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? 

Apple Cider 2016

The last time I made cider (see post here), I was failed by EZ Cap bottles, which just didn't hold any pressure. This resulted in a batch of still cider. Still cider is fine, but I aspire to make carbonated, homemade cider. One of the reasons I wanted to make homemade beer was to get beer to carbonate in the bottles, using standard bottle caps. That worked out just fine (see Festa Brew "Continental Pilsner). So, it was time to revisit cider-making, and attempt natural carbonation in the bottles.

Tanya and I picked the apples off of our tree, and made the fatal decision that there were enough apples that we could simply cut them up by hand before pressing. That was crazy - the manual labour to cut up all of our apples up into eights (or smaller) was just too much. Next time, I'm going to obtain a fruit crusher like last time.

The pressing however, went fairly well, and we obtained approximately 4 gallons of apple juice. The specific gravity of the apple juice was 1.034, which was almost identical to juice from the last time we pressed apples. To this, I added 4 crushed Campden tablets, 2 tap. yeast energizer, and 1 tsp. of peptic enzyme. After 24 hours, I added a packet of Lalvin EC1118 yeast, by sprinkling it on the surface. Fermentation was well underway a day later.

Primary fermentation proceeded quickly. Four days after adding the yeast, the foam on the surface had collapsed and it was time to transfer to a carboy. The volume (4 gallons) created an opportunity for two separate batches. I siphoned the bulk of the cider to a 3 gallon carbon and placed an airlock on it. This batch is meant to be regular cider.

Spiced Cider

The remainder (which amounted to a little over 1/2 gallon) went into a 1 gallon jug which I topped up with distilled water to which I had added 1 cup of sugar. This was done to get the alcohol level up to where it should be. If I did not add any more sugar, this would have been a 1:2 dilution, and the cider would be very weak). I also added 1/4 tap of nutmeg and two cinnamon sticks for flavour. I sealed the jug with an airlock.

Regular cider (left), and spiced cider (right). Fine solids are settling out.

After four days in the carboy, fermentation of the regular cider was virtually complete, and the bulk of the fine solids had settled. It was time to add priming sugar and bottle! So, I siphoned the cider to a large pail, added 3/4 cup of dextrose, stirred thoroughly, and bottled it just like you would beer. The yield was 4 x 1 L bottles, and 22 x 330 mL beer bottles.

I bottled the spiced cider one day later, adding 1/4 cup of dextrose to the (approx.) 1 gallon of spiced cider. Yield was 10 x 355 mL bottles.

A taste test of the spiced cider revealed a beverage that tasted like Christmas. The nutmeg and cinnamon paired well with the apple and the little bit of sweetness from the priming sugar. It remains to be seen how the spices affect the taste when the cider is carbonated and dry. I can't wait!

According to the purple "Winemaker's Recipe Handbook", you should age the cider for three months!!! This seems like a long time. I might get impatient and open a bottle in a month or so, just to see how it's coming along.

Mead v.2

My first attempt at mead left me unsatisfied. Looking back, there were three things that I did incorrectly:

1. Failed to add yeast nutrient. Honey does not have the range of minerals and other nutrients that yeast require. Fermentation only really started once I added the yeast nutrient. Further, all of my  fussing around to get fermentation started would have introduced unwanted oxygen, which would have led to undesirable compounds that affect taste.
2. Starting specific gravity was too high at the beginning (1.120) and the end (1.019) of fermentation.This gave a mead that was sweet, heavy, and very alcoholic. The balance of taste wasn't right (and still isn't!).
3. Honey quality. A friend from my undergraduate days at university now runs a honey business, and she pointed out that Costco honey is rubbish - if I want to make good mead, I need to start with quality honey. ("Okay. Point taken.")

So, it is now over two years after my first attempt at mead, and I finally got around to my second attempt. This time, I'm not making any of the mistakes I made the first time.

We have a great farmers market in St. Albert, and there are always three or four honey producers there. My wife and I went shopping one Saturday morning and obtained 7 kg of unpasteurized, local honey for $50. The vendor was Good Morning Honey Ltd.

Mead recipe:

3 Campden tablets
2 tsp yeast nutrient
10 L distilled water
Honey
1 packet of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast

Campden tablets and yeast nutrient were added to the water in the sterilized primary (bucket). Honey was added, with stirring, until s.g. = 1.088. After 24 hours, the yeast was hydrated and added to the must. Fermentation bubbles were observed within one hour of pitching the yeast.

After four days in the primary, s.g. = 1.065. I decided to rack the mead to a carboy. Fermentation has continued since then (6 days ago).

Mead, after racking to carboy.

I think most chemists will know what I'm talking about when I describe this fermentation as "clean". What I mean is this: when chemists conduct a chemical reaction the lab, especially when they are trying to synthesize a compound, they strive for a "clean" reaction. A clean reaction is something we recognize easily from the absence of unwanted precipitates, the absence of guck on the sides of reaction flasks, the relative transparency of solutions, and colours that you want to see (e.g. you don't want to see your mixture turn brown when the product you want is colourless). These are simply physical clues that a reaction is going right.

This mead has been "clean" from the beginning: the colour hasn't changed, the liquid is as transparent as you could expect if there were only little bits of yeast and bubbles that were scattering light. You can tell that clarification is going to be a snap. And, there was hardly any foaming, which suggests a very pure honey (i.e. no surfactants of any kind - natural or artificial).

The plan is to let this mead ferment all the way to dryness and then I will rack it and let it bulk age in a carboy for a couple of months. I'm looking forward to enjoying some of this mead over the Christmas holidays.