/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>1661987
Soory but my HAMMER IS BIGGER THAN YOURS!?..

>>888408
Retarded salaries? You mean $56/hr and $115/day per diem?

>>555378
And if anyone recognizes this recipe and has had it before... Yes, I am who you think I am.

>>555372
Okay, here's what you're gonna do.
Buy 3 5lb jugs of honey. 1 clover, one Orange Blossom and the third can be either. Buy about 10 limes, a ginger root, and 1-2 sprigs of rosemary.
Wash limes, peel+wash ginger, wash rosemary.
Juice the limes and zest them. But the zest, rosemary, and ginger in a muslin bag if you have one. If not, that's okay but it's just gonna be a little harder getting 'em out later.

Make yourself a starter the same way you would while making wine with Lalvin 1118. Add water, honey, and lime juice till you get to desired sugar level. Add spices. Add starter to must when it's ready. Add nutrients as necessary. Each day, taste it until each spice gets to desired level. Spices should be ready after about a week, but feel free to take each spice out individually once it starts tasting appropriate.

Rack off into secondary as normal after about 2 weeks. Age as normal.

It might end up a little cloudy due to the ginger, and it won't taste anything like normal mead, but it's fucking life-changing.

>>552362
tl;dr version, you're fine.

Pectic Enyzyme just breaks down the prectin in the fruit (slightly increasing available sugar and clearing up pectin hazes), so you should be fine even if you don't use it.

I've read that it works best if used either before or after fermentation, but not during. So you should be fine.

>>552236
If you've got the time, http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=13 is a pretty good place to start (chapters 9-16 are the most important I'd say). There's a few minor things in there I disagree with, but you've got to start somewhere. And even though it's a guide for mead, 90% of it still applies to wine (order a good grape concentrate rather than using store bought juice if possible.)

>>552158
It's legit, but don't expect anything good out of it. If you're gonna be that lazy, might as well just be drinking Franzia IMHO.

Balloons do make decent airlocks in a pinch though, and you'd be correct in assuming to prick a single hole in the balloon (it stretches and will open up).

Also if you're gonna use any juices, make sure they don't have potassium sorbate in it as they prevent yeast growth.

Okay so I know I'm the one who's trying to answer everyone's questions, I've got a few myself.

1)I'm fairly inexperienced in beer and looking to try making a Belgian (Dubbel or Tripel). If anyone has any proven recipes that they'd like to share, I'd be super-grateful.
2)Same thing with kombucha. I'm a noob here, and don't know where to start.
3)Has anyone ever worked with Holly Honey before? A while back I received some as a gift and it has a rather curious taste. I wasn't a fan of it raw, so I decided to ferment it, and now I've got a gallon of holly-honey-hydromel aging. There's no literature on it either, so I'm wondering if anyone has found good pairings with it, culinarily or in terms of alcohol.

>>552054
Okay, I'm not actually super educated on cider as I've only made a few batches of middling quality, but the most common opinions seem to be that you bottle it immediately (2 weeks or so) and that it only lasts for 6 months or so. (Due to lower alcohol content, it shouldn't last as long as wine).
(http://www.mrbeer.com/faq/FAQ-cider.php))
But just now I dug up a bunch of people who say they age it for months/years.
(http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=55488))
I've only tried it the first way, so I don't know which of these are correct or if the other guys do something special to preserve it.

>>551969
I'd personally use less vanilla, but that's a matter of taste.
>>551989
Since you don't age cider for a long time, a slight air gap shouldn't be disastrous. Get bungs that fit though. You're gonna use them eventually.
And you can still add sugar if you'd like. Fermentation will probably pick up again if you haven't stabilized with sorbate. But judging by >>551998, you might not want to anyway.

>>551609
I can't help, but I'm genuinely curious about this if anyone knows the answer.

