Oskaarz Blue Berriez Cyser

[Oskaar]

Oskaarz "Blue Berriez" Cyser (Yield 6.5 gallons)
Note: I've received a couple of requests for process explainations and such so I figured I'd copy this recipe into the Patron's Section because it's sort of buried in the recipe area of the General Forums

04 gal Fresh Squeezed Apple Juice (I like Trader Joe’s)
01 gal Aronia Juice (Trader Joe’s)
08 lbs Blueberry Honey
06 lbs Apple Blossom Honey
1 lb rehydrated dried Wild Blueberries (no SO2)
1 lb rehydrated dried Organic Blueberries (no SO2)
10 grams ICV-D47 Yeast (see rehydration instructions below)

Prior to mixing up your must:
Rehydrate the blueberries in 3/4 gallon of water 24 hours prior to mixing up your must. I use a gallon bottle of spring water that has a wide mouth so I can dump the blueberries into it.

The next day I take the water bottle containing the rehydrated blueberries and cut the top off about halfway between the mouth of the bottle and the shoulder of the bottle to give me adequate room to fit my hand blender into the bottle so I can turn the blueberries into a puree. I then cover the plastic bottle with a piece of plastic wrap and set it aside until it's time to mix up the must.

Remove apple juice from ice box and bring to room temperature about 4 hours prior to mixing up your must.

Do the same with the Aronia juice if you keep all your juice in the refrigerator like I do.

Mixing your must:
Put three gallons of the room temperature Apple Juice into a stainless steel vessel or food grade plastic bucket.

Add in the Aronia Juice

Add the honey checking your gravity until you reach between 1.140-1.145.

Add the pureed blueberries and mix them in well.

Add the remainder of the apple juice and bring volume to 6 gallons

Aerate well with pure oxygen/oxygenation stone, or by stirring with a lees stirrer.

Yeast:
This recipe is designed with ICV-D47 in mind. ICV-D47 has medium to high nitrogen needs relative to other yeasts in the Lallemand family, so you'll need to supplement the must at the end of the lag phase and at the 1/3 sugar break.
See here for yeast information, and see here for the Lallemand yeast reference chart and additional information on ICV-D47

Yeast Rehydration:
Prepare a solution of 200 ml H20 @110 F + 15 g Go-Ferm

Add 10 g of D47 when temperature drops to 104 F and let stand 15 - 30 minutes max

Decant 1/2 gallon must into your fermentation vessel and inoculate with re-hydrated yeast solution, and finish filling to 6 gallons; and aerate well

Cover with sanitized cloth and secure

Check the vessel about every two hours or so for foaming which indicates the end of the lag phase

Batch Management:
At the end of the lag phase aerate well and add a mixture of 4 grams Fermaid K + 2 grams DAP rehydrated in 50 ml H2O.

A review of cap management:
This is from a previous post, but it bears repeating. Cap management is especially important in the primary as there are key factors that contribute to the "loss" or "burn off" of fruit flavor during primary when using fruit (whether fresh, frozen, dried, etc.) if the cap is not broken up regularly throughout the fermentation.

Heat - For every 1 degree brix drop in your must there is a 2.3 degree F increase in temperature. The temperature can build up very quickly and kill off the yeast living in the "heat zone" below the cap when the temperature rises above 100 degrees F. You'll literally cook off a lot of the floral, fruity characters from the berries/fruit you're using. You'll also lose a good percentage of your yeast and have a stuck fermentation to boot. Along with that you'll have off flavors from the yeast being stressed out before they kick off. Finally by mixing the berries back down into the must you infuse the must and the final mead with more of the flavor of the fruit. It is key to punch down that cap frequently in order to get color, flavor and aroma extraction.

CO2 - If the cap is not broken up or "punched down" the CO[sub]2[/sub] buildup under the cap will deprive your little yeasties of the much needed oxygen for them to be happy and healthy. Again, the yeasts will be stressed and produce off flavors, and not do it's main job of quickly metabolizing the sugars available for a fast, clean and neutral (depending on the yeast) fermentation. Again, if the yeast is not performing to it's spec based on improper cap management or nutrient poor must, the fermentation be become stuck, or just drag on forever. An excellent yeast for melomels is 71B-1122 which is a Narbonne yeast used in making Beaujolais Nouveau. It contributes a "fruit salad" flavor and contributes nice floral, fruity esters to the melomel and really promotes the fruity character. However it is not for use in this specific recipe so DO NOT SUBSTITUTE YEAST IN THIS RECIPE. Otherwise, all bets are off.

Drying If the cap isn't pressed down into the must to keep it moist the top will dry and spoilage organisms can set in which then compete with your yeast producing off flavors, or worse completely spoiling your mead. Again, if the yeast is compromised into a position of fighting for dominance in the must, they will not be doing their primary job of a fast, clean ferment. As the previous poster pointed out above, sinking your fruit in a grain bag is not a bad idea at all. I personally prefer the character from having the fruit exposed to the must outside the bag because I feel the oxygen exposure for both the yeast and the fruit during primary is very important in the formation of the overall fruit flavor and character. This is just my preference and has been my experience.

Aerate twice daily until 1/3 sugar break (This is a total drop in SG/Brix of 33% that usually occurs within the first 2-5 days of fermentation, you do the math)

At 1/3 sugar break add 6 grams Fermaid K rehydrated in 50 ml H2O and aerate well

At this point you want to stir as opposed to aerating your must, so a lees stirrer is an essential tool.

Airlock and continue to stir daily to keep the yeast suspended. You may also swirl the carboy if you don't have a lees stirrer.

