It's a Cider. It's an Acerglyn. It's a... Ciderglyn?

Yesterday we pitched some Narbonne yeast into our Frostfall Cider.
We had originally intended this to be a 5 gallon batch, but scaled it back to 2, in the interests of moving down the recipe list and not spending a fortune on maple syrup.

We found 6 quarts of 'Natural Style' Apple Juice (no preservatives) on sale at our local grocery store, to which we added 24 oz of pure Maple Syrup.
Then we mixed in two cups of water that we had steeped 6 Chai Spice tea bags in.
The must was very tasty, with a Brix of 18 (Gravity: 1.074).  We should get a full ferment of 10% ABV on this, giving us some room to add the additional sugars we'll need to bottle condition when it's ready.
We have some Maple Extract we may or may not add in secondary, depending on how this tastes after the yeast has done its job.

Other news?
None.

We haven't really touched any of our other meads in progress.
We have been drinking the Minehaus Sauer.  Too much.
Well, that's what it's for, I guess.
Haven't made much progress in moving the meadery yet, but have brainstormed a few ways to do it much more cost effectively than if we had just plowed ahead.
Also, making room in the house/schedule for some other projects.  One cannot live on mead alone.
I mean, you probably could, but the vitamin deficiency would definitely catch up to you.

EDIT:  Forgot to post the new Minehaus label...

Updates, Experiments and Compost

First things first, we'd like to talk about the Ginger Babymaker, our orange/pineapple/carrot melomel, spiced with ginger.
We just opened it up to get a hydrometer reading, and check on the color and flavor.
Hydrometer reads 1.003, down from 1.105, so it's almost at 13.5% ABV.
The color from the carrots has completely fallen out of suspension.  We feared that might be the case.  The bigger concern is whether all the good stuff fell out with it, not contributing much of anything to the fermentation.  Perhaps boiling carrot juice might break down the material further, like malt?  Just speculating, at this point.
The smell is very unique, and really hard to identify, but it seems more carrot-y than anything else in the mix.  The flavor leads with the pineapple.  It's pretty unmistakable.  It fades away into a slight bitter aftertaste.  Not gross, but probably not what we're shooting for, either.  The alcohol notes are present, but not overpowering, and don't contribute much to the odor.
We will certainly tweak this in secondary.  A lb (maybe 2) of honey could really bring out some of the sweeter flavors and balance out the acid from the pineapple.  Another hit of Lemon Ginger herbal tea and maybe some more raw ginger on top of that should kick it up a little, as well.  It would have been cool for the orange to come forward a little more, but it's already chock full of citrus, so we won't mess around with that.

Last weekend, we had intended a mass bottling spree, but it didn't really pan out.
We did manage to rack our Keto Pyment into two gallon jugs, artificially sweetening one and leaving the other plain.

We probably didn't let it dry out enough, because this still had a very yeasty nose.  It was actually really interesting to taste because the heavy yeast presence combined with the Welch's concord flavor and made it taste almost identical to a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich.  I'd consider that an off flavor, but a very pleasant one!  

We're sure that will settle out in secondary.  We added about half a bottle of Black Cherry MiO to the other jug, to sweeten and provide caffiene, because why not?  We're not taking this to the Mazer Cup or anything.  

Despite not getting around to it over the weekend, we did end up priming and bottling Minehaus, the pumpkin braggot.  It's hard to judge how that turned out before we have a finished product, but we're not that confident.  It's definitely a sour.  

I've read about Pumpkin Sours before, and it might be a fine drink on it's own.  It's just not what we set out to do, which is a little disappointing.  

We did a doubly thorough cleaning and disinfecting of all of our equipment afterwards.  We're not ready to start producing purposeful sours.

We put oxygen absorbing caps on a few, in order to age them until Fall, but regular caps on the rest.  We'll just hope for the best and slug 'em down.  They'll hopefully be carbed up and ready in another week or so.

We also tried the dry-hopped Bud Light experiment, just for fun.  We took Centennial, Tettnang, Willamette and Magnum hops; put some of each into bottles of Bud and then let them impart their flavor and aroma on the normally nearly flavorless swill.  

It was interesting, but ultimately kind of a waste of time.  We really made too many, expecting more help drinking them.  Some of them smelled really good, some had an improved flavor.  All in all, they were still Bud Light. 

Having sat in our fridge an additional week, the hops have now made the beer taste like yard clippings, so we dumped it out into our compost heap.  I've heard that beer is good for plants, so it's nice that there is actually a good use for Budweiser, after all.

Impatience.

Nothing important to report today.  We had the day off, and the desire to dip into the mead was too great to resist.

We uncorked a bottle of A Wish To Shenlong, our Oolong and Green tea infused mead. 

Having feared the development of fusel alcohol in it, we were pleasantly surprised with it.  Hot, yes, but not overpoweringly so after having been bottled a month or so.  The first couple sips took some acclimation, but the rest of the bottle went down happily. 

