(Part 3) Top products from r/mead

Don't buy a kit! They sell you all kinds of shit you won't use when there are better options for similar money.

Get a brewing bucket as if you don't have a bottler then this will make your life so much better.

Get 2 carboys (glass is best but better bottles will work too). Check Craigslist for these...you can get some awesome deals.

Get 1 Refractomoeter instead of a hydrometer because they use WAY less of your must to calculate and they aren't mega fragile like hydrometers are.

You will want an auto siphon

You will want a carboy brush that fits on a cordless drill because cleaning a carboy without one fucking sucks (and for 18 bucks this is a no brainer).

You will need sanitizer. I personally like Iodophor because it's super cheap, it doesn't really foam up and it lasts forever. I bought one of THESE bottles like 2 years ago and it is about half full even though I brew between 50-100 gallons a year.

I always advocate people start with beer bottles rather than wine bottles. The reason for this has less to do with the bottles and more to do with equipment. The Ferrari Bottle Capper is 14 dollars while a good floor corker for wine bottles will set you back 60 bucks. In addition, it's cheaper to bottle in 20 ounce beer bottles with caps rather than in wine bottles with good corks. Use of a double lever corker for wine bottles should be considered a war crime...seriously...unless you're a masochist who loves dumping wine everywhere and having to clean it afterwards...then just avoid them...they are absolutely awful.

If you go the wine bottle route then NEVER use agglomerated or colmated corks (the ones made from tiny pieces of cork glued together) as they fall apart and will leave chunks in your bottles. In addition they don't age well, so you are much more likely to lose your brew to spoilage. I like synthetic Nomacorc but you can also buy very good quality solid natural corks as well.

Good oxygen absorbing bottle caps on the other hand are mega cheap. Again...this isn't about one being better than the other, so you can use either one.

For wine bottles, I REALLY like the ones with screw tops because they make it nice and easy to cap your bottles once opened. But for all of your bottles buy these locally...shipping will double or triple the cost of these vs buying locally. I get them for 15 bucks a case a few miles from my house...they're almost 30 a case on Amazon or close to that from Midwest or from Ohio (shipping is like 11-15 dollars a case.)

For beer bottles...I prefer clear, but they'll be tough to find locally so I often end up with brown ones. Again...buy these locally not online due to shipping costs. Your local brewing supply stores buy these pallets at a time so even Amazon can't compete with the lack of shipping costs.

TLDR: The "Full kit" looks like it has the basics. As others have said, you might want a food-grade plastic bucket for primary fermentation, and you'll need bottles/containers to store the end product in.

If it were a "complete" kit I'd probably put one together which included One step sanitizer to sanitize equipment,a plastic fermentation bucket, and an auto-syphon to make racking (i.e., transferring the liquid from container to container) easier.

If it's something you're interested in pursuing further, there's plenty more you could consider picking up. A bottle filler for the auto syphon, a filtration kit to help clarify wine/mead, fining products, you might want to look into picking up more things like yeast energizer and yeast nutrient (which it sounds like this kit comes with some) and sulfate/sorbate (to stabilize the mead before back-sweetening) etc.

There are lots of recipes and lots of help available, so read up and feel free to ask questions and have a lot of fun experimenting and trying new things :)

Lalvin 71b

That is my personal go to favorite though there are plenty of other Lalvin/Redstar/Mangrove Jack/other yeasts that will work. That link is to a 10 pack by the way, if you've got a local homebrew store you should be able to pick up single packets in around the $1 range(Assuming you are somewhere that dollars are the currency.....)

The recipe above is a pretty good baseline but sanitation is key. IF you think you will get serious then Starsan is well woth the money. If not and you've got bleach laying around you can make a bleach solution, clean your gear and then make sure it is well rinsed before adding ingrediants.

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If you are willing to do a tiny bit of extra work then yeast nutrient will get you something that is drinkable far faster than just honey/water/yeast will.