>>551546
The advantage of bulk aging is that:
1)It's easier to rack/filter. If you bottle early, get sediment, and decide that you want to rack again, you'll end up with more waste than if you were using a large batch, and on top of that you'll have a bigger oxygen gap each time. With bulk aging you can top it up with more wine or using aquarium marbles.
2)It's easier to tinker with. If you decide you want to add oak or spices or sugar or acid, you can just throw it in rather than worrying about making each bottle the same. and removing the spices from each bottle.
3)You'll get a more consistent batch. (If you bottle early the top few might be great and the bottom few might be cloudy).
4)Seriously, fuck bottling. Bottling is probably 50% of the work that you have to do. The only reason you'll bottle is so that you get small portable vessels of wine that you can give as gifts or drink in 1 liter increments without worrying about the rest oxidizing.
>how long
Typically, you just keep racking it until you stop seeing sediment appear.

>>551301
I wish I saved this from the last thread so I could copy paste it, but...

The basic idea is that you are gradually acclimating yeast to the environment of your must. There's a ton of ways to do it, but what I do follows something along the lines of.

Prepare must that I'm creating. If I'm making a 5 gallon batch of 18% alcohol blueberry melnomel, I prepare it as if it were that. Pour the honey in, press/blend the berries, add them in.
Make starter with 1-2 cups of water and add honey (and minimal nutrient) bring it up to a gravity of 1.06-1.08 (Just some nice happy place for the yeast to start at. Doesn't matter if you're off). You can use apple juice/cider here if you like (no sorbates obviously), as it's probably the perfect environment to start off a fermentation, but I never have it. Put in yeast and stir vigorously. After 30 minutes, add 1-2 cups of your must in to double the size of your starter. Stir again. Wait 12-24 hours, then add 3-4 cups to double the size again (you can start doing staggered nutrient additions now). Every day, double the size of your batch by adding must until you get to the full 5 gallons or whatever.

The main idea is to make sure your get a really nice and healthy yeast culture with a high cell count rather than hoping a little packet is enough to get things started.
But also you're gradually adding the sugar so that the yeast doesn't get overwhelmed by the osmotic pressure of of some stupid 1.2 SG must.
(If this seems similar to the method for restarting a stuck fermentation, it is. It's also good for making sure the yeast don't die from shock of being added to a stuck 12% alcohol solution if you've somehow fucked up on a previous batch.)

You can obviously fiddle around with how you're doing it and there's tons of ways you can achieve the same effect, but this just seems to be the easiest way for me to get a consistently good fermentation going.

>>551247
Oh well. Happy drinking!

I'm gonna duck out for now. Will likely be back tomorrow, if not Wednesday.

>>551244
I'm still pretty new to it and haven't noticed a significant difference in taste (and most experiments I've seen have commented similarly), but it's still something I don't fully understand and am concerned about.

I'm pretty sure the benefit of using immobilized yeast over traditional filtration is that (aside from controlling the total yeast volume/cell count) you're only filtering what comes out of the yeast, and not anything that is present in the must itself. So depending on the size of the membrane, you may be filtering out fusel oils (which from my experience/reading you want to keep low anyway), but you won't be removing anything from the honey or fruit itself.

>>550955
>>551085
Having a bigger batch is nice for racking (plus one gallon batches always end up dead in a few days for me).

One protip though: Buy a few mason jars or varying sizes. When you're racking and get close to the yeast, start siphoning into the mason jars. This way, the first chunk of your rackings will be super-clear and have almost no yeast in it. The borderline stuff that you're sucking up gets cold shocked, and you can use that to top up your batch later on.
>>551145
>>551147
He has the right of it though. Acid additions should be done after the mead is finished, and only to taste. Remember that pH is logarithmic so that if you dilute a pH 3.9 to 3/4 water, you'll still end up with a pH of around 4.3. And it drops during fermentation. And this assumes you're not adding fruit, which will naturally add more acids. It obviously depends on the type of honey you get, but if you get a honey with a pH of say, 3.2, adding acid in the primary is like dumping a bag of fertilizer into a pond that is suffering from algae bloom.
Sugar content can be a problem if you're going for something sweet and strong, but using a starter following the "double the size of batch using must each day" will solve that problem. If you're going for a dry mead at 12% though, it's not a problem at all (still use a starter though).
And I'd argue that the biggest problem with mead is a lack of natural nutrients that you need to make up with chems or fruit, but I'd imagine you'd agree with me on that.

