Oy! Too busy...

Sometimes I really don't like my job. There are tomes I get so busy I can't do things I need to do, like, bottling. *sigh*

I finally got around to tasting a few yesterday. The carrot honey mead was a pleasant surprise. What an amazingly complex taste! It's really good now, but in a few months it will be even better. I got 6 bottles out of the batch. One went to tasting at The Brew Hut, and Steve, the guy who asked me to try that honey, is jealously guarding the rest.

The second round of pyments and wines all taste good, none the worse for their extended stay in the carboy. I will be bottling these today, knock wood. I have not tasted the other 6 beer yeast honey experiment batches. I intend to bottle those next weekend, once I'm back from yet another trip.

The ABC batch tastes like liquid Christmas and apple pie. It will bulk age a little longer. I also intend to give the port a little TLC soon, but my forced neglect may have turned it into a lost cause. We will see.

And that's the update. More as it develops.

Welcome BBR Listeners!

Look for updates on my brews soon. In the meantime, check out the links to the left!

And we're off...

We're off! All the one gallon batches are done. Here are the Brix readings:

Orange Blossom - 26.3 (1.112)
Sage - 27.3 (1.116)
Tupelo - 26.6 (1.113)
Raspberry - 27.4 (1.117)
Wildflower - 26.7 (1.114)
Avocado - 26.9 (1.114)
Carrot Blossom - 26.5 (1.113)

All within 5 points of each other, which I think is pretty good. Differences are likely in small variances of water and the moisture content of the honey. All batches were cold mixed, with .8 grams of DAP and Fermaid-K added, along with 1g of Potassium Carbonate. Yeast was pitched and shot with 30 seconds of O2.

The first six batches were pitched with a single Activator pack of Wyeast 1056 American Ale. The Carrot Blossom was pitched with 5 grams of Safale US-05 yeast. This is the Brew Hut batch.

I'm very interested to see how this turns out, because besides the Orange Blossom honey, I haven't made a traditional batch with the any of these honeys before, and they are all mighty tasty.

Yeast has arrived

The yeast for my Beer Yeast Mead experiment came in today. I got 6 of the smaller Propagator packs of Wyeast 1056, one for each batch. I should be able to get this going tomorrow. Yay! The honeys I'll be using are:

Dark Wildflower
Orange Blossom
Raspberry
Avocado
Tupelo
Sage

When I went to pick up the yeast today, I noticed a couple of containers of honey on the front counter. One was sage, the other was Carrot Blossom. They were for tasting samples, so I did. The Carrot blossom is darker (not as dark as Avocado), rich and has a spiciness to it. Very interesting stuff.

Here's the cool part. As I was walking out, Steve (my go-to guy at the store) handed me a 3lb jar of the Carrot Blossom honey and packet of Safale US-05 and said, "make us a 1-gallon batch of mead with this?". How could I refuse?

Clearing Time

The wines and pyments are clearing. I used the Chitosan that came with the kits to do this, per the instructions. All four batches are clearing nicely. It's interesting to watch the initial clearing process, then wait and watch the slower clearing happen. It's like a band of clearness that starts at the top and slowly makes its way down.

The Port reached 1.014. I could discern no fermentation, no matter how much I tried. Give that the batch is at day 10, I went ahead and added the capitalisation sugar. It's slowly fermenting again now, thankfully.

Now we wait some more...

Progress

Things are progressing well:

Chocolate Raspberry Port: 1.020, 10 points from capitalisation. I figure it'll be at 1.010 by Tuesday.
Pinot Noir wine: slowed to a crawl. I reckon it's almost fermented out. I'll check it once the Pinot Pyment reaches FG, but I have little doubt it will be at the kit-specified FG of .996 by then. It was at 1.007 four days ago.
Pinot Noir pyment: Racked to secondary today, 1.025, or 10 points from desired FG. Fermentation picked up after racking. Will check this one tomorrow.
Riesling Wine: Racked two days ago at 1.003. Should finish soon.
Riesling Pyment: Racked to day at 1.014, or seven points from desired FG of 1.007. This one has an F-pack, so FG here is BEFORE the f-pack addition. I'm shooting for 1.015 post-f-pack.

The timing on the Riesling batches will be crucial. I want to do the f-pack for both on the same day, but if I am to follow the instructions, the wine must reach .996 by the time the pyment reaches 1.007, as I will need to stop the Pyment and not stop the wine short. Judging by the readings, I think I'm okay. This is the first split-batch wine kit pyment procedure I've done with an f-pack kit, so we'll see how it turns out.

A little tinkering

Not one to leave well enough alone, I gave my wines a 30 second shot of O2 at yeast pitch, and another 30 seconds the next morning. Even though the wine kit instructions say to check after 7 days, at 4 days my Pinot Noir wine was down to 1.007 (from 1.092), and the Riesling wine was down to 1.017 (from 1.082). I suspect the Riesling will reach 1.010 tomorrow. Per the kit instructions, I racked the Pinot Noir wine.

Other readings:

Pinot Noir Pyment: OG 1.122, SG today 1.054
Riesling Pyment: OG 1.112, SG today 1.053

I broke my hydrometer before I got a reading on the Port, but according to the Brix readings and a rough calculator, OG 1.126, SG today 1.031.

Ah, the smell of fermentation...

All the batches are fermenting well. Very active bubbling in all airlocks.

Nothing much to do now but sit back, wait a few days and take gravity and pH readings...