You can get all you need for about 30 bucks. You need a hydrometer a 1 gallon carboy and and air lock. Consumables are yeast honey and nutrients. Make sure your hydrometer doesn't bottom out in you gallon jug, or have a thief to measure in. They are optional for a first mead, but they tell you so much about your wine. Like when its done, if it stalled and other important shit.


https://www.amazon.com/Kirkland-Signature-Pure-Honey-Pound/dp/B007F2EQEW Is a good honey to start with, you can find them at costco for 15$ honey is endlessly debatable and I won't get into it. You need about 3 lbs per gallon.

Lavin 47d is a pretty hard yeast to go wrong with. There are 100's of good yeasts.

This is a good yeast nutrient. http://www.midwestsupplies.com/wyeast-yeast-nutrient-1-5-oz.html it has everything you need in it. There is a ton of information on dozens of nutrient addition styles. This one is simple, add a quart teaspoon at start and then at 24 and 48 hours after pitch. Again, whole papers can and are written about proper nutrition. Look at the wiki for massive amounts of info and some great starting recipes.

Background

Based upon my initial question: Is it wine or meed?, I am working on my first Mead/Pyment. I've taken the original recipe I cobbled together from a variety of sources.

Is it mead? Well yes. According to the calculators in the sidebar concord juice is about 8.89% sugar. Honey is roughly 80%. I'm no math wiz, but I fussed with both Google and Wolframalpha and 8.89% of two gallons is roughly 45 Tablespoons or 0.23 pounds of sugars, 1 Gallon of Honey is roughly equivalent to 204 tablespoons of sugars or 7.9 pounds of sugars. yes I know Different types of sugars, etc. etc. But the mixture here is getting much more than 51% of the sugars from honey, so: 'tis a Wine -> Mead -> Melomel -> Pyment.


The following is an expansion of The GotMead format for recipes.

1. Ingredients
   
   • Star-San - not technically an ingredient, but it's for sterilization. I think of it as an anti-ingredient keeping the bad bugs out. (Sprayer use= 1/4 tsp to 650ml water & 60 second exposure)
     
   • 1.5 Gallons of boiled tap water (more or less to make things work out.) NOTE: I have well water, not city water - so no chlorine & plenty of minerals.
     
   • ~2 Gallons of homemade concord grape juice. (SG 1.060)
     Last year I pressed about about six gallons of grape juice from concords of my own. I was going to make jelly in the winter and froze it in the deep freeze.
     
   • 10lbs (now 15lbs) of Pure N Simple Honey.
     
   • ~3 tsp Fermax from Amazon.
     
   • Red Star Premier Blanc [Amazon] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00434CB74)
     
     
2. Equipment
   
   • Large Stainless stock pot (for initial boil)
     
   • 5 Gallon food grade bucket & Lid sterilized.
     
   • 4 Gallon Sams club water bottle playing the role of carboy.
     
   • Hydrometer
     
   • Transfer hose
     
   • Water lock/ Bubbler
     
     
3. Preparation
   
   • Thaw the grape juice overnight in the fridge in a large container in case of leakage.
     
   • Sterilization/pasteurization.
     Thinking through the volume of Honey (~1 gallon) and aiming for a 4 gallon carboy; bring 1.5 gallon of water to a boil. Turn off heat, add the grape juice in order to pasteurize the juice without setting the pectin, stir in about 10-12 pounds of honey. (remove any scum that forms)
     
   • Sanitize the bucket and lid, and stirring spoon.
     
   • Stir vigorously as you add the ingredients.
     
   • add to the bucket, check the temperature and the SG - calculate remaining honey or water and add as needed. Stir till mixed, or your arm falls off - whichever comes first.
     
   • Check the temperature until it is at least down to about 80 degrees then add the yeast we're off to primary fermentation.
     
     
4. Primary fermentation.
   
   • 5 gallon sterilized bucket & lid with airlock.
     
   • Actual Original Specific Gravity (OG): 1.130 (I thought it was 1.122 but the must was still quite warm.)
     
   • I will plan on testing as fermentation tapers off and make a decision then on adding additional honey and warm water (carefully of course) in order to restart fermentation. (adjust to desired SG as needed).
     
   • Once fermentation has stopped transfer it to the secondary.
     
     
5. Secondary.
   
   • 4 gallon sams club water jug (plastic) with airlock.
     
