Wine and Mead Bottled

I have been busy over the last few days bottling and racking some of my home brew. The brews I have done in the last few days have been ones where I was unable to get a initial gravity reading so I won't know how strong they are but that's half the fun.

To start with I bottled my dandelion wine (original post can be found here) as this was a smaller batch and one of the older ones. I have had a sneaky taste of it and so far it tastes quite nice, actually a lot nicer than I was expecting although this could be the flavour of the red grape juice I used. Either way if the taste gets better from what it is at the moment then I'm on to a winner and will make a much larger batch next year. I got 3 full bottles and a part bottle, the part bottle is in the fridge ready to drink and the others I have stored in the loft to age; by ageing the wine I hope to further improve the flavour.

Dandelion wine in home made Demijohn, dilute pop bottle!

Bottles I've been collecting. Soaking to try to loosen the labels. The next step was to sterilize them.

The finished product bottled and now away in storage in my loft. 

The next thing I bottled was the remainder of the second batch of mead I made at the start of the year (again link for that post here). This was a really large batch and I already have 3 gallons of it stored in my earthenware demijohns (link to that post here; in that post it says I have 4 demijohns but actually I had 5) that my granddad gave me at the beginning of the year. That left me with 2 demijohns with the mead in; one of these I have left alone and the other I added more honey to a while ago although I can't find the post that says how much honey was added, oh well! I got 6 bottles from each demijohn and have stored them along with the dandelion wine. I had a small taste of the mead as it was being bottled and it has got some taste, more than it has in previous tests, it may turn out nice after all when it's aged a while.

Bottled up and ready for storage.

The sweetened mead ready for storage.

Once I'd bottled all the mead I had a few empty demijohns so while I had the equipment out I also racked one batch of raspberry wine. This batch has been going since July so is also nearly ready to bottle up but I now have a shortage of wine bottles so will be asking my dad to start saving them again for me. The raspberry wine had developed a thin layer of sediment on the bottom, which is to be expected as this was the second time I racked it, the first time it had a very thick layer of sediment. Next time there will, hopefully, be little to no sediment for when I bottle it.

And finally with the remaining demijohns I had I've made 2 further batches of J.A.O. mead as this is my favorite and easiest to do. I followed the method on this page but as with the last batch of this I made I have upped the amount of honey to 1.8kg so now have 3 demijohns full of this at various stages of development! I hope the extra honey doesn't spoil it but I doubt it will, they are all smelling rather nice and the oldest of the 3 is clearing nicely.

Solidified honey.

Not even 1kg yet. 

1.8kg dissolving in boiled water that has been left to cool for about 30 minutes

This much honey takes a long time to dissolve even with vigorous stirring

More Mead

Last Thursday should have been the day I went up to see the Bees and remove the last stage of their varroa treatment however for those who live in my area may remember that the weather was atrocious that day; there was high winds and lots of rain, hardly good weather to be opening the hive up. Instead of wasting a day I decided it would be a good idea to start another batch of mead.

So far out of all my mead I have made there has only been one I've tasted as it's a simple and quick mead that is ready in 2 months unlike others that take literally years to age properly. A lot of people would turn their noses at this mead with it being ready so fast but I don't care. It's quick, easy and it works, also to me it tastes great. The recipe can be found here. The only difference I made to the recipe was to add slightly more honey to make it a bit sweeter. This may affect how long it takes to be ready but that's no problem. I added 1.8kg instead of 1.6kg and the S.G. for this was 1.090 so at the end I will be able to work out the alcohol level rather than just guess.

I did make a slight change to the method for making this as well but it was only slight. Rather than just adding the yeast straight to honey water I added it to the sample I'd taken out to do the gravity reading. This was in a half pint glass. When I'd added the yeast to this small sample I left it 10 minutes covered in cling film (or plastic wrap if you're american!) and then returned to see how it was doing. I wasn't expecting it to have properly started in that time but I was wrong and it had already started foaming out of the glass so I moved it into a pint glass until I was ready to add it to the honey water and other ingredients. When everything was put together I placed the demijohn out of the way and will return in a couple of months (Christmas time) to see if it's ready to drink!

1.8kg of honey dissolving in boiled water.

Half pint sample with yeast in bubbling over!

