25l of Honey mead

[taborda]

Hi ferment-addicts

i've been trying loads of fermentations during the last year ... most of them turn out great... (a couple of white-turnip kimchi/saurkraut turn very mushy and smelly - gone to the compost)

till now i've done honey mead on short quantities (5 liter botles) already 3 times, two with elderberry flowers (one plain, other sparkling both turn out great - one of them a bit too sweet, i guess it didn't ferment all sugars) and bottled the last one sparkling elderberries mead recently (it's amazing!)

i did it with fountain water, wild yeast and local honey and fruits/flowers... i've not been particularly concerned on contamination (prior to air-lock) since i was trying to catch wild yeast. although, because those recipes used elderberries, i boiled the water with the fruits to render them non toxic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambucus#Toxicity) and extract more flavours (which also "sterilized the water" from all possible yeasts and bacterias)...

i add the honey only when the water was cold and added a couple of fruits for yeasts, stiring it frequently a couple of days till it bubbled effervescently, then air-lock on sanitized carboy/stopper and airlock... all turned great (or mostly, because the first two were still sweet after some months)

Now i got a 25l carboy i want to use to make lemon mead and i bought some dry champagne yeasts to try to get a more alcohol content (less sugar) and i wonder what the process should be...

i really don't like the idea of boiling the honey (will take of flavors and other honey-properties)... and boiling the natural-spring water (high-oxygenated?) may take oxygen from the water that would be useful for the fermentation process... right?

on the other hand, if i don't boil, wild yeast on the honey or the water, may take advantage over the champagne-bought yeast... and get another too-sweet low-alcohol mead

my dilemma is between:
option 1
boil all the water and honey from the 25l batch,
put it on the carboy and wait to cool
add the yeast
air-lock

option 2
"waking up" the dry yeasts a couple of days earlier on a small batch (1liter) of boiled water/honey
dissolve honey cold water to fill 24l of carboy
add the living starter
airlock

if i go with option 1 i guess i have to stir and splash the honey-water a lot to reabsorb oxygen before the airlock (since after that i will not want to stir it frequently as i did with the wild ferments, as i don't want to risk contamination with wild yeast)

i wonder if, with option 2, the advantage i give to the commercial yeast to be already bubbling before adding them to the honey-water will be enough to populate all the liquid and "beat" the few wild yeasts that may be around...

i'm not a native english speaker, i can try to rephrase something if you don't understand it

[boschmas]

I've done wild and unwild meads, and my guess is that nothing on earth will overpower your champagne yeasts. I'm not a fan of what they do to the flavor of meads - dry, harsh, and require substantial aging for the harshness to mellow out. On the upside, champagne-yeast meads that were left to age for a year or two always took on a liqueur-type quality, which led me to improvise a variety of tasty mead cocktails.

Look online for a Lalvin-D47 yeast instead. That's my favorite mead yeast, which really leaves the full spectrum of honey flavors intact. I'm pretty sure the last time I made mead I mixed the honey with some water, heated to 180 degrees or so to pasteurize, then added it to cold water in the carboy and pitched the dry yeast when it felt like a good temp. There are still a few bottles floating around between here and my girlfriend's house, about a year and a half old.

One great way to oxygenate is to pour it pretty vigorously into the carboy (through a funnel). And as far as contamination goes, it happens a lot less frequently than one would expect. Don't be careless, but don't worry so much about it that you don't enjoy the creative process.

[khoomeizhi]

my understanding is that d-47 isn't recommended where the fermentation temp is at 70F or higher, as it creates a lot of harsh fusel alcohols that take a long time to age out. if ambient temp will be below that, it should be a great choice, otherwise, there may be better options. (no direct experience, as i'm a wild yeast guy)

[boschmas]

Yeah, yeast packets always have a listing of their preferred temperature ranges. I've made a lot more beer than I have meads or wines, but my experience with beer is that there's a lot superstition about fermentation temperature. People drive themselves crazy and spend a lot of money devising chambers where they can perfectly control various aspects of the fermentation process, but I don't find that the end result is noticeably better than what I make.

That said, if the fermentation room is going to be in the 80s (or the 50s), it's probably worth considering the temperature piece. But a few degrees either way is nothing to worry about.

[taborda]

just to keep you updated,

in the end i changed a bit the process, and just bottled the mead a few das ago...

i ended up with a failed attempt of cider (lots of smashed aples but no press at home) on the same day i was doing the mead, so i decided to do apple mead instead...as i didn't have a press i decided to boil the apples in a part of water and drain it (BAD IDEA, ok not bad, but not the best solution ever, ended up a bit grainy water with very small pieces of cooked apple floating)

with that (boiled water) i disolved the honey added the yeast (already "awaken" some hours early on water-honey) and added more cold water (not boiled) to reach the 25l, air-locked it for 2 months...

a lot of deposit from the boiled apples (more than a liter), i bottled them on small beer bottles, ended up with 10.5% alcohol/vol...

as boschmas put it i guess nothing overcomes the champagne yeasts... and the tast is very harsh... and very "yeasty" taste.... i already store them out of sight in order to "forget them for a while"...definitely the taste has space for improvement