   • Saved my honey jugs just in case I had any left over that wouldn't fit in the carboy.
     
   • Time. Lots of time.
     
     Notes:
     
     9/13/16 Initial. Retested SG, it was at 1.130.
     
     9/15/16 Sterilized a large spoon and vigerously stirred to aerate. SG at 1.074, fermentation is fast and furious.
     
     9/16/16 Aerated/degassed. 3tsp fermax. SG 1.050
     
     9/16/16 Aerated/degassed. SG 1.026
     
     9/21/16 Racking Day. SG 0.998 (ABV 18%?). Upon racking there was not quite enough in the carboy. After staring at it for twenty minutes I decided to gamble and added one gallon of water, and 5LBS of honey to bring it up to just below the base of the neck. Retesting the SG was 1.030. It is currently sitting inside a 5 gallon bucket in my bathroom, I'll transfer it to the closet as soon as I'm reasonably certain it won't go Mt. St. Helens on my wardrobe.
     
     

I love working with gesho, I get mine from Amazon. The last two batches I have made from that gesho worked, but I have heard that premier cuvee works well as a sub.

If you use gesho, go with my recipe, and if it does not start bubbling after a few weeks to a month, throw in the premier cuvee. Treat gesho differently than you would a wood. Totally different behavior.

I'm relatively new to using the Steam juicer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0055Q2D2W/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) But after doing about 35 gallons of mead using it I've gotta say the profile and taste is superior.

Not to mention its SO much easier than dealing with muslin bags and the others issues I mentioned.

If you really need to clear it, KCSuperKleer is magic and works in 72hrs. It is made of Kieselsol and Chitosan.

Ksorbate is a stabilizing agent. It prevents yeast from budding and reproducing; it doesnt kill anything, it just effectively neuters yeast. Using it while there is still a heavy bioload of yeast still in suspension wont stop an active fermentation.

https://www.amazon.com/LD-Carlson-MR4PL1C-Bottle-Filler/dp/B008S0KMRK/ref=asc_df_B008S0KMRK/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=241898984112&hvpos=1o3&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10055276179527350321&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9012096&hvtargid=pla-582360282374&psc=1

Looks like that. Make sure you get the correct size to fit your siphon hose.

Round two (But seriously, thank you SO much for taking the time to answer these questions)

1. Will putting 3 gallons of must in a 5 gallon bucket have any negative consequences due to increased head space?
   
2. The peaches that I am using have been cut and frozen (by myself, no sugar added- just peach), would it harm/have any benefit to boil the puree to sanitize? I've just been reading of the horrors of poor sanitation in brewing and wish to avoid any and all that I can.
   
3. Some of the honey that I am using (2 qt are coming from a friend that is kind enough to give them to me) has granulated- should I not warm it slightly?
   
4. I reform the question only due to my trepidation at sanitation, but is it truly wise to do a no-heat/no pasteurization?
   
5. I live in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, GA and have no local brew shop- the mead will continue to expand after fermentation/I can't just seal the racking tanks?
   
6. What is the minimum temperature for viable fermentation? I was reading that lower temperatures can lead to longer fermentation periods, but better mead.
   
7. Having just found stainless steel pots (3 gal) in my basement (formally my grandparents' house), I am going to forgo on the plastic buckets (saving $20ish) and use them.
   Could I use stainless for long-term (racking) storage and save myself the trouble of dealing with 1 gal carboys? Or should I just stick with the carboys?
   
8. Problem- I have these jugs and am worried that professional airlocks won't fit them... advice?
   
   Additionally, could you recommend a fermentation lock (cheaper is always better)?
   
   Again, thank you SO flipping much for putting the effort into helping a random
   
   Edit: Looking at corkers and I am struck by a thought... could I not pound a cork into a bottle with a rubber mallet? Obviously not the best idea, but would the cork be unstable or break apart?
   

Yes, that is correct, and the banana flavor is very evident. So much so, in fact, that in subsequent batches I've skipped the banana fruit itself as most of the flavor of bananas comes from the peels from what I've read, and it seems to be true.

