Tasty list

Due to unforeseen travel plans this winter, I have decided to give mead as gifts. For that I need a little list of which batches I think are good enough to give away.Bold is what I'm happy to serve to somebody else.

Alexis plain: nice sack mead
Alexis with strawberry syrup: haven't tried yet
Brynn: need to taste this
Caelan: carbonated, bit dry. Nice
Drake: need to taste this
Ehle: still in demijohn
Fennah: spicy heavy/sweet mead [ran out!]
Gwyllion: elderberry port. Suppose I could pull open a bottle and see how this has turned out
Halle: Quince mead - very nice! [ran out!]
Imre: sourish fresh apple wine. Not sure about this as a gift.Maybe as a second bottle of 'hey, try this' and not as the main gift.
Jove: still in demi
Keir: recently bottled
Lisidh: still in demi
Merryn: heavy, sweet, not as spicy as I had expected. Very nice.
Nuggan: heavy, sweet, very nice

Final 3

Fennah
Wow! This actually tastes pretty good. I think I would bring this to a party without worry people were going to spit it out. Yay!
SG 1012
alc 16.5%

Gwy
Rocket fuel! Interestingly it smells less wine-like than it used to, but I can detect the elderberry scent now. I'm not sure about the taste. It's not bad, it's not good - it's not really anything.
Have bottled it, because what the hell.
SG 1006
alc 19.5% (!)

The seperate litre bottle I used as overflow when I started messing around with it actually tastes better - less thin, which makes sense since I didn't add water there. I think that one also didn't get the second go-over with port yeast.
Didn't get an SG for that one but alc is 17%.

Ehle
Racked into two 5l demijohns. With the clear glass it's easier to see what's going on, and they are much easier to handle than the 10l ones. It smells okay - I think I can detect the cacao scent now and I couldn't before. But the taste is EWWW. It's very sour. I have no idea if that means it's spoiled though - I despaired about most of the other batches at times and some of them are beginning to turn out okay. I might be cultivating 10 litres of spoilt honey and cacao, but it can just stay in the windowsill for another year. We'll see. I might add more honey:

SG 1000
Alc 17%


So now I have four empty demis standing around. I'm vaguely contemplating starting something new..

Retcon updates

I did this in the weekend of 10/11 April, just haven't posted it here... to be honest things are kind of depressing on the brewing front, that's why I put it off.

Imre
Alc 15%
SG 1014
Still murkey though maybe starting to clear a little. Smells and tastes ciderish. I'm really sad I lost the sweet apple scent and taste I was after.
Racked and added a sugar syrup of 50gr white sugar with 100ml water.

Halle
Alc 12%
SG 1014
Racked. Doesn't smell 'gone bad' just not good. May need time? Doesn't taste outright bad either, but.. I don't know, hard to believe this could get drinkable, it's nothing like mead. Sourish aftertaste.
I am really starting to regret using the quince juice right off the bat, it smelled SO good and the fermentation has just killed that. Then again I don't think I could have frozen it, not enough space...

Gwyllion
Alc 18%
SG 1010
Racked. Smells good - sweet wine. Tastes drinkable (not spit-out stuff) but not nice. Oh I don't know. If I had the space I would just wait it out, bottle it and see what it's like in a year or so. As it is I'm not much inclined to bottle stuff that's likely just going down the drain in a year's time.

Racking

Gwyllion: 0.990 / 17% (racked)
Much too dry like this. Added about 150 gr sugar. Hope that wasn't too much, but I dissolved 100gr and that only brought it to 1.004. Wait and see.

Halle: 1.018 / ?% (didn't write it down apparently) (racked)
I don't know. Not appetising. Maybe it'll turn into something?

Imre: 1.010 / 14.5% (racked)
Lovely delicate apple taste/scent gone. Damn! Smells/tastes like dry cider now. Have added some demerera sugar.

Gwy / Imre

Gwyllion: fed more sugar, I think about 50 grams
Imre: added bentonite. I'm not sure if bentonite is going to do it for fruit haze (have a vague recollection of pos charged and neg charged clearing methods but.. meh. I figure it's going to take ages to get this one cleared as it is super cloudy because the juice was super cloudy, so I might as well start from bentonite and see how that turns out. The next step would probably be gelatine. Will see how that goes.

I'm super curious about Imre because I think it might turn out really nice, sweet apple wine, not at all like cider. If it works out well I will be making one with orchard pear juice as well. These fruit wines also satisfy my urge to make something I can drink soonish, because they should be reasonably drinkable around when it's bottling time, not take ages to age.

Measurings

Fennah: 15% / 1.022
Still cloudy, still quite fizzy. It's been bubbling, so that seems to want more time. The drop I tasted seemed rather sweet, but it's hard to tell with the yeast taste still in, we'll see.

Gwyllion: 12% / 0.990
Hungry, hungry yeast - I fed it about 50 gr cane sugar and it foamed so hard it spilled over. Oops! Mead doesn't react that hard when I add new honey, so that was a surprise. Added a small piece of lemon peel to help keep the foam down. I'm going to try to get it to ferment out by alcohol level without oversweetening it again, so sugar in small increments I guess.