Racking

Due to recent death of my mother this is my first post in a couple of weeks so my blog has fallen behind a little. She was an exceptional mother and grandmother who always encouraged me to do the things I'm passionate about so would have wanted me to carry on with my blog. I have several things I would like to post about and the first is the racking of my mead and wine.

I had several days at racking as I have a lot of mead on the go at the moment. The 30 litre batch that I started at the beginning of the year was split into 4 demijohns a few months ago so that took a couple of days to rack. This batch is just a straight mead with no other flavourings apart from 1 of the demijohns which I added extra honey to sweeten. Though I didn't have a hydrometer to begin with I have since roughly worked out the starting gravity or S.G. to be 1.060 and the current gravity is 0.97 which would give a ABV OF 12%. This batch is also clearing nicely and will be bottled next month and then set aside to age, hopefully this will make it taste nicer!

The dandelion wine, which is in a 3 litre pop bottle, was also racked and that has a nicer smell than it had before! The colour is still similar to red wine, due to the red grape juice added, but it appears a little clearer. No gravity readings have been taken at any point on this wine so will be a wild card when it is drunk.

The lemon and ginger mead I started in March was the next. This had a S.G. of 1.090 and is now about 15-16% ABV. I did mention in a earlier post that I would bottle this at 12% but as it's already gone over I will now leave for it to run it's course. I didn't taste this while racking so am unaware if it's got a nice taste yet but in time will find out.

Finally I bottled my second batch of JAO mead. This followed the same recipe as the first batch I did but am unsure what it tastes like yet as I haven't tried it yet. I didn't write a post about this when it was started and  haven't recorded the gravity at any point so again I am unable to tell how strong it is. Oh well, that just adds an extra layer of fun when drinking it!

The dandelion wine.

Racking from the earthenware "johns"

MEAD!!!!!!

Still Waiting

As the title suggests, I am still waiting to get my Bees. The course that I will be attending is getting ever nearer and there will be a chance to purchase Bees there. I am strongly considering buying some elsewhere as this will guarantee I get them this year as the course describes having very limited numbers of nucs available. Due to the amount of time I've been researching and preparing I would be so gutted if I didn't get going this year.

There is still much preparation needed in my Dad's allotment; the allotment committee require a 6' fence erecting around the apiary, however this will only require a days work as my Dad has already got the fence, it just needs putting in place. We plan on planting Bee friendly flowers around the apiary site to brighten it up a bit and make the Bees feel more at home.

Over the last few days I have received a couple of emails; one from Wakefield Beekeepers Association and another from DEFRA advising of European Foul Brood (or EFB) been found in a hive within 5km of me. Though this is bad news, I am glad that they have contacted me, although it won't affect me just yet (again back to the lack of Bees). I plan on adding EFB to my pests and diseases section but for the mean time I will say that it's a disease that Bees can get that effects the brood, potentially causing massive damage to the colony. There is another similar disease that is more nasty called American Foul Brood (or AFB) and I will also put this on my pests and diseases page. The American equivalent is more severe but not as common in the UK as far as I'm aware.

Recently I acquired a few more pieces of equipment from someone my sister knows who has unfortunately had to stop Beekeeping due to an allergy. The equipment I have received is mostly unused, such as frames and supers. I also got some packs of unopened wax foundation but as these had been in the garage a while had turned brittle and unusable in a hive. Not wanting to waste this wax I decided to melt it down; I used a large tall tuperware in a pan of hot water and added the foundation into the tuperware until all the wax was melted. I then let it cool and set so I can use it at a later date. There is more equipment they have available for me to purchase but I will have to wait to payday to afford any more.

My second batch of mead is going to be bottled in the next couple of days. In one of the demijohns I have added something to stop fermentation then added more honey to make it sweeter. As mentioned in one of my previous posts, my second batch didn't turn out as planned, being that I added far too little honey. This is why I'm experimenting a little with this one by adding extra honey after fermentation. As I have 4 demijohns with this batch I will probably experiment further with it by adding fruit juice to two of the other demijohns and leaving one with no additives.

