, or does adding them cause major degassing?
I know nothing of traditional mead making. However, if I lived in legacy times. If I had managed to get wild yeast, and the mead tastes good then I imagine that I would drink some mead add more honey and water and just keep my batch going for a while.
The “big, silly, stupid” bottle lined up with a jar on the shelf behind you, which made it look like it had an extra long neck and made it look even more big, silly, and stupid. 😸
I just tried to look this up... I think this video is mislabeled! It's our Dump Mead, the one we didn't mix. The one year is already available: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HML8Gjnv250.html
I had 7 brews in active fermentation as in they were all started within 3 weeks.. I walked into the house and asked "who is making brats?" Nobody was home.. it was the beer smell from all of fermentations
I saw your cider video today then noticed the mead ones which I have been watching. I started thinking I might give that a go, then I remembered I did give it a go so went to the cupboard and sure as hell two five litre bottles with dried out airlocks, one with mead and one with red wine, I don't remember doing the wine!. So question, how long can they be left sitting? They look clear and no nasty odours .
Most likely you lucked out but there is no way for us to say for sure. Your description makes me think that the worst that may have happen was a bit of oxygenation. Normally when something really bad occurred you would see and or smell the results. The choice is yours on if you wish to give it a taste to see if it is good to bottle.
I started in Sept 2021 a 3gal batch blackberry wine using store bought pie filling. The ingredients was blackberries and sugar nothing else. Before bottling the abv was just under 10%. So I added more sugar to a separate 1gal. Then I added oxygen to it. It still has not turned to vinegar yet. I'm using bakers bread yeast. What did I do wrong to not make vinegar
Well my abv by my calculation is around 9.18 if I use the 131.25 and around 9.45 if I use the 135 coefficients. So I add added O2 and shuck the bejesus out of it many times. If it doesn't work from that I may try the vinegar idea thanks.
you know, in line with the myth bunking and experiments, I'd love to see one where you clean everything not in starsan and instead a different method (oven sanitization for glass?) I bet that'd be a fun thing to do. or better yet, how about a no san brew which is clean and disinfected ( washed, soaped, and dried) but not nearly as consistent with the sanitizing everything. I bet that would be tough to do (if not because you'd be stressin' during the process :P )
We've had this come up a few times. The thing is, if we are trying to promote good practices, then showing anything less than that in a video works against the message, if that makes sense? What can happen? It can spoil and you have to throw it away. We're not huge fans of waste by any means, so it just doesn't feel like something we want to show off to the world.
heyo, dave from utah here. i have two gallons going, and just bought 9 more gallon containers to brew in. i used 1118 and have 3 ish pounds in one and 4 ish pounds in the other. i put raisins, fermaid-o, and some black tea in both. how are the hang overs from a mead that have been back sweetened? always have heard the more sugar the worse the hang over the next morning.
This is the first time I've seen an add on one of your videos for brewing supplies. It's almost as if the you tubes figured out you're a brewing channel. 😁
Have you guys tried Lavin K1V1116? Just wondering what you guys think of it if you've tried it. According to the Lavin style guide, K1 seems to be a good all around yeast, with high abv tolerance
this is my comment to the hard cider video but I thought you guys would see it if I put it here Can you do this in a plastic bucket with not perfect insulator and can the size Be different than 1 gallon( Like 2 gallos or 10 l )? How much Space should there Be between the lid and the cider? Does it make the end result (in time or quality) different and how if you use bread yeast vs wine yeast? (in cider) is wine yeast best yeast to use? (in cider)
I prefer glass, but plastic is fine. Yes, our recipes scale. For primary fermentation, headspace doesn't matter. Yeast choice can have all kinds of effects. To say one is better or worse is very subjective. I suggest trying to use the same yeast we did in whatever recipe you watched.
Your original volume was not 1.2, to be more accurate figure the gravity for the first at 1 gallon the second at 1.1 and the 3rd addition at 1.2. But the differnece is insignificant any way.
Concluding that it must be the type of sugar - or yeast - or sugar - yeast combination that gives a sulfurous smell, & doesn't have to do with oxygenating water, water is H2O so whether you shake the bejezus out of it or not, there are tons of oxygen molecules encapsulated within. Or maybe because you use a nutrient for the yeast they doesn't release such vile aromatic gases. Once I had a canned cider that shall not be named to spare them the despair, & it smelled so nasty as the sulfur smell is known to be - like farts lol.
Not really no. Well, you would need so much to do it that it wouldn't be practical and would drastically alter the flavor. Sodium citrate causes headaches in a lot of people too, so I wouldn't recommend it.
@@CitySteadingBrews I have about four jars of black currant preserves from England and I was considering incorporating them into a mead, but they have sodium citrate in them.
@@rootinteuton966Sodium citrate is just what you get when citric acid is neutralized with sodium bicarbonate (or similar basic sodium salts). Citric acid is perfectly harmless to a good brew, provided the pH isn't too low, which can be counteracted by partial neutralization with sodium bicarbonate among other options. Sodium citrate is then left in the brew which is still totally harmless to a good brew. Of course, it's all in the dose, funky things might happen at too high doses like citrate chelating all the minerals yeast requires out of solution, but if it's safe to eat it's probably safe to ferment. Hopefully you've succeeded by now and made a decent brew out of it.
