Beeswax?

Back to the mead...

Four weeks ago, I racked the mead into a carboy, to allow secondary fermentation to proceed, which it did. Fermentation was more or less over a couple of weeks ago Tonight, I decided it was time to rack the mead into a clean carboy so the mead can bulk-age, lose CO₂, and clear up.

During secondary fermentation, there was a small froth on the surface, which isn't a big deal. However, as fermentation slowed down, a fine, beige solid remained on the surface of the mead, and along the inside, top surface of the glass, under the neck. The solid never dissolved.

Beeswax?

After racking, I managed to swipe my finger into the dirty, empty carbon, and get some of this material. It was granular, hard, but seemed a bit 'gummy', like paraffin wax. Question for honey and mead people: Is this beeswax?

This particular honey is not heavily processed. I used 2-3 kg of honey, so it wouldn't be a surprise if there was a small amount of beeswax in there.

Sadly, before I could measure specific gravity, I dropped my hydrometer on the floor. So, I cannot estimate alcohol content of the mead right now.

The mead sure tasted good, though. I was surprised by the sweetness. Fermentation was OVER. There shouldn't be any residual sugar in there. It could be that there are other sugars (e.g. pentoses or something like that) that the yeast did not touch. This deserves some research. Question for honey people: what types of sugar are present in honey? 

Valpolicella Wine Kit

A couple of months ago, I bought a wine kit that was on sale:  Wine Kitz Traditional Vintage Valpolicella.  It is meant to be a nice table wine.  This last weekend, I finally got around to starting it.  The kit consisted of 10 L of concentrated valpolicella grape juice and packets of yeast, potassium metabisulfite, potassium sorbate, kieselsohl, and chitosan - all the consumable materials you need.

Naturally, you start by sterilizing all of your equipment.  Then, you simply mix the grape juice with enough water to give you 23 L and sprinkle the yeast packet on the surface.  The fermentation starts up quickly -  more or less as soon as any dissolved oxygen is used up by the yeast.

10 L bag of valpolicella grape juice

The fermentation is now in progress inside a large plastic bucket.  The bucket has a loosely fitting lid which allows the carbon dioxide gas to bleed out.  Because of this small amount of gas escaping, the room has a background of fruity/bakery sorts of aromas.  The home office always smells nice when something is fermenting.

A little peek under the lid to see the primary fermentation (day 3).

Rhubarb Wine: Interim Satisfaction

Twelve days ago, I started the rhubarb wine.  I've been out of town for half of that time.  Today, I got around to checking on the progress.  When I opened the lid on the plastic bucket and looked at the surface, I could tell that fermentation was on the tail end.  There just wasn't a lot of "activity" in terms of bubbles.  I quickly sterilized a 3 gallon carboy and my auto-siphon and got to work racking the wine into a carboy.

Some observations:

1. Specific gravity = 1.012.  The initial s.g. was 1.097.  Therefore, the approximate alcohol content at this point is somewhere between 13.0 and 13.5 %.  (It's getting close to being done!)
2. The colour!  There is a nice peachy pink colour now.  I thought the colour had been totally  bleached by the campden tablets, but there might be something else going on.
3. The taste!  (Naturally, I tested it!)  There was no tartness at all, just a mild rhubarb flavour, along with a gentle grape taste from the concentrate that I added.  This has the potential to be a very nice dessert wine.

Front: Rhubarb wine, with some colour.  

Back: Mead, just prior to adding kieselsohl.

Mead v.1 has been sitting in a carboy for about 12 days as well, and there was a nice build up of lees at the bottom.  I racked it into another carboy and then added the kieselsol, which is step 1 of the finings.  And, I sampled the mead too.  It's getting better!  The taste has mellowed out a little and I think it will be really nice when it is chilled.

Mead at 6 weeks

For the last two weeks, the fermentation rate has been falling slowly.  Two days ago, I made the decision to stop the fermentation.  There was a nice layer of lees at the bottom of the carboy.  The bubble rate was down to 2 per minute.  I reckon that the fermentation probably would have continued for a week longer.  It was the specific gravity that tilted the decision to stop.  The initial specific gravity was 1.120, and it had fallen to 1.019.  Yes, with that final specific gravity, there is probably a small amount of fermentable sugars remaining.  However, from the hydrometer scale, the difference between starting and final specific gravities corresponds to an alcohol content of approximately 15%.  I felt that this was more than strong enough.  If there's a little sugar left, so be it.  It will taste sweeter.