Going back to my very first batch of mead, (the JAO mead) I have all but finished this off now. I tried, in vain, to store some to age, but as it was "hidden" in plain sight ended up getting opened and is now almost finished. This first batch was very sucessful and everyone who tried it agrees. There is another batch of this recipe brewing at the moment, but with slight difference being that I added a little lemon juice. Hopefully this won't change it too much. I think next time I do a large batch I will stick to the tried and tested JAO mead.

Mead!!!!

I have finally bottled my first batch of mead, the JAO. It produced approx 3.5 Litres. The recipe I followed doesn't mention adding anything to stop secondary fermentation, however I added a campden tablet prior to bottling just to make sure no further fermentation took place. I did this as I really don't want exploding bottles of mead; one reason being I've waited a long time for it but more important is I don't want to risk hurting anyone, especially my young daughter.

This picture shows the bottled product. These are 1 Litre bottles. The mead at this point is rather cloudy but I'm advised that it will clear if left a couple of months and the taste will be better. I'm not sure I will be able to wait this long as I have already opened one of these bottles!!

In these 2 glasses are the last bits to be syphoned out of the demijohn. It is cloudier than the bottled product as part of the sediment was sucked through the tube. It was still very tasty but had a slight off taste that my unrefined palate couldn't name, but I'm putting this down to the sediment as further drinking from the bottled product had a much nicer taste and cleared appearance. If I was to try to describe the taste of the bottled product I would say it was sweet but not overly sweet, with subtle orange flavour and a warming after taste. I will certainly be making more!

The hard part now is saving at least one bottle to allow to mature. It's recommended to leave at least 2 months but I'm not sure I'll be able to. As I consider this batch a success next time I may make a larger batch, that way I would have more chance of saving some to mature. Also when I finally get some bees and am harvesting my own honey, the mead produced should be better quality. At the moment I am still using bulk commercial honey.

Update on Second Batch of Mead

While searching the net for more mead recepies I came across the following guide on High Wycombe Beekeepers Association website

2 lb. honey in 1 gal. gives S.G. 1.060, potential alcohol 7.8%.
3 lb. honey in 1 gal. gives S.G. 1.090, potential alcohol 12%.
4 lb. honey in 1 gal. gives S.G. 1.120, potential alcohol 16.3%.

Dry Mead: Starting S.G. 1.085-1.105. Finish S.G. 0.990-1.000.
Medium Mead: Starting S.G. 1.105-1.120. Finish S.G. 1.000-1.005.
Sweet Mead: Starting S.G. 1.120-1.130. Finish S.G. 1.005-1.015.

Using this bit of info I tried to work out roughly how much alcohol my second batch of mead would produce. I started off working in litres and kilograms so my first step was to convert to gallons and pounds.

Using google to convert:-

6kg > 13.2lbs
30L > 6.6 gal  (in my original post it says 25L but later I checked and it was closer to 30L)

This would give a 2:1 Honey:Water ratio and approx S.G. of 1.060, potential alcohol 7.8% which is much lower than I originaly thought. I should really have used upto twice as much honey in the mix. Due to this and the lack of activity over the last few days in the recently racked mead I will be doing a hydrometer test on it soon. If the gravity reading is 1.005 or less then I believe the fermentation will have stopped and the mead will be ready, even though slightly weaker than anticipated.

Racking The Mead

I have decided it is time to rack my second batch of mead.  I'm doing this to separate the mead from the layer of sediment at the bottom; the sediment is known as the lees.

The first step was to make sure all my demijohns are sterile. I used a sterilising powder mixed with warm water then left for 10 minutes to do it's work. I have put some kitchen towel in the necks to stop dust getting in the demijohns.

I then brought my primary fermentation vessel into the kitchen and lifted it onto a chair. This was rather heavy as it contains 25-30 litres of mead!

Next was to put the siphoning tube into the large fermentation vessel and give the tube a good suck so that the mead was travelling down the tube. I managed to get a little in my mouth so I will count that as my tasting. If I'm honest it doesn't taste too nice at the moment but it definitely has a boozy edge to it.

This shows the airlock applied to the 2 gallon demijohn.

These pictures are the same again but for the smaller demijohn....

 ....and again for the glass demijohns. In the photo on the left I've had to raise the demijohn as my siphoning tube wasn't long enough to get to the bottom of the big fermentation vessel.

 This is the sediment or Lees that is left behind. It looked and smelled rather nasty so was disposed of rather quickly!