EDIT: I should mention in subsequent batches, although I've left out the banana fruit entirely I've doubled or tripled the number of banana peels. I'd say you want 2-4 fully ripe banana peels per gallon of mead. I usually target 3.

There's a pretty good breakdown of cork types in the bottling section of the wiki. Be sure to check that out.

Wax looks really cool but can be a real PITA to do well. It takes a bit of practice to get right. If you would rather not go down that road but want something that will still look professional you might want to check out heat shrink bottle toppers (something like this: https://www.amazon.com/30-Black-PVC-Shrink-Capsules/dp/B00AUJE4GM/ref=sr_1_5?crid=19WMEA8ISB1GY&keywords=heat+shrink+wine+bottle+seals&qid=1572539092&sprefix=heat+shrink+wine%2Caps%2C136&sr=8-5 ).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P5S1CG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's a pretty large pack, and it says it's for 5 gallons. The recipe I linked above begins with creating a starter and letting it sit for a couple of days.

You French have the prettiest bottles. Vinegar bottles if my google-fu and French aren't too far off? These?

This honey was the best pirce I could find. https://www.amazon.com/Kirkland-Signature-Pure-Honey-Pound/dp/B007F2EQEW/ref=sr_1_2_s_it?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1497983364&sr=1-2&keywords=5%2BPound%2BHoney&th=1

When your wife has a glass she will ask for more.

Like fan said, grab yourself one of these to add to the hose:

https://www.amazon.com/LD-Carlson-MR4PL1C-Bottle-Filler/dp/B008S0KMRK/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=bottling+wand&qid=1566505469&s=gateway&sr=8-2

Ohhh okay cool

Is this it? https://www.amazon.com/Wyeast-Activator-1388-Belgian-Strong/dp/B003P5S1CG

Or perhaps this? Maybe the same thing: https://www.midwestsupplies.com/belgian-strong-ale-yeast-activator-wyeast-1388-4-25-oz

I did notice that they're for 5 gallon batches. Do you use the whole thing for a 1 gallon?

They’re all largely the same. These are what I’ve used twice now People find that plucking off the green parts reduces some of the vegetal character. That’s obviously pretty labor intensive so plan to have a big plate to dump them on, a plate for green, a plate for flower, and a good show to watch while you plug through it. I’ve tossed them into secondary dry and I’ve steeped them in the beginning and I don’t really perceive much difference in taste or performance either way. Same thing hibiscus.

Edit: fixed link

Thank you!

From amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ABYD0KC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_aTQwDbHZ86DZ8

For cherry, I would suggest a tart cherry juice free of preservatives and added sugars. To remove haze, add pectic enzyme to the must before pitching yeast.

Mind looks exactly like this and I've never had problems with it.

Will do! I wasn't sure it would indicate on directions per gallon. This a good option?

Here is the item on Amazon. If you have a local homebrew supply shop near you, they may carry it as well.

Compared to apples, most berries have very low pectin levels. Pectin is a chemical present in most (all?) plants, and contributes haze to beer, mead, and wine. Apples have some of the highest amount of pectin, where soft berries tend to have the lowest.

You may find that the apple meads take a very long time to clear, if they do at all. However, pectic haze is easily remedied by adding an enzyme to dissolve it (pectinase).

Amazon

The consensus is that it imparts more actual banana flavour. I've never gone looking for data to back that up but I've seen people reference this book while discussing it in the past.
https://www.amazon.com/Page-Cups-Timothy-Belcher/dp/1300006250

here

Get yourself one of these.

Shrink Capsules
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AUJE4GM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_Pp-TBbJYFSZV8

https://www.amazon.com/Indian-Summer-Montmorency-46-Ounce-Containers/dp/B004M0Y8T8

here or I guess you could use hops

i used wax beads. http://www.amazon.com/Bottle-Seal-Wax-Beads-Gold/dp/B0064OFR0O/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1396710930&sr=8-10&keywords=wax+beads

Lalvin Wine Yeast 71B 1122 from the recipe.

I used a steam juicer. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0055Q2D2W?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Not homemade, but cheap: I used one of these for a while, and my only regret is not getting a floor corker right off the bat. Should be fine for a few bottles.