If you're looking for others that agree with me, here's the crib notes from the "Meadmaker of the Year" panel in 2010 where 5 MMotY holders discuss brewing techniques. My friends in the industry typically do the same regarding acids, and I don't know a single one who will add any pure acid supplements in the primary.
http://www.ahaconference.org/wp-content/uploads/presentations/2010/Mead_Maker_of_the_Year_Panel.pdf

>>550904
There are a few different ways to improve clarity/reduce sediment.
1)If you chill the mead, sediment will appear quickly at the bottom. From here, you can rack again.
2)Filtration - This has the drawback that it can add oxygen to finished mead (not usually a good thing), and can remove the compounds that give your drink flavor, but it will improve clarity without the need for chemicals or fining agents.
3)Fining agents - the other posts have discussed these pretty well, so I don't have much to add. If you have a haze though, Pectic Enzyme will typically help with that.
4)Patience and multiple rackings - Mead can continue to sediment for years if left unattended. Eventually everything will fall out, but not everyone has that kinda time.
5)Membranes, Yeast Immobilization, and spice/fruit-bagging
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-immobilization-magic-beans-fermentation-404698/
http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21542&page=4 (no paywall but requires registration)
There's some heavy science in this, but the basic idea is that it's possible to separate the yeast and the must by a membrane that is too small for yeast to pass through, but large enough for alcohol and nutrients to pass. This will greatly reduce the amount of yeast sediment, and thus speed things up. On the less technical end, if you're doing fruit or spice additions, putting the fruit mash in a cloth or nylon sack will lower the amount of fruit solids that get caught in suspension, also quickening clarification time.
>>550912
>>551032

It looks nice, though I'm not really accustomed to the color of blush wines. Hard to tell if this is the lighting, but it looks like you can see the keyboard behind it, which is a plus. Clarity will improve with age regardless though. And if you like the taste and buzz, it's a success.

And I'm going to bed. Will be back tomorrow if you've got any more questions.

>>549871
>>549760
also, forgot to mention that emphasizing a healthy fermentation is one of the most important things in having something quickly palatable (though going light on the tannins will help that too).
>>549804
If you like it, drink it all you like. HOWEVER, I'd recommend not bottling it yet. I can't comment based on your specific wine, (since you don't want to use a hydrometer or any scientific method to determine it's fermentation rate), but 5 days is usually not long enough to complete a fermentation, and it was still bubbling when you threw it in the fridge. Chilling wine will "cold shock" the yeast, causing it to go dormant. When you remove it from the cold, the yeast will most likely wake back up and start fermentation again (if there's any sugar left).

What this means to you:
1)Your wine will end up carbonated. This is okay if that's what you're going for, but keep in mind that pressure will build up in the bottles and they have a chance of exploding later on if you don't pay attention to them or use champagne enclosures.
2)Your wine will keep sedimenting in the bottle. I know you cold shocked it, but that doesn't separate everything. You sound like you're okay with this part, but most people don't like drinking the dregs, so you probably want as little of that as possible.
3)This nigga is still young and is gonna taste a lot different down the line. But you're probably fine with that.
Personally, I'd take it out of the fridge, and wait at least another 2 weeks for fermentation to die down, but I go for still wines. If you want petilant, be careful about it and use lose fitting corks so you get cork launchers rather than explosions. If you like super bubbly, go champagne style or serve it straight from the carboy.
(Oh and next time I'd recommend dropping the primary temp to around 75F or so if possible.)
>>549877
Okay that's nice. Applejack is probably a good choice for this, as apples make things ferment stupidly quick. Do mind the fusels though.

