spiced sweet mead v2 - brew 7

My first mead was a dry and sour mead. 

This time I'm going for a sweet mead. I'll be adding some spices too, as I really like a sweet Spiced mead.

Lavlin ec 1118

half a teaspon of wine essentials yeast nutrients

19 x 700g bramwells mixed blossom honey 

13.3kg honey

Teaspoon ground cinnamon 

2 teaspoons ground ginger

Tablespoon imitation vanilla essence 

Tablespoon ground allspice 

35g cinnamon sugar

3 drops of natural orange essence

Enough water to get to 25 litres

put the jars of honey in a bath of hot water, to make the honey pourable.

mix up the spices with a small amount of boiling water.

pour two kettles of boiling water in the fermenter (to keep the honey from solidifying)

pour each jar of honey into the fermenter, stiring as you go.

add spice mix

add yeast nutrients

add the rest of the cold water, till at 25 litres, and about 30 degrees

rehydrate yeast and add it

This should give me a very sweet mead, at the maximum alcohol level that the yeast can handle.

That should be around 17.5%

Starting temp

Original gravity: over 150, approx 160?

before adding the yeast, it before tastes very sweet (obviously 13.3kg; honey), the spices are present, but not very strongly.
all spice and orange are the main secondary flavours.


date, temp, SG
2013/11/16,  32 degrees, 160?
2013/11/16, 18 degrees, ?, added yeast nutrients
2013/11/21, 21 degrees, 150, added yeast nutrients
...

UPDATE : 2014/02/03, stuck at 77 for 2 weeks or so. I'm not sure what exactly to do, so looks like I've got some research to do.
I've tasted it anyway, and it's very damn sweet. Which is to be expected as it hasn't finished yet.
It already tastes like actual mead though, and the spices have really mellowed and integrated well with the honey. This batch is already a success I'd say.

UPDATE : 2014/05/15
This mead has turned out very very sweet, with just a hint of spice. A strong honey flavour too.
It's good at room temp and chilled, as well as fizzed up with the soda stream.

Cider v3 - brew 6

6 x 700g bramwells mixed blossom honey

22 litres of apple juice

Lavlin ec 1118

Og
24/8/2013 83 at 34 degrees
Fg
15/9/2013 0 at 15 degrees
Bottled 15/9/2013

Calculated abv 11.5%

Mead - brew 3

This is my first mead and I'm hoping to make it a sweet one.

I'm not adding any spices or flavouring to the main fermenter, but I might flavour each secondary fermenter with different flavours. If it turns out too dry, I'll back sweeten with some pure honey.

I wasn't sure what honey I wanted to use, so I bought a sample of pretty much every honey I could find.

I wanted something affordable, but with an interesting flavour.

I really liked the bluegum based honey, but it was pretty expensive per 100g (unit pricing is awesome).

I ended up deciding on bramwell's mixed blossom honey from aldi. It's sweet, but has interesting floral flavours and nice complexiy.

I'd really like to do a small batch of the just the blue gum honey at a later date.

Equipment

Coopers brew DIY beer kit
Bucket
thermometer
kettle
heat mat
stool (oddvar from ikea)
towelles

Ingredients

Lavlin ec 1118 yeast 5g
2.5kg capilano honey
6 x 700g bramwells mixed blossom aldi
400g beechworth tasmanian leatherwood
500g bramwells pure Australian honet aldi
400g bramwells yellowbox
400g bramwells blue gum
500g coles pure Australian honey

9kg total honey
2L aldi apple juice

2-3 litres of boiling water to mix up the honey and bring the wort up to temperature, around 25 degrees

25 litres Total

Total cost
$75 / 25 L -> $3 per litre
Commercial mead is around $20 per litre 

Apple juice is to help start the yeast culture build, with easy to digest, simple sugars. 

Mixing

Put jars of honey into a bath of hot water to warm and help honey to pour. 

Put boiling water into the fermenter, pour in honey and stir. added apple juice, added cold water until reached 25 ltites, and about 30 degrees. stirred wort up.

took Original Gravity measurement

started yeast rehydration, with 30mls hot water, checking the temperature with a thermometer from target.

added yeast to fermenter

put heat mat on stool, put fermenter on heat mat, put towelles around fermenter (it's about 9 degrees C  ambient temp at the moment!)

Specific Gravity Measurements

OG
16/6/2013 Guess 120 off scale

SG
19/6/2013 112 on scale
20/6/2013 110 at 20 degrees
21/6/2013 110 at 18 degrees

tastes of honey water and cider
22/6/2013 108 at 20 degrees
23/6/2013 106 19 degrees 

agitated fermenter by shaking it
24/6/2013 92 at 18 degrees
25/6/2013 91 at 21 degrees
26/6/2013 87 at 21 degrees
26/6/2013 83 at 22 degrees

tastes of mead, honey water, cider and butter
30/6/2013 78 at 22 degrees
1/7/2013 75 at 23 degrees
3/7/2013 71 at 24 degrees
5/7/2013 61 at 21 degrees

 tastes like a layer of vodka is sitting on the top :S
10/7/2013 60 at 19 degrees 

starting to taste like mead mixed in with honey water, starting to lose cider taste

agitated fermenter by shaking it
12/7/2013 49 at 22 degrees 

massive drop in SG, tastes much more like mead, vodka taste has gone, but it's still quite strong tasting.
This is taking a while .... ( almost a month in primary fermentation)

14/7/2013 39 at 25 degrees 

Strong Alcohol Weak mead Flavour 

15/7/2013 35 at 24 degrees

18/7/2013 31 at 24 degrees

19/7/2013 28 at 22 degrees

21/7/2013 31 at 18 degrees

22/7/2013 26 at 18 degrees

23/7/2013 25 ar 18 degrees

25/7/2013 25 at 19 degrees

26/7/2013 23 at 21 degrees

28/7/2013 21 at 20 degrees

Dry and sour, some carbonation, mead like flavour, but not mead yet. 

29/7/2013 19 at 24 degrees

31/7/2013 19 at 20 degrees

3/7/2013 16 at 18 degrees

4/7/2013 15 at 18 degrees 

6/7/2013 13 at 18 degrees 

8/7/2013 13 at 18 degrees

9/7/2013 12 at 18 degrees

10/7/2013 11 at 17 degrees

11/7/2013 10 at 17 degrees

12/7/2013 9 at 17 degrees

14/7/2013 7 at 22 degrees 

15/7/2013 7 at 22 degrees

16/7/2013 7 at 23 

17/7/2013 7 at 24 degrees

Bottled 17/7/2013

final abv 16.6%