All four batches hit their respective final gravity ranges today. Well, more accurately, the pyments did. The wines ferment dry and have been done for a day or so now.
Tonight was stabilizing and clarifying. I use a wine whip and electric drill, and I have to say I find the process therapeutic.
Eight days at this stage, then one final rack for “polishing”. Two weeks after that, we bottle.
Merlot Pyment – 1.050, pH 3.19
Dolcetto Pyment – 1.044, pH 3.15
Fermentation has slowed but still observable. Odor has greatly reduced.
After dodging a tornado, I took gravity readings on the pyments. The Merlot Pyment is at 1.086, and the Dolcetto Pyment is at 1.082. That’s a drop of 36 and 38 gravity points, respectfully, in less than 24 hours. Not bad.
It’s still about 50 points before I rack to secondary. At this rate I may be racking by Tuesday. Whee!
Checking the pH of my pyment batches turned up 3.00 even for the Dulcetto Pyment and 3.08 for the Merlot Pyment. I added 5g of Potassium Carbonate to both batches to bring the pH up a bit. I will check again tomorrow. Both batches are still fermenting like mad.
All the batches took off, except the Merlot wine. Not something that has happened to me before, especially since the yeast that comes with the kit should work for 6 gallons of wine and I’m pitching it on three. The Dolcetto took off like a rocket. Odd also in that the yeast that came with the Merlot is RC212, a yeast I have a lot of experience with. I shot the wine with some O2 and pitched more RC212, just in case. We’ll see how it goes.
Update: That did it. Merlot is off and running well now.
Here are the readings:
Not too shabby, and right in line with my previous pyments. Not sure what possessed me to start this late, but I did. Every time I start brewing again I forget how much a full 5 gallon glass carboy weighs. Whew!
I am going to sleep well tonight.
After a long hiatus, I should soon have the time to brew again! Yay!
I still have my Apple Butter Cyser from over a year ago in bulk aging. I plan on freeze-concentrating the entire batch. I’ll bottle that up soon after.
On the list of planned brews:
It has been WAY too long since I did a full batch of traditional mead. Now that I have a couple of good experiments behind me, I know just what I want. I’ll be shooting for 12% ABV, and I know which yeast I’ll be using. If you can’t guess, you haven’t been listening to Basic Brewing Radio!
I have been asked by a couple of people to make a video. I can do that. I will be doing a small batch (so I can shoot upstairs and not break my back brining the brew into the basement to ferment). I’ll post these on youtube for all to see. Yes, I’m nervous.
Now, to those who think it is sacrilege to ruin a high-end wine kit by making a pyment, let me say two things: First, my very first wine kit pyment used a high-end kit (Oregon Yamhill Pinot Noir) and it came out fantastic. Second, as always, I’ll be splitting the six gallon batch in half and making the pyment out of only one half, which means the other half will be regular wine. I came up with this idea, and it’s worked really well so far.
I’m off to pick up my honey and get some bottled water today. I have a business trip this week, so I don’t plan to kick off the brewing until later in the week or on the weekend.
Stay tuned!
Sometimes I really don’t like my job. There are tomes I get so busy I can’t do things I need to do, like, bottling. *sigh*
I finally got around to tasting a few yesterday. The carrot honey mead was a pleasant surprise. What an amazingly complex taste! It’s really good now, but in a few months it will be even better. I got 6 bottles out of the batch. One went to tasting at The Brew Hut, and Steve, the guy who asked me to try that honey, is jealously guarding the rest.
The second round of pyments and wines all taste good, none the worse for their extended stay in the carboy. I will be bottling these today, knock wood. I have not tasted the other 6 beer yeast honey experiment batches. I intend to bottle those next weekend, once I’m back from yet another trip.
The ABC batch tastes like liquid Christmas and apple pie. It will bulk age a little longer. I also intend to give the port a little TLC soon, but my forced neglect may have turned it into a lost cause. We will see.
And that’s the update. More as it develops.
We’re off! All the one gallon batches are done. Here are the Brix readings:
Orange Blossom – 26.3 (1.112)
Sage – 27.3 (1.116)
Tupelo – 26.6 (1.113)
Raspberry – 27.4 (1.117)
Wildflower – 26.7 (1.114)
Avocado – 26.9 (1.114)
Carrot Blossom – 26.5 (1.113)
All within 5 points of each other, which I think is pretty good. Differences are likely in small variances of water and the moisture content of the honey. All batches were cold mixed, with .8 grams of DAP and Fermaid-K added, along with 1g of Potassium Carbonate. Yeast was pitched and shot with 30 seconds of O2.
The first six batches were pitched with a single Activator pack of Wyeast 1056 American Ale. The Carrot Blossom was pitched with 5 grams of Safale US-05 yeast. This is the Brew Hut batch.
I’m very interested to see how this turns out, because besides the Orange Blossom honey, I haven’t made a traditional batch with the any of these honeys before, and they are all mighty tasty.
The yeast for my Beer Yeast Mead experiment came in today. I got 6 of the smaller Propagator packs of Wyeast 1056, one for each batch. I should be able to get this going tomorrow. Yay! The honeys I’ll be using are:
Dark Wildflower
Orange Blossom
Raspberry
Avocado
Tupelo
Sage
When I went to pick up the yeast today, I noticed a couple of containers of honey on the front counter. One was sage, the other was Carrot Blossom. They were for tasting samples, so I did. The Carrot blossom is darker (not as dark as Avocado), rich and has a spiciness to it. Very interesting stuff.
Here’s the cool part. As I was walking out, Steve (my go-to guy at the store) handed me a 3lb jar of the Carrot Blossom honey and packet of Safale US-05 and said, “make us a 1-gallon batch of mead with this?”. How could I refuse?
