Homebrew Diary Thing
Not sure how to arrange this. Could just end up with one twenty mile long page with links back to the top at the end of each entry. Entries are probably gonna be short anyway because I'm not running an ad mill disguised as a recipe website.
Exploratory Hydromels
Make a caption p tag, slightly smaller, italics, maybe slightly greyer? more like slightly gayer eyoooooooo
Tragically I didn't write down dates and processes for my first set of meads, one in a long line of many mistakes that miraculously did not culimate in disaster. I know I started them in mid Februrary (another mistake, as the yeast were nowhere near warm enough to properly ferment) using some unbranded mead yeast I got off eBay (yet another mistake, since I didn't know the temperature or nutrient requirements) and zero energizer or nutrients (how did these batches even succeed?).
I used 5lbs honey for approximately 2.5 gallons, since I had only bought 5lbs of honey per batch thinking that would be enough for 5gal before realizing my mistake. I couldn't combine the honeys since I wanted to test the efficacy of store bought honey (Verona Valley brand from Woodman's) vs locally sourced honey (from a MWBA friend of my mom's), so I thought halving the amount of water would work out fine. (Mistake - using only 3gal of space in a 5gal carboy left too much oxygen in contact with the must.)
Unsurprisingly, fermentation stalled after a day or so due to the house being cold and the carboys sitting on the floor. Even after I moved them upstairs they just couldn't get going again. After a few weeks I bought a couple packets of Lalvin D47 to try and restart fermentation. I tried to rack them into new carboys but had a hell of a time trying to get a siphon going, so eventually I gave up and dumped them in via funnel (mistake - more oxygen) and made sure to pick up an autosiphon for next time.
I think it was about two more weeks before I gave up on trying to ferment them any further. The gravity was coming out at about 1.000 (I did not bother to write it down (mistake)) so I figured that meant they were done. I bottled them (3/19) directly from the carboys (mistake - should have kept checking the gravity to make sure they were actually done) and after spilling a whole bunch on the floor because I didn't have a bottle wand, ended up with about 12 16oz bottles of each. The final taste ended up very light and dry, maybe a little cider-y. Surprisingly there
Most of the bottles are in the basement now. I just checked them today (5/7) to make sure there wasn't any CO2 building up in them and they seem fine. I'm still not entirely convinced they won't explode so I'll probably keep opening a bottle every month just to make sure and to also check the flavor. Last month I opened one and the flavor was alright but there was a terrible funk due to the amount of sediment that made it into the bottles. Dad says it should be fine as it ages out but I don't think he realizes just how bad a job I did with bottling. We'll see.
A Second Round of Attempts
why is this pic so fucking crunchy. fix it
Since I made sure to actually write dates for all the steps I took, I can actually go day by day with this one instead of having to rely on the block of Swiss cheese that is my brain to remember when I did things.
5/3/25 - Started 2 new batches of 5gal each. Batch 1 is the recipe for Juniper Berry Mead from the Skyrim cookbook; I'm calling mine the Todd Howard Special. It calls for juniper berry, yarrow, and hibiscus, and I'm using one packet of Voss Kviek yeast for 5gal. I increased the recipe from 1gal to 5gal, but only added half as much juniper as the recipe would need. While at the homebrew store picking up potassium sorbate, a man who I think must have been the owner came over to ask what I was making. When I said I was making mead with juniper, he invited me into the room where all the store's homebrews were kept and had me try some extracts he had made. He sugggested that, instead of adding juniper directly to the must, to make and add my own juniper berry extract so that I could control the flavor. However, since juniper was not the
Batch 2 is a blueberry melomel from the Homebrew Talk forums. I had a different blueberry melomel recipe in mind but failed to write down where I found it. I remember it called for vanilla bean, and since I had already bought a bean in anticipation, I decided I would use it for this recipe instead of the blueberry flavoring called for. I followed the recipe as printed but added the vanilla bean for the first 24 hours (on a string so I could fish it back out before adding the yeast).
5/4/25 - Added 3 packets D47 yeast to the blueberry mead; removed the vanilla bean and gave it to my coworker who bakes. The recipe says to stir the must once per day, but I was reading some other recipes that said for something with this much oxygen twice daily is better to prevent the berries from drying out and growing mold. Meanwhile the Kviek yeast in the Todd Special are going absolutely nuts, much to my surprise.
5/6/25 - Todd seems to be already done fermenting, the airlock is only burping about once every five seconds. Added stabilizer mixture of 2.5tsp potassium sorbate and .25tsp metabisulphite dissolved in 50mL water.
5/7/25 - First racking for Todd. Gravity 1.100, very sweet, good hibiscus flavor but basically zero juniper so I added 1oz juniper extract while racking. Might need to add more at second racking, which I will do in a month or so.
Goodnight, sweet prince...