Floral update

It's taken off and bubbling away well now. I was rightly warned that not all mold toxins can be killed by boiling, so I need to keep a very close eye on this batch and unless it's tasty enough to risk myself getting sick, just dump it along the line

Floral: DO NOT GIFT

Edit to add: Bob v S has offered the use of his destilling rig for this batch, as that should render the result definitely safe. I've been wanting to try destillation with mead but never wanted to sacrifice a whole batch to it, so this could be interesting

Whoa, it's a real one!

and infection, I mean.

It's a bit of a joke in the mead reddit that 9/10 things that people post as 'help, is this an infection?!' is nothing, but the yeast in Floral had trouble getting started and the elderberry flower syrup must not have been completely sterilised. I heated it up but did not boil it beforehand, so.

I removed the ick and am now boiling the must, and will then repitch with champagne yeast. All will be well.

My 20 ordered bottles arrived (I realised I didn't bottle a lot of my batches because cleaning labels off wine bottles is such a pain; a lot of times they're not glued but printed as stickers). I think I still have 2.5 liters of All Rise Up to bottle and Chai might also be ready, or should at least be racked. Maybe tomorrow. 

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.

Readings

Brynn
Last reading: 1.008 / 13%
Today: 1.008 / 14% (I'm guessing a misread last time due to a tiny air bubble or something)
New: 1.020 (I sweetened it some.)
This batch is now completely flat, doesn't fizz even drawn up into the syringe. It smells nice, it doesn't taste nice. Yet. I hope. I really wish I knew a brewy person within tasting distance who could tell me "This is a normal pre-aging taste" or "This is a waste of honey, time and effort".

Caelan - wanted to take readings here to figure out if/why it built up pressure in the bottles.
At bottling: 1.000 / 14%
Today: 1.000 / 14%
OK. that's weird. That means there wasn't any sugar left, and pretty much nothing for fermentation to go on, and no fermentation happened, and it still built up pressure. If you can explain this, please do so in the comments :-)
It's still fizzy when agitated (like drawn up into the syringe). I put in some honey (up to 1.024) to either sweeten it or kick the stalled fermentation (?) back into life so at least something will happen. I don't much care at this point, I suspect it's ruined. We'll see.

Drake
I took the bottles out the fridge and opened one once it hit room temps. No pressure at all. Opened another one - turned out to have a moldy cork. Boo. Mold was on the outside but may have tainted the wine. No pressure though. Recorked and marked it (suspect it's ruined, though it didn't smell bad once I'd cleaned the bottle neck. Put 'don't gift' on the label to be sure.)
Anyway, I think I'm safe there as far as bottle pressure goes. They're back in the wooden chest now, which I have lined with plastic. If anything else goes, as least it won't be all over the floor.

Right then.

Instead of the sensible choice of going to bed, I checked up on one of the bottles that I took out of the fridge this afternoon with the intention of recorking. Cork was coming out, so instead of sleep I pulled corks. Couldn't be arsed to re-cork and it was fizzing fairly heavily, so dumped it all in a demijohn, plopped on a waterlock, and we'll see what happens to that later. It's been aereated so it may be ruined. No idea.

Drake was prepped and bottled under the same conditions as Caelan. The corks seem in a better state, but I'll open one at a later point to assess what needs to happen there. For now the Drake bottles are in the fridge to buy myself explosion-free time until I can deal with things, probably sunday.

I'm really quite miffed that I was accutely aware of this danger, thought I had taken all the necessary precautions, and STILL ended up with residual fermentation. Batches will be left in the demi's for a LOT longer from now on, even if they seem totally finished.