Mead using winemaking techniques?

[Tuco]

Excellent

Acid additions at the start works better for me

i added a teaspoon of citric acid and kept tasting, ended up adding around 3 tsp's

Does mead tend to foam a lot? I've left a decent headspace and have kept some must aside in a pet bottle

[lockwood1956]

depends on the must and on the yeast......



but you did the right thing by leaving the extra headspace.


top job

[fatbloke]

i added a teaspoon of citric acid and kept tasting, ended up adding around 3 tsp's

Does mead tend to foam a lot? I've left a decent headspace and have kept some must aside in a pet bottle

First last........

My meads have never really foamed a lot, but I'd think that it's not such a bad idea, as Bob says, it depends on the must/yeast combo - either way, a reasonable head space to start with, will soon be saturated with CO2, preventing oxidisation - though it seems that meads don't tend to suffer quite in the same way fruit wines do....

last first........

Ok, so in the experiment, Bob used citric acid. I also did that when I first started, though since then I've tracked down a fair number of books, many out of print, but the most informative to my mind was this one and the conclusion that they drew was that the best acid for meads was a combination of 2 parts malic to 1 part tartaric. I've used it since then and it does seem to work well. They didn't like using citric, because from what I recall (it's too late to go and find the book to confirm this), is that citric will do the job just as well, but it does tend to give too much of a "citrussy" hint to the mead, whereas the malic/tartaric combo don't detract from the honey flavour so much - I'm guessing that it's just the same as some of the original fruit i.e. lemon taste is considerably more over powering than most of the more acid tasting apples and grapes.

Hence I prefer to stick to their idea of the 2 to 1 mix.

Oh well, it's TFB for me right now, but if I remember, I'll dig out the book over the weekend and quote their text.

regards

JtFB

[Tuco]

depends on the must and on the yeast......



but you did the right thing by leaving the extra headspace.


top job

Better to be safe than sorry I checked it and it has a nice 'solid' head on it, about 1 inch in size.

Just tested it with my hydrometer and it's sitting around 1.084

I'm also doing a bit of an experiment, I had 1L cranberry juice, 1L white grape juice and 1kg raisins, so I bunged them all in a fermenter, added pectalose and a campden tablet. Will add the nutrient and yeast starter tomorrow, maybe a tsp of citric acid.

Any advice before i start it fermenting??

[Tuco]

Thanks FB, remember i only been brewing 3 months, sure i'll learn all this in time

It's done now though, blame Bob if it turns bad lol, but i'm sure it's gonna be lovely after I leave it a few months

[lockwood1956]

blame Bob if it turns bad lol,

bugger!

[Tuco]

Mead looking great after 13 days

[Tuco]

So I've racked once, will I be ok leaving it another month or 2, then racking again, I'm planning on bulk aging it in the demijohn, will it need degassing, or will it naturally degas if left

thanks

[Duffbeer]

It wont harm eitherway, some wines will de-gass themselves some will not, I recently opened a 2 year old jam wine that was full of co2, tasted prickly and metalic. A good de-gassing let it win at our local meeting that same night.
Don't panic, the co2 will help to preserve it from oxidation.

[Tuco]

Cheers duff