Note: If you are not religious about stirring daily then you will not have optimal results when clearing and maturing on the gross lees. Stirring is a vital process during the fermentation of this specific mixture because it keeps breaking up any colonies of spoilage organisms that may exist in the must, and exposes them to the highly competitive yeast, as well as the rapidly rising alcohol level which at about 16-17% ABV will be a strong barrier to any infection.

Additional thoughts on swirling/stirring during primary fermentation
As mentioned above, swirling during the fermentation provides a couple of key benefits, additionally the swirling helps to clear some pasteurized juices. This is because re-suspending the yeast (both living and dead) provides rudimentary fining. Those dead yeast cells will grab onto/attract stuff and drag it to the bottom. Along with the rudimentary fining, swirling also gets those living yeast back up into suspension so they can chow down on as much of the sugars as they can before they croak-off.

Swirling also helps to break up any colonies of spoilage organisms that might gain a foothold in the lees at the bottom where they can otherwise be somewhat buffered from the toxic effects of the ETOH produced during fermentation. Spoilage yeast and organisms are not as alcohol tolerant as your selected yeast, and by keeping them from forming their own little caucus of likeminded curmudgeons, and swirling them into suspension they become susceptible to the toxic effects of alcohol all the quicker.

This also exposes the spoilage yeasts to the Competitive Factor produced by the ICV-D47 yeast. The competitive factor of your yeast (if it produces it) is a mitochondrial protein that passes through the cell wall of the D47 yeast and attaches to the cell wall of the unfriendly yeasts that are targeted as susceptible. This protein disrupts the magnesium metabolism which in turn causes the death of the cell.

From the Lalvin Yeast Information Page:
There are five or more competitive factors: K1-K5, and about 95% of the strains of wine yeast can make the K2 competitive factor and five percent 5% can produce the K1 competitive factor.

Yeast strains are divided into three categories regarding the competitive factor:
• Competitive positive - produces competitive factor protein and is immune to same protein produced by other strains.
• Competitive neutral – doesn’t produce a competitive factor protein and is immune to all competitive factor proteins produced by other yeast.
• Competitive sensitive - doesn’t produce a competitive factor protein and is sensitive to the competitive factor proteins from other strains.

The competitive factor likes the pH around >4.0 and is pretty much ineffective at low pH. Be aware of the competitive factor when selecting the yeast you’re going to use in your meads. Also be aware if you are pitching on top of a sluggish or stuck fermentation.

OK, WTF is an Aronia??
Well they are a little berry that has a big pucker factor, and they add some very nice color to your cyser. They balance out well with the blueberries in this mixture, and provide a good tart balance to the sweetness of the honey, cider and lees influence. The tartness of the Aronia is a bit different and less "citric" than the blueberries, so I like the complexity it lends to the overall mixture.

OK we've dealt with the sweet and the tart, what about the astringency. Well the tannin in the skins of both these little anti-oxidant berry bombs is pretty well suited for this recipe as well so I don't see needing any tannin additions. I generally DO NOT add tannin or acid up front in my meads. They simply do not need it except in very rare occasions in my experience. I don't heat my honey in most cases either. I just don't see heating since I am spending so much effort/time/money on getting untreated, un-pasteurized, unfiltered honey. To me it's kind of like buying an expensive dry-aged piece of beef and grilling it until it's well done. But I digress.

So, where to go from here?
I recommend that once primary has completed, and you see no airlock activity. Let this mead stand until crystal clear. You'll see all kinds of crap in the bottom and along the top and sides of the fermenter. Here's where it gets weird. Don't rack this for at least two to three months after it has cleared, don't disturb it, don't freak out and don't listen to the conventional wisdom that says “you gotta rack this off the lees and trub right away because letting your mead sit on the lees is baaaad!” That’s a load of hooey, as this recipe and others I have posted will prove to you.

NOTA BENE: Remember when doing this recipe that you’re going to be leaving your mead on the gross lees once fermentation has stopped. This is why you stir and swirl EVERY DAY during the primary. If you don’t follow the stirring/swirling regimen, then I advise that you don’t do this recipe. And most importantly if you do ….do this recipe and don’t do the swirling/stirring, don’t complain to me when your mead turns out bad.

Got Wood Yet?
Much like many of my recipes I like this baby to spend some time riding on Medium Toast American Oak! So, after you've given this baby some time on the lees rack it into another vessel with about 2 ounces of Medium Toast American Oak Cubes, not chips, but cubes. Chips infuse too quickly in my opinion and leave a mono-dimensional flavor profile that does not lend as much structure and complexity as cubes will. Neither are up to the standards of barrel aging, but space and dollars are very real considerations when it comes to barrel aging at home.

Prepare your oak cubes by rinsing with an iodophor solution at regular or slightly weaker than regular strength. I just put the cubes in a sanitized beaker and then pour them into a sanitized funnel with a filter in it to keep them from falling through the funnel. Then I rinse with some bottled water and coax them into the carboy with a sanitized spoon. I rack my mead on top of them and give them a stir about once a week for the first four weeks. It's just fine to get some of the yeast when you rack, just make sure you stir slowly so as not to aerate, just resuspend the yeast during the oak treatment. This is "classic sur lie aging technique" as opposed to "gross lees" exposure which is what we did in the primary vessel.

You can either sink your cubes in a weighted grain bag or let 'em float like so many hapless cruise junkies from the SS Poseidon! I let mine float. After about 2 months thieve off a sample and taste to decide if you're where you want to be with the oak treatment. If you are, rack off the oak, airlock and let it age. It just gets better and better.

Try it, you'll like it!

Oskaar

[spkrtoy]

Wow, what a treatsie!

Sounds great, do you have any aged samples???