Melomel First timer, advice welcome

For those making mead and related drinks
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lord groan
Lost in an Alcoholic Haze
Posts: 509
Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2012 12:34 pm
Location: Hampshire

Melomel First timer, advice welcome

Post by lord groan » Sat May 09, 2015 1:03 pm

I'm fascinated by the idea of mead making so I thought I'd have a go
after thoroughly confusing myself by reading a host of articles I thought I might try a lemon mead, so putting together what I think I might have gleaned from the internet do you think the following would stand a reasonable chance of success?

1.5kg lidl honey
500ml lemon juice
made up to a full demijohn with water
then
Lalvin D47 yeast
1-2 tsps tronozymol nutrient
thanks

fatbloke

Re: Melomel First timer, advice welcome

Post by fatbloke » Sun May 24, 2015 3:06 pm

lord groan wrote:I'm fascinated by the idea of mead making so I thought I'd have a go
after thoroughly confusing myself by reading a host of articles I thought I might try a lemon mead, so putting together what I think I might have gleaned from the internet do you think the following would stand a reasonable chance of success?

1.5kg lidl honey
500ml lemon juice
made up to a full demijohn with water
then
Lalvin D47 yeast
1-2 tsps tronozymol nutrient
thanks
Well, you'd be better placed make 5 litres total volume in a bucket - that way, it's easy to manage, to aerate until it hits the 1/3 sugar break (1/3rd of whatever the starting gravity is), then let if finish and drop the gross lees, then you'll be able to fill the DJ up (and maybe even have a bit left over - which you can put into a pop bottle in the fridge and use for any topping up later on).

Oh, and if you read places like Gotmead, you'll see that you might be better not adding the lemon juice up front. Meads can swing the pH quite a lot during fermentation, they tend to stick if they drop below 3.0 pH and because of the weirdness that happens with the gluconic acid/delta-gluconolactone during the ferment, I wouldn't be inclined to use it up front.

I'm not a big fan of D47 either, unless you have some way of keeping it cool during the ferment. It's known to produce quite a lot of fusels if it's fermented over 70F/21C (irrespective of what the data sheet says - data that's worked out with grape/wine musts, not honey incidentally).

Yet if you can get D47, you should be able to get K1-V1116 (depends what bit of Hampshire, but this lot have a brilliant selection of stuff)....

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