Halle: 16% / 1.020
Very cloudy and fizzy. It smells of heavy fermentation, but the drop I tasted seemed to suggest it could turn out quite nice when the yeast is done.

Imre: 15% / 1.010
Still cloudy, but hardly any fizz when agitated - this seems to be going toward finished. Underneath the yeast taste it was quite nice and appley. I Will Be Patient (for once!) and let it run its course - I'm very curious how this one'll turn out though. And I'm now thinking of doing a similar wine but with the orchard pear juice..

Brynn, and Gwyllion - again

Very unhappy day yesterday as several of the Brynn bottles decided they didn't like it in the bottle and pushed out corks. Even one that was already in the fridge! I lost about a litre and a half in total, salvaged about 500 ml that I'm probably going to drink, and opened a few others before they popped corks. Was. Not. Happy. Messy to clean up too. I'm mourning for quite a bit of what promised to become very nice mead. The remaining bottles are standing on the kitchen counter, loosely corked so they can breathe off, and until I stop being pissed off about it and start dealing with it.

Gwyllion is more hopeful. Had a slight brainwave and realised that with a different wine with a similar problem, I'd be looking to add fruit juice or concentrate to fix the thin-ness problem. The hippie food shop sells elderberry juice, so I went and got some, and did a little test with some of the thin, too sweet port. About 1:8 juice:port balances it out very nicely - counteracts the sweetness, gets rid of the thin-ness. Yum. I took out 0.7l to make space, and then added juice - originally 660ml, but reduced to about 0.5l.
I didn't stop there, because that would make sense - I added the yeast starter I've been putting through Alcohol Tolerance Bootcamp over the past week. It's more wine now (14%) and I still hope it'll become a proper heavy port. No idea how that's going to work out, but we'll see.

It was 1040 (I think the previous readings were off - they were with a less precise hydrometre) & 14% just now.

So I have a demi full of Further Experiment, plus a bottle that with the addition of a bit of juice will make something to try at Christmas - I quite like it, we'll see what my visitors think :-)

Gwyllion - Elderberry wine

Gwy: 1035 and 14%

Well, Edmund was right..

Watering is often a mistake. In addition to introducing new issues of sterility and oxidation, watering cuts the balances of sugars and minerals in an unbalanced way; you'll end up with a drink that simultaneously tastes too sweet and too thin.

I tasted it and it does indeed taste thin and is still too sweet. Bugger. Shame I didn't know that before I did it, I didn't think half a litre of water could make that much difference! I bottled half a litre of the un-watered bottle and have set the rest of that aside to add to the new start I've made - I got in a 'killer' yeast that should go to 16%, and I'm going to try making a starter and very slowly introducing the wine to ease the yeast up to the alcohol percentage. Then I'll pitch and see how it goes.

Bottlings and measurments

Alexis: very dry. Starting to fall clear (though unfortunately I stirred up some of the sediment in racking).
SG: 1000
Alc 15%

Brynn: smells great, tastes nice - I have hopes for this one. bottled at
SG: 1020
Alc 14.5%

Fennah: has been completely still - topped out due to max alc reached, but is not falling clear. I watered it down slightly in the hope this might encourage the yeasties to have another go. Racked.
SG: 1032 diluted to about 1030
Alc 16% diluted to about 14.5%

Gwyllion: this smells and tastes pretty good! It's too sweet though, even for port. Must have miscalculated the sugar. Watered down slightly + small amount of yeast activator in the hope that the yeasties will eat a few points of the sugar. With that oversweet edge off I think this could be great.
SG: 1042
Alc: 16%

The Mass Measuring Returns

Alexis: something weird going on here. SG went down compared to last measuring (as expected, it's been bubbling slowly) but the Alc level did not go up. Huh?
Grav: 1.002
Alc: 15.5%

Brynn: I keep hoping that this is finally ready for bottling! Specific gravity still dropped a little bit though, and when the bottle is handled there are some bubbles out the airlock. Hmm.
Grav: 1014
alc: 14%

Caelan: Racked. This batch hates me. It won't stabilise and the colour has changed more toward the orange spectrum - it's lost the pretty pink/purple hue. I really have no frame of reference for the taste, but it's not good - I'm just not sure if it's the sort of not good that won't age out. I'm starting to think about dumping it! It's still very carbonated. If I had champagne bottles (or a cheap& easy way to get them) I might just put it in there and stash it away somewhere, but.. *sigh*
Grav: from 1.025 to about 1.055
Alc: 14%

Gwyllion: I actually have some hope for this one. The scent is wine(ish), the taste is not good but in the sort of way that suggests it might become good. (again, no frame of reference!) It's fermented a little more, though I'm not sure if it's topped out now - port yeast might take it a little higher still.
Grav: 1.042
Alc: 17%

Gwy

Took that SG reading this morning before it wouldn't be a reasonable starting reading anymore

SG was 1042

It's not moved since yesterday, no fizzing, no bubbles. In fact I was a little worried that the sudden added gravity had bogged things down, so I added just a touch of yeast activator (only to the demi, not the overflow bottle). It didn't foam as expected. Not sure what's going on, but I'll just sit on my hands and leave it alone for a month I guess...

