Not really exciting I know, but here is a bowl full of honey. I decided to make three different kinds of Mead. Nothing special just a few standard recipes. A dry, a semi-sweet, and a hydromel semi-sweet... whatever that mean? I discovered that this is a bit easier than I first believed. I mean, I am not brewing for a competition or anything, just for my own enjoyment and to further the limits of my essentially limitless hobby. I am sure things get a bit more difficult with specific plans in mind or when trying to perfect a recipe for judging, but for me... right now, nah.
They are all 1 gallon batches and in the first one after I was chilling the must? Whatever it is you call the mixture of honey and water... I should probably learn this terminology... I walked away for a minute to check on further directions. I left the water running since I was creating an ice bath like mixture... I guess my kettle thought it would be a good idea to start floating and it ended up getting a bit of water inside the kettle. I decided to boil it down to the volume I wanted. No idea how this will effect the mead but hey, at least I messed up early and not when it mattered.
I did not use any Mead yeast, just some champagne yeast that I picked up along with some nutrients. I decided to use two different kinds of yeast because the last recipe was exactly the same besides the yeast decision. Rehydrated as I would for beer and pitched. Very simple right?
I got all of it into the carboys and into my fermentation chamber. I was instructed to release excess CO2 every other day or so... While I have not been very on my game when it came to that, I did it two day after I pitched the yeast...
Funny story, eh, I just picked up the jugs and swirled them around. The first two went without flaw. Perfect, airlock just bubbled and I moved on...
Did I mention I did this on my lunch break?
The third one I used the exact same swirl method, the one that had the green yeast packet in it, and BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!! All over me! All over the ceiling!! All over the room!!! I guess maybe I should have known better but oh, well. I went back to work smelling like straight alcohol. No one noticed... or said anything to me but I did feel quite sticky. Not to mention that I had to mop the ceiling! I went my whole brewing career without having to do that. Damn...
I will post back with tasting notes, etc, but I have no idea how long I am going to keep in the fermentation vessels before bottling. Only time will tell.
Cheers!
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