Nobody EVER told me that diammonium Phosphate would stop being absorbed at 9% ABV. This is the first time I'm getting this information and it explains SO MUCH.
I’ve had a 16% yeast go over 20% a few years back. My plan was to put more honey in than they could handle, to save back sweetening my viking blood brew. It topped my hydrometer out at 20% and it still fermented out dry. I’m convinced it had something to do with cherries because that is the only time it has happened to me to that extent in 16 years of brewing.
I am on my 40th batch. I can really tell and taste the difference between my early meads and my later meads where I use nutrients. Also since I learned balancing. Practice makes perfect. I am making a pina colada mead right now and my version of your chai/pear mead.
Wow I have been binge watching Mead videos all week and just came across this one. This is the first video I actually took handwritten notes like I was in class 😂
Great video as usual! IMO, another mistake to avoid is not having a mead journal. Writting down every important info of what you are brewing is a huge help along time. Recipe, dates, OG, SG, yeast type and nutrients, honey type, quantities used, tasting notes, etc...
Hi Garret. I appreciate that you included talking about BALANCE. In my experience this is one of the most important aspects to creating really drinkable meads and learning about your own preferences. Balancing after ferment is so crucial in getting the most out of your brews.
Great run-down of the do’s and don’ts! It’s always good to be reminded and an excellent guide for beginners! Edit: My Teen’s comment on what stabilising actually is had me spewing my tea across the room when I overheard her explaining mead making & stabilising to a friend of hers. “It’s not the same but think of it as putting the yeast on the Pill. They won’t reproduce but they’ll still eat. So either you move your mead off the yeast colony afterwards or you kill them so they won’t eat the sugars you want to remain in there.” Gotta love teenagers. LOL
Great video, but I can suggest some more (and worse!) mistakes from personal experience. My first attempt was at 16. I didn't do any research beyond yeast + sugar = alcohol, so I put powdered ginger, water, sugar, and whatever yeast was in the cupboard in a demijohn with a solid bung in the conservatory and was surprised when it popped out and the contents went everywhere. My second attempt was at 18 in my first year of uni, making cheap wine with my friends. We didn't do any research beyond looking at the shelves in Wilko so the process was: 1) Sterilise a demijohn (improvement on the first time) 2) Fill it with fruit juice 3) Pour in a whole pot of yeast 4) Pour in a kilo of sugar 5) Pour in a whole pot of catalyst 6) Use an airlock (another improvement) 7) When it stopped fermenting, repeat steps 3-5 to make it restart (it was only a couple of days later that a chemistry student told us what a catalyst actually was and why adding more was a waste of time) 8) Syphon and drink Our wine still tasted better than that offered by the uni bar. The third attempt was at 24/25 and I made my first mead (plus some other things) without some of the comical mistakes. We didn't look at gravity or choose honey beyond what was on the supermarket shelves and it was still a very amateurish attempt, but we stumbled on a couple of decent batches. Now I'm 33 with a bit more time and trying to make good quality mead with a more serious and methodological approach and doing proper research and planning (I am taking notes for the first time) and going through a lot of your videos is very helpful.
Great video mate. Home brewers need to know about different yeast types and the effects they have in brews. I have started branching out and using different yeasts and have noticed the difference in smells during fermentation (fruity and floral aromas). It’s important to look after yeasts so they don’t get stressed as this could give off flavours in brews. Keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing more content 👍
I kinda wish someone had crunched the data to show which fruits (on average) need tanins or acids and which are already high enough in those respective categories
Unfortunately we could only come up with a guess because all fruits are so different and can have different amount of nutrients in them depending on where you get them!
@@ManMadeMead yeah I get that different minerals in the dirt their grown in even changes them, but we could get averages from a spreadsheet with a few samples
Tired: yeast are yeast Inspired: most yeast will do some form of fermentation if it's what you've got but properly caring for and pairing your yeast qualities to your beverage will give you a much better rate of success! It's super cool to see you update this video with a deeper understanding years later. Appreciate the information as always!
Thank you so much for this. I fell in love with mead when I first tried it. Your channel has helped me tons when I decided to have a go at making it myself. Greetings from Norway!