In the above photo from left to right; Ginger and Lemon Mead, JAO Mead and the last 4 are the Mead I just racked. The JAO Mead is really near to being ready to drink as it's nearly totally clear. These are all in my daughters room at the moment; she is still sleeping in my room as she is only 3 months old. This is due to her room being the warmest and darkest as she has very thick curtains.

Homebrewing Gifts from Grandad

I visited my Grandad the other day as he had told my Dad he had a demijohn or 2 that I could have. When I got there he started bringing all sorts of pieces of equipment out of a plastic bag plus had 4 Demijohns lined up behind his chair ready for me to take.

 In the image you can see a 2 gallon and 1 gallon earthenware Demijohn, these are really heavy but look excellent, they really don't make them like they used to! In front of them are 2 glass Demijohns that I believe used to be cider bottles, these are also 1 gallon. Between the 2 glass Demijohns there is a couple of lengths of tubing that are used to syphon mead/wine out of the Demijohn and in to bottles. To the front of the picture there is a variety of bits of equipment. There's a wooden corking machine, several bungs, a bag of labels, a bag of corks and 4 boxes of aluminum foil caps for adding a professional touch to the finished bottled product! If you look carefully on the red boxed equipment on some of them you can see they have a very old Boots logo on them and also on has a pre decimalisation price sticker on, though this isn't visible in picture. This shows how old some of this equipment is but all still perfectly usable if I sterilise it well. There was also a receipt in the bag that showed what I believe is last time my Grandad bought equipment and this is from 1990!


A couple of days later he brought me a bottle of his last wine he made that is from around this time, so over 20 years old, and in my opinion it was very tasty though my better half was a bit dubious. We think it is Sloe wine made from Sloe berries (obviously). He has told me he has a couple more Demijohns I can have but these still have wine in them from one of his relatives that was made before he was born, so the content of that will be at least 86 years old! I'm not sure how nice they'll be but I may have a small glass then leave it 24 hours to see if I get ill and if not then I'll drink it!



Update on current Meads

My first batch of Mead, the Jao, is very nearly ready. I find myself checking it every couple of days and each time the liquid looks slightly clearer, I reckon another week and it'll be ready to bottle. My second batch is still active but has really slowed down. Now I have all the extra demijohns I am in a good position to start racking it and then I'll get a better idea of how its going, as the container its in at the moment isn't see through.



Update on Beekeeping

Not much to say at the moment but I am now a member of BBKA and have received my welcome pack. This means I now have the liability cover needed to keep Bees in my Dad's allotment. I have also received details of the course I will be attending in May/June.



Update on Allotment

Again not much to say here. I have not heard anything back from a couple of members of my group to get my allotment so have requested these members be removed, which will put me back to needing 2 members. Finding another 1 member isn't going to be a problem but finding the second could be. I will have to put another appeal for members on Facebook. My Dad will let me use part of his allotment for growing but I would rather have my own within walking distance

My First Attempt at Mead

In the past few days I have started to brew my first batch of mead. The recipe I have chosen to follow is for Jao The Ultimate Beginners Mead.

I have chosen this recipe due to it's simplicity and how quickly you get results. This mead is ready in little over 2 months. The research on the net I have done prior to making this brew always tries to steer away from using bread yeast but this recipe is designed for it. Using this yeast instead of more alcohol tolerant yeasts does produce a weaker mead but still 12% isn't bad! The honey I am using is not from my own bees (as I still haven't acquired any yet) but has been supplied by a family member in bulk and with any luck this will not affect the outcome too much. I am making approx 3.8 litres but if successful will probably make a larger batch in the future. At the moment fermentation seems to be happening quite happily with the airlock bubbling every minute or two. If I've followed the instructions correctly I should be tasting the mead as early as march and will post my thoughts on the taste as well as the views of anyone else who tastes it. Just need to get some bottles for when the mead is ready so I can store some rather than just drinking it all at once!!

Below is a few images. The first is the demijohn with all ingredients inside and airlock on top. The second is covered in black bin bag to stop too much light getting in, ideally it should be kept in a dark cupboard but I have to keep it in living room due to winter temperatures and living room being only room that is consistently warm. The final picture is a close up of the air lock.