It had a tart kick to it, no doubt the result of an acidic pH with very little residual sweetness to offset it.  This is something we enjoy, but would understand it not appealing to a broad audience.  As this ages and mellows, the tea flavors should smooth out more and make for a really pleasant drink.  After finishing the mead, a thick honey aroma hung in the glass that was seriously the best part of the experience.  It clung to the sides and filled the air within the glass, and when I brought my nose in to inhale, cartoon tendrils crept into my nostrils and beckoned me towards another bottle of delicious honey wine. 

We resisted, somehow. 

There was a slight sparkle to the mead, despite the sulfite and sorbate regiment.  This wasn't unpleasant, by any means, but it does raise concerns for long term aging.  We're sure there can't be much more action possible, as far as bottle carbonation, but we'd be fools to ignore the possibility of bottle bombs. 
Hopefully we will be able to establish a temperature controlled environment to age the batch in before this becomes an issue. 

Or, we could drink it all. 

A Fitting Revision

Today being St. Patrick's Day, we decided to make an executive decision about our Ginger Babymaker mead.
It's a fun little side project, but the 'recipe' was unworthy of the name and legacy of our friend, Dan.
We are renaming the original randomly whipped together batch GB-one, and have made a brand new recipe for the Ginger Babymaker on this, the most Irish of holidays.

In one of our sanitized two gallon plastic fermenters, we first began with some Pectic Enzyme, a little Bentonite and two cups of hot water.

Then we stirred in 1 Tablespoon of Ginger Root and 2 Teaspoons of Sweet Orange Peel.

We mixed all that up for a bit, and then added 24 oz of Pineapple Juice that was left here from a little gathering last night.  (We owe you a bottle of this stuff, Ken & Lori!)

For theme and nutrient content, we added 32 oz of organic Carrot Juice, then stirred in 5 lbs of Clover Honey.

We threw in two drops of Fermcap-S and a 15 oz can of Mandarin Orange segments (in light syrup), then topped it all off with a gallon of Spring Water.

The refractometer gave us a reading of 25 Brix, or an approximate gravity of 1.105.  We plan on pitching Cote des Blanc yeast tomorrow and adding extra nutrients the day after.  We expect to ferment this down to about 12-13% ABV but, for now, this ginger-orange beast is sulfited and resting in the closet.

Updates:

Robot Oil is sitting in a carboy in the back of my clothes closet.  Haven't really checked up on it, but it isn't in the way of anything, so it can remain bulk aging.
The three Legendaries are looking pretty clear.  We think they're ready to bottle age, but we're in no hurry and our next few weekends are pretty full.
The same thing applies to the Earl Grey mead.  Crystal clear, but we'll let it sit some more.
Minehaus, the pumpkin braggot, is still covered in secondary.  We plan on bottling that the first weekend in April.
Our low carb (hopefully) dry pyment experiment will probably get split and racked that same weekend, and the newly rechristened GB-one will just sit until whenever.  We really have no specific plans for it.

Experiments in Carb Control

Decided to try a new 2 gallon batch tonight.  Nothing gourmet, we're doing this one with Welch's.

We used two cans of Welch's concord grape concentrate and 3 lbs of Aunt Sue's Raw Honey, filled to 2 gal with Spring Water.  We added half a dose of nutrients, a full dose of pectic enzyme and sulfites, some acid blend and a couple drops of Fermcap.
Original Gravity is 1.070, so we expect this to get really dry.  We are going to add additional nutrient in a couple days, after pitching tomorrow.  We're debating adding a couple extra lbs of honey.  We want a dry final product, but wouldn't mind a few more points of ABV.  The GotMead.com calculator suggests our current gravity will give us around a 9.5% ABV.
If we step feed with another 2 lbs, it should put us around 1.100, with an ending ABV of about 13%, which is withing the range of our Cote Des Blanc yeast.  The lower ABV will probably be drinkable faster, but the higher ABV should be drinkable drunker, so we haven't made up our minds.
Side point: the lower ABV could probably be bottle conditioned to be sparkling, which may help disguise any grossness?  We'll prob try it with a couple bottles, at least.

When we rack to secondary, we'll split this into two different gallon jugs for further experimentation.
One gallon will be left to fine out as is.  The other gallon we will try to artificially sweeten with some MiO Black Cherry energy squirt stuff.  We'll see how this goes.
Hopefully better than the ill-fated Breakfast Braggot.

I mean, we're not expecting fine mead here.  We're really just testing out how dry we can handle mead, and whether or not artificial sweetening is deal-breakingly disgusting, in an effort to produce something with very few carbs.

Probably won't work out a label for this test batch, or come up with a witty name.  At least for now, it's just the Keto Pyment.

Successes and Failures

This week was pretty eventful for us, with good news and bad.