A few points to add here. The honey matters a lot. Personally found D47 to often produce bad straight meads and reasonable success on melomels. Ive been working on trying many honey types and sources to making blends. Part of my plans to maybe one day have a meadery. Now were I question is the trifecta. I rely on the ingredients and starting ph value. I do use nutrients. So far only a few rejects but not due to lack of acid or sweetness but overall flavor profile, or adjucts as Doin the Most dubbed it. Im sure there is a time for using powders additives. I may eventually get to needing it but so far people like my product. Often noting its far superior to commercial. I think there is room in experimenting with the trifecta, not saying no to it. Just if you rely on tinkering to a dubbed perfect balance. You might miss the nuance of mead itself and what the honey has to offer.
love that you like the sythwave asthetic.. im also a fan.. prob inspired the cool rgbs behind you i guess :) ive made 5 gallons so far.. learnt alot from you in the process
All very good information .. One thing that allways gets to me. "Traditional mead"would not have all the extra's ( nutrients and energizers) YES, your mead is better with them , but I make it with just honey and water ! Sometimes it works ,sometimes not.. I just want to use the least amount of chemicals I can.
I definitely think a mead can possibly turn out alright without nutrients... but why run the risk when you're dealing with such an expensive commodity like honey! Nutrients don't affect flavors. They just give you an insurance policy that your brew will ferment well!
@@ManMadeMead Very true ,I fully agree with you. However I am an "Historical interpreter " and need to use no modern equiptment or techniques. This means trying to work out the best "ancient" way it was done.
Great tips, especially about the yeasts. I bought a bunch of Lalvin strains when I first started and was surprised at how different they all tasted. Have you tried testing different qualities wildflower honey? Like a blind tasting of a trad made from a local wildflower honey vs Kirkland
If one likes to secondary (or have the option) or even if you just like being able to fill every bottle all the way rather than leaving one with too much headspace that you have to drink green, you can't beat primary in a 4l bottle you bought cheap wine in. If you rack into a 1gal secondary, it's full. If you go straight to 8 or 16 oz bottles, they are all full.
Have you ever taken the OG before adding the yeast? Or is it always taken before adding the yeast? I am going to start making mead. Since I’m hooked on beekeeping I thought I try it. I gave away many pounds of honey with the response that I’d get a bottle in return. Only once did I receive a bottle in return. Where you at I can send you some honey for your videos if you want? What are the 5 jars filled with the white twist tops over your right shoulder? Honey?
I always take OGs after adding the yeast! You can send anything to my PO Box : PO Box 162, Oklahoma City OK 73101. Those are half gallon brews. I have a bunch of various ones so it’s hard to say!
if anyone has issues with smell,i have a super solution. i use only activated charcoal in the airlocks! 1-2 tablespoons is enough for a long time. the airlock is rarely useful since the yeast produce enough co2 to push out all other gasses,and co2 is heavier than air. just leave the containers alone and theres no reason why anything should go wrong. ive left batches of stuff for months. i had a banana mash that sat for at least 8 months. as long there is fermentation you dont need an airlock!
I have been home brewing for 2 months now (thanks to the MMM & DTM channels, among some others) and made 10 different mead recipes. Only 2 of them are ready to consume at this time and they're still young. I had to stop making more because i have yet to learn if those i have made are any good or need adjustment. What was it Tom Petty said about the waiting...?
I liked the part about recipes and not actually liking how it turns out. My first mead was a recipe recommended for beginners and tastes a bit like orange peel - because orange peel is in it. Aaaaaand I hate it. My second mead was me just winging it, and I love it. It's a cyser bochet with cinnamon.
So for someone who wants to try for a first time. I want a smooth and sweet mead that lingers on the tongue. Bunnratty Meade co. Is the only mead that I've found that I like. Others have been too much bite or sour. Any tips to make a similar brew?
