Club mead day, 03/22/2025

[ctninh]

Good day all. Some members have been talking about making mead since our off-meeting at Honey Pot. We will be hosting an open mead making day where you can check out some other people's process and equipment.

The event is this Saturday, 03/22/2025, starting at 10 AM. The location will be messaged to you (it is in the Placentia/Yorba Linda area, a bit away from Stereo Brewing). Message here if you are think of going and we will contact you.

This is at a member's house. Feel free to bring homebrew to share.

Hope to see you there. Hope to see the mead at future meetings

-Calvin

[ctninh]

Also, I will be making 3 gals of mead.

[lexuschris]

I'll be making a 2-3 gallon batch from a large jar of honey a friend found for me. Not sure of the variety, but it looks like the kind you find in the desert at a roadside stand.. so probably Desert Mesquite or something similar.
--LexusChris

[romen]

I'll be making mead. Still looking to supplement some more honey so might be out hunting before the event.

[ctninh]

My mead is going well. Hope everyone likes stirring.

-Calvin

[lexuschris]

Hey all!

What a great time hanging out making mead on Saturday! Everyone brought a lot of good energy, thought & questions to the day, and we had fun making mead and re-learning how to take gravity readings with a refractometer!

Justin, thanks for sharing your space and making it easy for us! We also had a mini mead tasting with some home-made meads, and a nice local mead from Honey Pot! I'll see about posting some photos of the day...

I think everyone had some really great ideas on where to go with their mead: Old Fashion Mead, Pear Mead, Berry Mead, or just spices! I opted to add ginger and lemon zest for now, and maybe some all-spice as it goes.. we will see.

Generally, we targeted a 32 brix OG which is about 1.135 SG. With the D-47 yeast, it will likely tox-out at 15% ABV ... so about 16.5 brix direct-read, and about 1.025 SG. If you want to drop the sweetness, you can always add some water at end to get your FG where you like... 1/3 sugar break should be about 26.5 brix direct read.

Hope everyone is having fun watching their must sizzle and foam when stirred! Let us know how it is going!
--Lexuschris

[ctninh]

Transferred my mead from a 3 gal vessel to my 5 gallon one. I got tired of waiting for the foam to die down. I'll transfer it back to the 3 gallon fermenter after the mead reaches final gravity

[romen]

These are my readings so far. Not sure if I have a stuck fermentation but haven't seen any movement in the last 24 hours.

Screenshot at Mar 26 16-26-12.png (46.09 KiB) Viewed 397 times

I've been having a very hard time getting consistent gravity readings with the refractometer, as you can see. At the beginning I was just grabbing a drop or two from the stirrer but I found that if I take multiple drop samples the reading jumps all over the place from drop to drop. So now in the mornings I take a small sample from the spigot after mixing for 1-2 minutes and then I get consistent readings. I'm fairly confident the morning reading on day 4 and 5 are correct, and there was basically no change in 24 hours.

[lexuschris]

Calvin, sounds like a good plan.

Romen, looks like your readings are now on-track! There will be periods where it seems like nothing is happening, but give it a few days. Keep those yeast in suspension with some gentle stirring or swirling now.

Tonight, my reading was 27.5 brix, and I started at 32 brix. My 1/3 sugar break is about 26.5 brix, so by tomorrow night I should be there. Foaming is not quite as bad now, and I noticed from my taste test that the lemon rind is starting to taste pithy. I will remove them in the morning, and perhaps add some more ginger. I feel it could handle a bit more.

This all good progress for only 5 days since brewing! Once you hit the 1/3 sugar break, gentle stirring to keep yeast suspended is best practice. You can also take a day off if it happens, just stir them yeasties up when you get back to it! You may not hit final gravity until day 15-20.

Here are some photos from the mead day...

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IMG_20250322_112514.jpg (2.62 MiB) Viewed 365 times

IMG_20250322_112506.jpg (2.79 MiB) Viewed 365 times

--LexusChris

[romen]

Well I think I hit the 1/3 sugar break. I took three readings this morning and got three different results, but the highest was still at the 1/3 calculation. I've not had any sulphur smell. From this point forward is it just daily degassing and gravity readings for a month?

[lexuschris]

I hit my 1/3 sugar break on Thursday night, and was too busy Friday to even look at my fermenter. Today, I measured 24.5 bx which is almost halfway for my mead. Corrected that is about 1.084 SG. Started at 1.135, expect to hit 1.024. So, that's 0.111 points to max out the ABV for this yeast. Half of that is .55. The calc is then 1.135 -0.55 = 1.080 for halfway point.

That means my mead is already over 7% ABV, so a gentle stir daily (or so) helps keep the yeast in suspension and working towards their goal.

D47 has never given me sulfur problems, so good to hear your yeasties are happy!

As for the refractometer readings, they should be consistent. Logically, the fermenting must is at the same throughout. So, it may be your cleaning process in between samples, leaving some moisture on the lense, or uneven coverage (bubbles) when laying the light-cover on the sample.

My process begins after taking a reading.
+ rinse refractomter lense & light plate with water
+ pat dry with paper towel.
+ set on shelf with light plate open to allow lens & plate to dry completely
+ the next day, it is all dry and ready for 3-4 drops on the lens, push the light plate over and tap gently to get out bubbles

Hope that is helpful in some way!

--LexusChris