The first good news was that we were contacted by a friend who had gotten into homebrewing a few years ago, but didn't really take to it, and so offered us his assortment of supplies to add to our own.  As anyone who brews at home knows, you can never have too much stuff.
He was kind enough to give us all of it for free, including five gallons of an Apfelwein that had been aging in the carboy for 2 years.  This was very exciting, but leads directly to our first bad news.
While driving it home, I noticed that the airlock was bone dry, no doubt simply forgotten in the two years this spent tucked away.  Unfortunately, a taste test confirmed that this apple wine had converted into apple cider vinegar.  It is a very mellow and sweet vinegar, with loads of apple aroma, so we will save most of it (including giving a lot away) for cooking.  Not a complete loss, but a shame anyway.
He also gave us a couple brown ales he had brewed, and were sitting for however long.  I cracked one and it was great.  Perfect carbonation, good head retention, nice color, very malty.  I don't know how long these had sat, but the style should have a subdued hop profile, so they didn't suffer at all from aging.
Thanks again, Jason!

The next bit of good news is that we decided to commit a bit further to this whole endeavor.  Our new goal includes the long and arduous process of removing our meadery from the small awkward closet in the hallway, and setting up a larger operation in our third bedroom.  This involves finding space for all the home gym equipment we never use as well as the cat boxes, cleaning, painting, acquiring and converting fridges and/or freezers, etc...
It will be a long time before this is complete, but the end result will be fantastic.

Today, we racked the pumpkin braggot to secondary.  It could possibly have sat in primary for awhile longer, as the ale yeast did not seem to cake very solidly at the bottom, leaving us with a little too much waste for our liking.  But the color turned out amazing, and it smells delicious.  The taste test was a little flatter than I had hoped.  I don't know if a braggot is naturally a bit thinner in its mouthfeel than a beer or if we did something wrong.  Only time will really tell, and this has a month or more in secondary before we bottle.  

Attempting to kill two birds with one stone, we topped of the headspace with a couple cups of water in which we had steeped a single bag of a Chai Spice tea that has a flavor that really matches with this.  The thought is that the tea will help round out the mouthfeel as it ages in secondary.  We also threw in a single cinnamon stick, then covered it up to keep the light away.

We thought it appropriate.

In a productive mood, we decided to take our Breakfast Braggot straight from primary to the bottle.  This was our last bit of bad news, though we never expected much from the batch.

It was... horrific.  Just a slurry of tan dirtwater, like one giant wet yeast cake with the light scent of an alcohol that I would rather use to... well, nothing.  There was nothing worthwhile or useful about this experiment.

Ditched.

In the end, we know we'll probably learn more from our failures than our successes, so we should rack this week up to an overall win.  

One thing we've learned, which led directly to us wanting to expand the operation, was the great importance of temperature control during fermentation.  We know that yeast work faster at higher temperatures, but we seem to have assumed fallaciously that faster is better.  In most of the meads we've made so far, we can taste the young esters of freshly made alcohol, which provides a boozey bite.  These were pretty minor and will fade over time.  The Oolong infused mead had a very strong bite, which we now believe goes beyond esters and into the territory of fusel alcohols.  These are a death sentence for most beers.

In the case of a mead, it probably just means extending the aging time considerably longer than we'd hoped.  

So now the goal is to try longer periods of fermentation at lower temperatures, like making a lager.

Since we will be slowing down our rate of making new batches in favor of prolonged bulk aging, this shouldn't be much of a problem, except in the frequency of updates to this site.

But we've got to start thinking about next October's Halloween costumes, and we've got archery season in between, so there's that.  Also, we have some interest in learning to make our own cheese and sausages.  

Not at all mead related, but you will read about it anyway.

Bottling Day For Shenlong

A Wish To Shenlong could have sat in the carboy for another couple months to bulk age, but we need the room and it was crystal clear, so we decided to bottle it.
We gave it a taste first, and it is still very hot.  Going to take a while to calm itself down, but should just get better and better as more time passes.  We also decided not to backsweeten it.  The additions that the tea made taste good dry, though we know this just means even longer to age.

It is glorious.

 

 

We got 31 bottles out of this 6 gallon batch.  We haven't printed out the labels yet, so we'll get them on there just before we put these away to age.  They came out such a nice golden color, I kind of want to affix little red stars to them as an added Dragonball reference.

Though, if one should gather seven of these bottles, I imagine an ambulance would have to be summoned in place of the Eternal Dragon.

 

In other news, we're playing around with the upcoming schedule.  Brewing the pumpkin braggot last week really gave us a beer bug, so we're gonna bump another one up on the schedule.

We're calling it Winchester Ale.

It's a bit of a departure for us, since it contains no honey.  I almost feel like adding in a single pound or so, just to not make a liar out of our logo, but the recipe doesn't call for it.

Speaking of the recipe, we'll keep that aside until we actually brew it, but here's a peek at the label.