Regarding attenuation, I think it's important to note that it's not really relevant to mead. It's about how much of the more complex sugars (maltose, maltotriose, and other polysaccharides) that are found in a typical beer wort that the yeast can digest. Putting 75% attenuating beer yeast into a mead and expecting it to stop with 25% of the sugar left is going to lead to disappointment because it will easily chew through all of the simpler sugars present. This is also why you don't see attenuation listed on the wine yeasts commonly used in mead making. For the simple sugars from honey and/or fruit they can always attenuate 100% assuming all other factors are met (YAN, temp range, below ABV tolerance, etc). But if you use those yeasts in a beer you will often end up below 50% attenuation because wine yeasts are unable to break down most of the complex sugars that beers yeasts evolved to deal with.
Hi, i just want to ask simple question. Why everybody use auto siphons for wine making? Portable usb charging water dispenser pump is very cheap and doing whole thing easier. Is there a bad side that I don't know about? Is it safe to use or should i buy a siphon? Thanks...
Considering the number of different yeasts and nutrients on the market, there is no way to say what a particulary yeast and nutrient combination does until someone you know or yourself tried it. For example my brews always were fine with "moonshiners choice" until I tried a yeast/nutrient combination called old polish mead which produced nothing good.
Just an idea. If you are making batches back to back, would the left over lees be able to be used as a type of nutrient for the following batch? Especially of making the same base primary
So they wouldn't become nutrient until you kill the yeast off. So you could theoretically take the let over lees and heat it up and then add that to your new brew as nutrient!
So I made a really nice banana mead for gifts and it turned out great, start 1.123 fin 1.012 ABV 14.8% corked bottles, I used mead yeast with a tolerance of 18%, gave out the delicious "finished" product and concerned that I just gifted a bunch of bombs... this is my first fermentation ever but is 1.012 to high to bottle? (And gift) 😬
I bought a kit off of amazon. Used black locust honey and unfortunately didn't pay enough attention to directions. Instead of leaving airlock on when degassing, I took it off and used my finger to cover the hole in stopper. I shook it around . It barely foamed up. I did follow directions on when to add ingredients. I used the suggestion of letting it sit for an extra 3 weeks past the 30 day mark, stopping the degassing 10 days prior to bottling. It stunk really bad and its not clear. It has either the yeast or nutrients floating on top and the rest settled to the bottom. I was afraid to go past due date so I bottled it, not doing a great job on the syphoning. I used swing top bottles. it was a little foamy but I didn't seal until foam stopped. Is it ruined? It wasn't clear, had floating stuff in it and smelled horrible. I have plenty of black locust honey and was thinking the next batch I could use apple juice in place of the water as suggested on the directions. But Im reading so many different suggestions I don't know which to follow. One yeast doesn't need nutrients and pretty much the rest does, with honey. I want a sweet taste.
I really want to start a couple of bottles. It's winter now and there are some days that get under 60° In my kitchen. I guess that I could bring the bottles into my bedroom. Should I wait until spring, or go for it ♥
Great list! The best advices on it in my opinion would be: no, not all yeast are the same and take care of your yeast, give them what they need. Yeast is yeast is true in as much as dogs are dogs and cats are cats is true. Yeah they have the same genus but a poodle and a german sheppard aren't exactly the same, just as your home cat and a siberian tiger or african lion, aren't exactly the same nor can they do the same things. So, all yeast are the same philosophy is going to make your brew ferment into mead, in the case of using the bread yeast the fermentation might even look spectacular...but, it definitely isn't necessarily going to make your mead drinkable. At any rate, those two advices have been the most beneficial for me personally, and the second one about taking care of your yeast especially. Step feeding for example has done wonders for my brews! 👍
I have a basic mead that I started on the 10 of Dec 23 so it has been going for 4 months, about a month and a half ago it stopped off gassing. I have left if on its lees and it is VERY dry for me. I want to back sweeten it with fruit juice concentrate, so I thought to heat pasteurize it first. Here is where bad can go to worse my idea: is it okay to put the mead w/o lees into a pressure cooker to not cook off the alcohol, then when cooled down back sweeten and bottle or age in a carboy. it is now open season on any and all comments and advice, thx
I’m just getting into this stuff. And my first batch I used 23oz of corn syrup, 12oz blueberry syrup and 5lbs of sugar in my 5 gallon batch. It’s been almost a month and it read as 14.3% abv. And it tastes great.