>>549759
If you make good wine, it's very similar. Main differences are that honey is already super-acidic, so that you don't need any acid additions (and may even need carbonate in some cases), and that you'll likely want additional nutrient additions if you don't add any fruit (some people use raisins here).
>>549760
Many homebrew forums will recommend this recipe for newbies. I've personally never used it, as the methods seem a bit crude, but it claims to be ready in 2 months.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f80/joes-ancient-orange-mead-49106/
Personally, most of my mead will take about 3 months till I'd consider bottling (I have one that's only aged a month and a half that tastes great, but that's an anomaly), but the longer you wait the better.
>>549775
1)I don't boil. I do skim if there's a lot of wax, but I haven't noticed much of a difference in either taste (my tastebuds are pretty average), or clarification time.
2)I add warm water (I'd recommend using purified/distilled water if you have bad water though), but don't boil. Boiling changes the flavor of the honey, which can be good or bad depending on what you're looking for (if you want to try something different, try cooking about 25% of the honey you're adding to the must. I accidentally did this in one of my earlier batches, and it added a unique character to it).
3)K1-V1116 - Lalvin is one of my favorites, as I like high-alcohol brews. Other's work well in different situations, but this is a good all-rounder for mead.
4)About 75% of the time. If you're wondering about a specific fruit, I'll answer to the best of my abilities.
5)Over 5 years.

(Old thread is dead): Friendly neighborhood brewer stopping in to answer any of your questions. I specialize in wines and meads, but will do my best to answer any questions you guys have. I might not get back immediately, but I'll try to stop in once a day to drop some knowledge on y'all.

>>547233
>(2/2)
>Don't believe it if it comes to wine. Maybe that's true for beer that has not enough alcohol to protect itself from whatever evil can attack it.

This only applies *after* you actually finish the wine. What happens until then though? Your wine yeast is fighting against native yeast, bacteria, and other nasties that can impair their growth. Making wine with wild yeast is a valid choice (I personally don't do it), that comes down to personal taste and philosophy, but that is no reason to use open-top fermentors covered in grime sitting at 120F. That's just gonna leave you with a nasty wine filled with fusels, if it even ferments to completion.

This doesn't mean you need to boil your must or add hundreds of pounds of chemicals, but please wash your fermentors with hot water at the bare minimum (rinsing with sulfites is recommended though, and if you're careful, you don't need to add any directly to the wine), and cover it with a lid that'll keep the fruit flies out during primary, and keep it fully under lock during secondary.

>Make wine at least 14%, and you're fine (somewhere between 13 and 14% even acid bacteria die out)

Once your wine is finished, using stabilizers and sanitizers is mostly a matter of choice and applies on a case by case basis. I don't personally don't use them. However, acid bacteria growth is not solely dependent on alcohol content. Much like yeast growth, it is based upon a combination of sugar content, alcohol content, aciditiy, and temperature. If your wine is high in sugar and low in total acidity (or high in lactic acid), this can lead to easier spoilage. This doesn't mean you need to sterilize every bottle of wine you make, but it gives you a better idea of which wines you need to keep watch on.

Now please, if we have any questions, or want to offer our experiences, go on.
But don't dismiss pre-established research and successes with a "Wtf don't believe it, noobs" mindset.

I'm here to spread brewing knowledge.

>>547233
>(1/2)
I'm sorry that you doubt over 10 years of experience, thousands of gallons of mead, thousands of happy drunks, and several medals. I don't know how long you've been brewing for, but I don't think that invalidates anything that I've done, or the great meads made by many novices.

>real mead needs 5 years to age.
1)Mead can age extremely well. If you have 5 years, by all means save it and you'll be rewarded for your patience. (just like a good wine, except mead tends to age even better)
However, this doesn't mean that a mead younger than 5 years isn't a real mead. You can make great tasting meads, melnomels, and metheglins of all varieties that only require around 3 months of aging if you get your technique down. (basically 3 months = good, 9 months or more fanatastic, aging for years = even better but with diminishing returns)
Only Cysers need longer aging time, though a harsh batch will soften out if you give it time.
Some prudes will only accept "show meads" and limit the types of ingredients they use, but they only shoot themselves in the foot and end up creating inherently inferior products.

>if you want doing mead, read books about wine and mead making before
I totally agree with this. If you want to do any type of reading, there are fantastic resources out there for all levels of brewers. http://www.gotmead.com/forum/ is a great resource for beginners, as is http://www.amazon.com/The-Compleat-Meadmaker-Production-Award-winning/dp/0937381802, but the best teacher is years of experimentation, as well as an adventurous palette and a strong background in chemistry and biology.

But really, if brewing can be boiled down to one thing, it is: make your yeast happy. There is nothing more important than a strong clean fermentation in producing a good drink.

>>547217
>meadfive