Hi everyone,
I've been reading the forums for awhile, catching up on past topics and posts. I recently started my first wild fermented mead, so it's time I joined and became an active member.
I decided to do the primary fermentation in a food grade bucket to make mixing and agitating the must and wild yeast easy on myself. The local home brew supply store only had seven gallon buckets for sale, so that's what I went with.
To keep the head space manageable, I filled the bucket with five gallons of filtered tap water (treated for chloramine that the water company adds) and five quarts of raw, unheated, unfiltered blueberry honey I got from a local farmer. It's my belief (and my hope) that both the wild yeast and natural enzymes in the honey will influence the development of flavor.
For acid (and subtle flavor), I added the juice of four organic oranges. I also tossed the peels in for whatever wild yeast were on them, plus I was hoping that the oil contained in the peel (rind) would add a tang to my mead's flavor.
I also chopped up and added two handfuls of organic raisins for both nutrients and whatever wild yeast they carried. Tannin supplied by a cup of strong organic black tea. And to round out nutrients for the yeast, I included a few tablespoons of bee pollen and brewers yeast flakes.
Oh man -- the resulting mix was delicious!
I tied the remnants of a freshly laundered t-shirt over the bucket to keep unwelcome little visitors out and vigorously stirred the must several times a day over the following days to aerate the yeast and get them fermenting. Nothing was happening for the longest time, most likely because the room I have my project in was no warmer than 65 deg F. Eventually I was rewarded with a steady flow of minute sparkly little bubbles breaking the surface. I snapped the cover onto the bucket, but before placing the airlock, I flooded the three quarts of head space with CO2 using an old Soda Stream carbonator, just to be safe. The airlock was passing 12 bubbles/minute.
After 14 days of active fermentation (now 7 bubbles/minute) I decided it was time to strain the orange peels and raisins out and see what was happening under the cover.
I wasn't really expecting a whole lot of change, but this being my first wild fermented mead, I was curious. And WOW, was I surprised! The flavor after just 14 days of active fermenting was NOTHING like the original taste. Here's what I found.
Visual: cloudy (due to yeast), very light yellow-orange in color. Nose: blended essence of orange and tea. Honey is there, too, but much less noticeable. Taste: complex flavor; buttery smooth on the tongue. Honey comes to the forefront, with orange making a strong impression. Surprisingly, the raisins and tea are making an appearance as well. The finish is mildly tart; presumably from oil in the orange peel (which was what I was hoping for), with perhaps some lactic acid bacteria rounding out the flavor.
I snapped the cover back onto the bucket and again flooded the head space with CO2 then replaced the airlock.
Today, after 19 days of active fermentation, the airlock is passing 4 bubbles/minute. When it gets down to one bubble/minute, I'll rack it into a carboy and a one gallon glass jug for the next stage of fermentation.
Should I cover the carboy to keep light out? Is that important?
I can see this becoming a regular thing. Gotta find a balance between enjoying the early fruits of my (and the bees!) labor and leaving some to age in the bottles. Bottles. That's the next project: acquiring an abundance of wine and champagne bottles. Worse comes to worst, I have an ample supply of bail top beer bottles I can use, but I'd rather reserve them for future batches of wild fermented ales.
Namaste,
Tidge -_-