So, I siphoned the mead into a sterilized secondary fermenter, and then added 1 tsp. of potassium metabisulfite and 3/4 tsp. of potassium sorbate, with lots of stirring in between.  Two days later, I haven't noticed any activity, and there is a nice layer of lees that has already settled out.

(1) Mead immediately after racking to the secondary.

After racking the mead, there was a small volume remaining in the primary and in the siphon hose.  So, I sampled it.  It was better than the junk I was served at that barbecue many years ago.  However, the unprocessed mead I tasted had some carbon dioxide in it, which made the taste sharp.  That will hopefully disappear with time.

 (2) Sediment two days after racking.

My plan is to let this sit for the next week or so, and then add the finings to make this beverage crystal clear, and ready for bottling!

Mead at 4 Weeks

In typical OCD fashion, I have taken daily measurements of fermentation rate (bubbles per minute) of the mead sitting in the corner of my home office.  Today is exactly 4 weeks since the start.  The rate this morning was 3.2 bubbles per minute.  So, the fermentation is still chugging along.  I thought it would have finished by now!  (Could this be a case of "a watched pot never boils"?)

Mead primary fermentation at 4 weeks
(It doesn't look any different to the Day 16 pic.)

Mead v.1

Confession:  I don't know much about mead.  The first and only time I tried it was 9 years ago at a barbecue at a colleague's home.  This colleague does not drink alcohol.  A year or two previously, somebody had given him a gallon jug of homemade mead, and it had sat at the back of a cupboard since then.  This particular evening, he decided to coerce his guests into consuming it so he could then dispose of it with a clean conscience.  I sampled it.  It was sweet and had a lot of alcohol in it, and I didn't really care for it.  I did not ask for seconds.  From what I recall, he still had a very full jug of mead when the evening was over.

So, why mead?  What's the appeal?  For me, the most interesting thing about mead is just how ancient it is.  From archaeological evidence, it is the oldest fermented beverage.  According to Wikipedia, forms of it date back as far as 7000 BCE:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead

How can that sort of history fail to stimulate one's imagination?  Just imagine how the discovery of fermentation took place.  Did proto-civilization humans drink mixtures of honey and water?  Perhaps a container of this honey drink was sealed in a pottery vessel, forgotten for a time at the back of a primitive cupboard, and then consumed by some unwitting soul?  Imagine the first time somebody drank a fermented beverage!

Over this last winter, I started thinking about making a batch of mead, just to test it out.  Why not?  There are many mead recipes online, and there seem to be a lot of people out there who really like making and consuming homemade mead.  One of the problems to overcome was where to obtain several kilograms of honey without having to drive all over the country to find a beekeeper (or purchase a large number of smaller containers of honey at Safeway).  We recently took out a Costco membership, and that is where I discovered 3 kg jugs of honey.  I bought two.

For this first run, I adapted the following recipe for basic mead:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Basic-Mead-201058

Following the standard sterilization procedures, I used a funnel to transfer approximately 4.5 kg of unpasteurized honey (i.e. one and a half jugs of honey) into one of my 3 gallon carboys, already one quarter full of distilled water.  I added honey gradually, stirring in between additions to mix it into the water.  When it was well mixed, I added water to fill it to 3 gallons, and gave it a final stir.  (I did not heat any of the water because I read somewhere that heat can alter some of the natural honey flavours.)  Then, I simply sprinkled a packet of sparkling wine yeast onto the surface, closed the carboy with an airlock, and waited.  The specific gravity of the honey/water mixture was 1.120.  According to the scale on my hydrometer, this is in the starting range for dessert wines (strong and sweet).

(1) Honey and water...

Initially, the fermentation seemed to start okay.  I monitored bubble rates closely over the first day, and was alarmed when the fermentation rate started to slow down at 22 hours.  My initial thought was that the problem had to do with not activating the yeast.  With the regular wine kits I have done, yeast activation was unnecessary; the fermentation took right off when the yeast was simply sprinkled on the surface.  I visited the Wine Kitz store to get another packet of yeast and had a chat with one of the Wine Kitz dudes.  He told me, from extensive experience, that mead was very difficult to start because honey has anti-microbial properties.  In fact, he informed me that if you sprinkle yeast onto neat honey, all the yeast will die.  So, yeast activation was critical.  Back home, I quickly activated a packet of yeast with warm water and added it to the carboy.

The activated yeast certainly performed better, but the bubble rate plateaued at just over 4 bubbles per minute, which seemed very slow.  Next thought: add some yeast nutrient.  I added two teaspoons of this stuff, and the fermentation took off immediately.  You can see this in the following graph.