To the right a photo of the stopper kludge I made. Not sure if it's not airtight and therefore not building up pressure, or if there's just no pressure because the wine is still. Hmm.

More measuring

Alexis: Started actually bubbling again over the past few weeks, and indeed there is significant change.
SG: 1016
Alc: 15.5%

Brynn: Completely still except when the demi is moved. I want to bottle it but am a bit hesitant after the problems with Caelan. It smells goooood
SG: 1016
Alc: 14.5%

Caelan: still very fizzy when drawn up. The measuring stickything won't really get stable, so the SG says less-than-nothing. I'm still hesitant to re-bottle it.
SG: 1024 going up to 1040 (that's what I mean. wtf)
Alc: 15%

Fennah: Seems to have come to a complete stop - makes sense given the killer alc level! It smells a little green. Distinct mint leaves scent - what I intended, but I'm not sure if I like it!
SG: 1032
alc: 17.5%

Gwyllion: I added some more sugar once or twice over the past weeks, but was hampered by the demi being really full (and not wanting to throw any of it away!). It had come to a slow bubbling. It no longer puts out a scent - it's been inside for about 10 days now, as it was getting too cold at night outside. The wine itself really does smell of red wine now.
SG: 1008 (loooot of sugar eaten!)
alc: 15% (not good enough for port. If I can get 17% out of doux yeast... this ought to be able to get at least that)
Today I added a litre sugar syrup (about 700 ml sugar) and ended up having to create an 'overflow' bottle because the volume is now about 6.5 litres. I have no plugs or yeast caps that fit a litre bottle so had to improvise a seal out of plastic foil. Not too happy with that, but we'll see how it goes.
Sadly I was way too hungry to take an after-sweetening SG measurement. 'Cause that would have been useful. Hum. Maybe tomorrow.

Mass Measuring

Alexis: Still cloudy, and fizzy when agitated. Needs a lot more time.
SG: 1028
Alc: 13.5%

Brynn: Smells good! Very sweet, with a clear honey and vanilla aroma. Yum. It's completely still. It tastes promising too, not good but like it might become good.
SG: 1018
Alc: 15%

Caelan: Still slightly fizzy. It's done a bit of fermenting after I fed it some honey last time.
SG: 1022
Alc: 15%

Fennah: still fizzy, but has slowed down quite a lot. Nearing time to make a decision about what I want to add - citrus fruit or mint leaves. It's still pretty sweet and given the alc level unlikely to burn much more sugar.
SG: 1034
Alc: 17% (whoa)

Gwyllion: still living outside and fermenting very heavily.
SG: 1060 (I think. The meter thing still sinks and rises in the measuring glass. Hmm.)
Alc: 15% (lower than last time. Weirdness. It was hard to measure though because fermentation bubbles are actually affecting the meter thingy)

Gwy

Gwy has been going so fast (a bubble every second or even slightly faster) that it stank up the room. Clear difference with the meads there, since even at its most vigorous mead only put out a very mild scent. Since it doesn't really get very cold at night yet I put it out on the balcony to get over that first mad fermentation stage. Added side effect is that the cooler temp has slowed it down a tick.

I've fed it some more sugar, but might not give it more because it's almost impossible to get specific gravity off of it. The measure thing keeps sinking deeper or floating higher. Really weird. Alcohol percentage is 16-17, if that measurement is accurate. It seems high for still being in the middle of primary fermentation, but we'll see. Maybe I'm just getting elderberry rocket fuel.

Holy fermentation, Batman!

That's Gwyllion going like a bat outta hell. I added a cup of sugar water today and will probably do that every few days until it has the full amount of sugar the recipe suggests.

Gwyllion - Elderberry wine

I had promised myself not to start anything new until I had some confidence in the drinkability of my first batches, just because I'm a little worried about pouring time and money into making a lot of mediocre brew.
However - the elderberries are ripe. I spotted a bush down the street that yielded half a kilo. I am reliably advised that elderberry wine (rather than elderberry mead) is well worth making, and figured that without the cost of the honey, this is practically a free experiment. Why the hell not. I got port yeast with my last brewery supplies, and it seems like an interesting combination.

Of course, I had not counted on the foraging on the floodlands and cleaning/juicing taking up an entire day!

Gwyllion
- about 2 kg elderberries
- 1.5 kg sugar
- port yeast
- teaspoon yeast energiser (because I'm too lazy to make a starter)
- water

Boiled the berries to make juice and let it boil gently for about 30 minutes (according to some reports this removes some kind of unpleasantness from it). Once strained, I dissolved half of the sugar. Let it cool and poured into a 5l demijohn. Filled up to 4 litres with water. Mixed in the energiser, then pitched the yeast. The other half of the sugar is going to be added in a few days, once fermentation is well and truly underway.

grav. 1.072, watered down to 1.064 the next day

Elderberries are fairly acidic and I may need to think of something to tone it down further along the way. One recipe suggested bananas, but that sounds just weird.