@@anthonylauderdale1250you should check out the book “Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers” by Stephen Buhner. Brewing doesn’t have to be as complicated as modern people make it out to be. Sugar, Water, Yeast, and maybe some type of herb. People have made alcohol for thousands of years without any modern equipment.
I want to make my first Mead this spring. I have a lot of experience as a Homebrewer and my father is a beekeeper so I have easy access to high quality local honey and some experience concerning fermentation. I really like the fruited Meads of Pips and Schramm but I also can imagine those are quite difficult to make... Nonetheless how would you go about making a clone of one of their meads and what should I look for?
If you made #3 into a whole video with more detail I would definitely watch it. This is often touched on but not explained in great detail. If I have something off it is in this section.
Hi buddy, thanks a lot for the explanation! Quick question, is it possible to produce mead in a bid plastic jar? Where we bottle natural water (20lt plastic jar), thanks.
I've read that it's better to pasteurize after back sweetening because back sweetening afterwards runs the risk of introducing new wild yeast to the brew and starting up fermentation again, is there any reason why you should back sweeten after pasteurization?
How do you know what nutrient schedule you need for a nutrient slapped with a house brew name like the shop name. Is there a schedule like fermaid o or is it just in the beginning with the yeast.
I just made my first batch of mead last night using craftabrew’s mead making kit. I woke up this morning to what looks like yeast overflow in my 3 piece airlock. I don’t think I left enough head room, and I’m not really sure what to do next. Have any suggestions?
Been watching your shorts and it seems interesting. I dont like the taste of very strong alcohol so i was curious can someone explain what mead taste like exactly when made correctly (all thing's go well as planned) I see people mention its similar to a wine. Generally i guess mead will come out around 10-15 abv, would that cause a very strong alcohol flavor or is mead something you would be able to drink a mouthful at a time and be pleasant? I ask because i may try to make some in the future but would like to avoid so if it generally has a very strong alcohol taste. Strong to me in my mind is like vodka, whiskey (obviously I'll think it safe to assume it isn't that strong haha) where as something more comfortable is like beer or store bought wine. Thanks in advance for any information
my 2 recomendations 1. Keep it off the ground. the ground will suck the heat out and it won't ferment. 2 use good quality UNPASTURISED honey. honey has its own yeast I regularly get 19/27% alcohol because i use a lot of good honey
What school of thought do you belong to concerning hydrometer readings below 1.0? I personally believe it is the result of a high alcohol brew where the alcohol has reduced the SG of the wine/mead below that of water enough to measure. Not where the yeast has consumed extra special secret sugar producing more alcohol than originally expected.
Hi Garret! I have a question about section 2 of your video. How does yeast health tie into stabilization by ABV? I've got a brew going on right now, the yeast isn't in top shape, but it's still doing fine (fermented a hundred points of sugar in 10 days) Will stabilization by ABV create stressed flavours? Cheers!
So really the only tie there is if your yeast are healthy and alive enough to continue fermenting and you add more sugar - they will start to ferment again. If you stabilize the brew, you are essentially halting the yeast and now allowing them to ferment anymore. This will give you the ability to back sweeten without fear of the yeast refermenting. The stabilizing process is normally done after the yeast are done fermenting, which means they won't create off flavors. If you try to stabilize while the yeast are still active - they could possibly throw off flavors into the brew. If you want to halt fermentation before it's finished you will want to cold crash the brew and then rack it off the yeast. Then you will want to stabilize it! I hope this helps! Cheers!
Great Video! Very informative. Just a suggestion, it would be better if you pre plan the content so that the delivery becomes crisp and the viewers get more value out of the time spent. The same video can be made in 15 min I guess if the delivery is planned better.
Hello, Garret! Your videos are very useful especially for beginners ad me personnally. Do you mind if I translate this one and some of your videos for my channel? I translate best experience and practices in beekeeping for Ukranian and Russian audience. I will certainly make links to the original channel as well as to the original videos. I monitor the comments etc. You can find examples of translations and links on my channel.