This graph tells the story of a learning process. The lessons are:

1. Activate the yeast
2. Use yeast nutrient
3. Don't let your children turn off your oil heater (they think they will save you money on your electricity bill, but it also lowers the room temperature and slows fermentation)

The last data point in the bubble graph is from this morning, which is day 16.  It kind of looks like the fermentation rate is leveling out, but it's not over yet.  It may be worth taking a hydrometer reading to check the progress.

Oh, by the way, the aromas coming out of the airlock are just fabulous.  It smells very yummy!

(2) Mead primary fermentation on day 16

Pomegranate/Acai White Merlot

Sometime in mid-March, I visited the Wine Kitz store in St. Albert.  I was overdue to make a new batch of wine and asked if they had any good kits on sale.  The Wine Kitz dude, whose name I cannot remember, pointed out the "Country Mist" series of wine kits.  All of these involve a mixture of various fruit juices with the grape juice, yielding sweet wines that you would enjoy while sitting on a patio on a summer afternoon or evening.  The Wine Kitz dude strongly recommended the Pomegranate/Acai White Merlot.  The price was right and it sounded interesting, so I picked up a kit and got started a few days later.

A wine kit comes with a very clear set of instructions.  Generally, the instructions tell you to perform the primary fermentation in a large plastic pail.  I have done this in the past, but this time I used a carboy with an air lock (Pic 1).  Why?  Because in wine making, oxygen should be excluded as much as possible.  The head space in a carboy is much smaller than what you would have in a plastic pail, which means there is less oxygen in the system.  Also, I had the bad habit of peeking into the pail during fermentation, just to see what was going on, and to enjoy the aromas that waft out.  This is another way to introduce oxygen - maybe not much, but it should be avoided.  With the glass carboy, I can watch everything that is happening and not worry about oxygen getting in.

 

(1) All ready to start fermenting...

Once the fermentation gets going, it's fun to just watch all the bubbles rising through the must (Pic 2).

 

 

(2) Primary fermentation, well under way 

Now, I'm a scientist and I love to measure things so I can understand how those things work.  Sometimes, this spills over into my hobbies.  In the first couple of days of the primary fermentation, I noticed that the bubbles in the airlock were spaced at regular intervals of time, and that these intervals seemed to be getting shorter.  I started counting the number of bubbles in a fixed period of time and recorded the number of bubbles per minute.  This is how I obtained the graph shown below.   I only started measuring at the 72 hour mark, which explains the absence of points between 0 and 72, and I don't really know what that part of the curve should look like.  (For now, a straight line will suffice!)

 As shown on the graph, the primary fermentation is basically complete at around 10 days.  The instructions say to let it go until 14 days, when you stabilize the wine.  In Pic 3, you can see about an inch of sediment at the bottom of the wine.  This is all the yeast that settled out.  To separate the wine from all that yeast, you simply siphon the wine into another carboy.  I use an "autosiphon" which has a special plug on the end that helps keep the solids from being siphoned off along with the wine.

  

 (3) Siphoning to a 2nd carboy

Stabilization involves the addition of two chemicals:  potassium metabisulfite and potassium sorbate.  The metabisulfite reacts to form sulfur dioxide, inhibits microbes (e.g. bacteria, yeast) and also reacts with any oxygen that gets into the wine.  Sorbate acts to suppress any yeast that are leftover.  Apparently, sorbate is very important to add to sweet wines, where yeasts might start fermenting the sugar that is still there.  When these two chemicals are added to the wine, a lot of bubbles can be generated (Pic 4).

  

(4) Lots of bubbles after the potassium metabisulfite was added

After the wine was stabilized, I added the pomegranate/acai juice to the wine (Pic 5).  This stuff smelled really good!

 

(5) Stabilized wine in carboy.  Pomegranate/acai juice in the bag.

Shortly after the juice was added, I added the "finings", which consist of two separate solutions.  One is "chitosan", which is a polysaccharide made from crustacean shells.  The other is "kieselsohl", which is colloidal silica.  These two thing work in tandem to remove tiny particles from the wine, clearing it.  Pic 6 shows the wine after the finings were added.

(6) Finings added.  Somewhat cloudy in appearance.

Twelve days after the finings were added, the wine is very clear (Pic 7).  In the photo, you can see the fine sediment at the bottom of the carboy.

  

 (7) Clear wine.

Bottling is a lot of fun.  I carefully siphoned the clear wine into another carboy, making sure to not disturb the sediment.  Then, I siphoned the wine into bottles (Pic 8) and sealed them with corks.  It is so satisfying to have prepared 30 bottles of wine like this.

  

 (8) 30 bottles of wine

 

 (9) Bottles with labels.  (Professional looking, or what?)