I'm about to buy some things to try and make mead off Amazon. I really love Viking Blod, and want to make my own. I'd like to get it as close as possible. Anyone have any tips or recipes ?
I have to disagree with you on something you say here 4:00. That yeast use yeast nutrient for fermentation. No, they do not. Fermentation happens solely and alone while the yeast cell is not dividing or growing and when no or trace amounts of oxygen are available to the yeast. This could be because of a sediment layer or because the batch is simply clouded in CO2 which is heavier than oxygen. Yeast also don't need yeast nutrient to survive, they need it to produce biomass (divide grow etc.). Alcohol is considered a secondary product and will be produced as long as no biomass is being produced. You brewers do this thing you call "degassing" which introduces some oxygen/removes CO2 from the brew but mostly (in my opinion) mixes up the layers separated by density. Since cerevisiae are not capable of anaerobic growth, obviously they will only consume a nutrient required for growth once oxygen is available. Yeast nutrient is essentially dead yeast powder (something you have more than enough of in the fermenter after fermenting for quite a while). I really don't see a benefit of adding yeast nutrient for division, as you will essentially have "yeast nutrient" floating around once the first yeast cells start dying. So far as having "healthy" yeast goes, I don't know where you got the idea yeast need it to survive but they really don't, they need it to divide.
I recall a video that mentions using a second strain of yeast to consume a different type of sugar in the mead if your fermentation stops prior to reaching the target final gravity, but I can't find it. Does anyone know which video that was or have information about that technique?
I think expert is going a step to far, knowledgeable is far more accurate, saying expert means you have no room to grow and are better than most ? But then again, we know that Children of today believe they know it all ;). Wait till you get to 70 or older and look back at this video, you will have a great chuckle.
YAN is Yeast Assimilable Nitrogen - which essentially just talks about how nutritious something is for the yeast because they need lots of nitrogen to ferment honey. Tartaric acid isn’t the same as cream of tartar and I always add acids to taste because every brew is different!
One thing that time won't heal? The off flavor that too much DAP gives you. Nearly a year later, and it still tastes every bit as off as it did when bottling. I am about ready to dump all but two bottles just to reclaim the bottles, and being stubborn to age to 2 years, and then 3 years. And that's a shame, because it was an ingredient that was a gift that I'm having difficulty replacing, wild Montana huckleberry syrup.
Hmm. Sometimes it can take 2 years for the off flavor of DAP to settle. Did you degas the brew during fermentation? There is often some way to fix things with chemistry or time!
Hi. Just set my first must and only after two days I can smell vinegar and not 100% sure if thats normal in early stage or should I scrap it and start over? Thanks.
@@ManMadeMead Hi. Thanks for your reply. Checked today and the smell while still noticeable is almost gone. So probably high concentration of CO2. On the other hand. I see that in US you make different or maybe one 'type' of mead. Here in poland we have four types. Depends on proportions we distinguish four: 1.5, double, triple and quadruple and those are 1 part honey/ half part water, 1 part honey/ 1 part water, 1part honey/ 2 parts water and 1p honey/ 3 parts water. 1.5 being the most expensive and rich ( it age minimum 8 years) and cost about $30 per 0.5L and less. Anyways, fingers crossed and will let you know in a month what happened with mine.
I have recently had some problems with a couple melomels I've made sour after after primary. When I first rack the they had the flavor I was looking for. After about 4 months it has lost the bright fruit flavor and has become sour. I rack them into a proper size carboy where there isn't alot of O2 contact. Keep them in dark areas kept at about 65 degrees. Any ideas
That’s interesting! It’s hard to say because every mead is different. It just sounds like your flavors have melded quickly. As for the sour side - you might take a pH test and see where it’s at!
@@ManMadeMead I have an old fashioned cold storage in my basement it’s dark and vents to the outside. It’s warmer of coarse in the winter. What temp should the room be from starting the mead to bottling the mead please. The previous owners use to make wine from my grapevines in the back yard or at least the stored it there I noticed it when first touring the house. Just curious I’ll need to buy a good thermometer to keep on the wall. The room is insulated with thick foam. And pretty air tight. Temp changes in the summer of coarse from the vent leading outside. Help please
