The Words written in my head

So Sunday I did some bottling.  It went much quicker with my aprentice.

Strawberry, Orange Blossom Honey
I bottled the Strawberry with Orange Blossum honey.  The Strawberry character didn't really come through strong but the nose of it was enough to watter your mouth from across the room.  It did taste of strawberries and had a higher citris character that I can only assume was from the honey choice.  This one will age out very good.  I ended up getting 2 cases plus 14 bottles, which is great.

Blueberry Vanilla, Buckwheat honey
I bottled the Blueberry Vanilla and this one was very sweet.  Already it was drinkable and both the vanilla character and honey character came through very strongly.  The Buckwheat honey is supposed to impart some brown sugar notes.  I think that it does but it could just be the vanilla taste.  When this ages properly It may just be too sweet.  But good. I ended up getting 2 cases plus 9 bottles so great news there.

After bottling, I was able to clean some carboys and then rack onto the fruit on a couple
Peach Vanilla Nutmet
This worked out well, pureed 10-12 pounds of peaches that I had in the freezer for over a year.  I also put in 1/2 cup of vanilla extract.  This will be a 6 gal batch I think, going to get lots of volume loss in the pulp of the peaches.  I will be putting in the nutmeg after I take out the fruit.  One flavor at a time, mostly.

Mojito- Lime Vanilla Mint
I put this one in my 6 gal glass carboy.  I put in 5 cups of lime juice and 2 tablespoons of zest, 1/2 cup of vanilla.  The lime was strong in this one but it should mellow out.  I only used 1/8 teaspoon of my home made mint extract.  I may add another 1/8 later but I didn't want to overpower it.  The mint though should come through and against the strong lime more should be balancing it.  We shall see.  I also may thin this out to make it a 6 gal batch and more drinkable.

Next up, in about 2 weeks I shall be bottling the Mango Mead, Pumpkin Hazelnut, and the Bamboo Jasmin.  I will need to de-lable more bottles.  But as of now I have 2 free carboys.  The other thing that may happen next time is to put the Mead from the Darkside onto the blackberries.  Currently I have 2 batches that will need buckets after primary: Mead from the Darkside, and a Raspberry Thyme Cinnamon (light on the Cinnamon).  The Mead from the Darkside is the only one in primary.  When I bottle I shall have 2 free buckets.  So I think that I can get the raspberry Thyme Cinnamon could go in to the primary as well. 

Future projects that People are interested in:
Rasberry Thyme Cinamon, "Sina-Razz Time?"  Hmm, need to work on the name. 
Ammeretto Cream Mead.
Strawberry Rhubarb
Rasberry Chocolate- "Choco-Razz"

When I bottle next I will have 2 free buckets.
1. Mead from the Darkside
2. Rasberry Thyme Cinamon  (So I possibly can start the primary.

Then I will need to wait on them freeing up to do the Strawberry and that's possibly spring.

The Amerretto Cream, I can do in a glass carboy as it mostly will be using extract.

So I guess that on the docet to use the glass carboys in about 4 weeks will be to make:
Primary: Ameretto Cream
Primary: Raspberry Thyme

The Choco-Razz will need to wait til fall. I want to see how the chocolate meads worked out.

Prep work on the Ameretto Cream is to make the Apricott Kernal Extract and Almond Extracts.  Oo, I forgot that I needed 2 pounds of Cherries so this one will also need to wait.  So this will need to wait for spring or I can see if I can fit 2 pounds of cherries in,  I may go with a cherry concentrate that I saw in Sprouts the other month.  Yeah, that sounds cleaner.  So I can do this.  But I want to give the extract longer.  Til December.  But if I start the primary in late october, I shouldn't need the extract until December.  

So I will more than likely have some free batches, as long as they don't take my bucket, I am good.

Well that's all for now.

Dave

So this is not precisely a comission batch.  A friend wanted me to experiment with Blackberries and gave me some money to experiment.  I decided that I never really worked with Tea so I decided to do a Black Tea and Blackberry mead.  The Black Tea that was chosen was a tea recomended by a friend as a really good black tea.  It is called Monks Blend.  I got 3 ounces of it and brewed up 2 gallons of tea, mixed in 1 galon of Alfalfa honey and then 2 galons of water, then tossed yeast and nutrients.

Well, the Black Tea made for a nice dark color and it smelled very nice.  The mead came together quickly thanks to my apprentice's help.  Once mixed up and yeast tossed, I got it into the carboy.  It was a very dark color and took about 4 hours to show activity.  It foamed up nicely and is remaining dark.  I think that the tannins have excited the yeast because the next day I found that the mead had foamed up and blew past the airlock.  I needed to clean my airlock out, rinse it off and wipe down the carboy.  Then reset it.  I believe that the beer term of the foam during fermentation is Krausen.  It had a lot of that.  It remains foaming up with about an inch of nice carmelly looking head and a dark color with the barest hintings of light color from the yeast.  At this point I usually expect a light carmel color but not with the Darkside Mead.  Because of the color and the anticipated yummyness I am going to call this Mead from the Darkside or Darkside Mead for short. 

I think that I will use medium toasted oak with this one but I am tempted to use Dark toasted oak to keep the theme but not sure I want to comprimise the flavor.  I antisipate that this one will be very dark in color.  I may put a touch of vanilla in it too.  Not sure.

Here's the recipie and process so far:

Mead From the Darkside (6 gal batch)

4 Galons of water
12 pounds of Alfalfa Honey
2 packets of Lavin D47 yeast
1 tablespoon of yeast nutrient
1 tablespoon of yeast Energizer (DAP)
3 oz of Monks Blend Black Tea.

Step 1: Make tea: I boiled 2 galons of water and took off the heat, then steaped the Tea Leaves in 2 galons of water for 3 minuts.  The steap time of the tea is recomended for 3 minutes.  I put the tea leaves in coffee filters and used some sanitized rubber bands to seal it shut.  Put the tea in losely and used about 6-7 filters total.

Step 2: Mix honey.  I headed up the honey in the sink filled with hot water,  Poured and mixed the honey in the tea, then mixed 2 gal on chilled water.

Step 3: Toss Yeast:  mixed in nutrients, hydrated the yeast, to a temp reaing

Then waited a bit for it to cool and put in the carboy with an air lock.

Steps from here:
 First Racking on to Blackberry Puree.
Take the blackberries and blenderize with pectic enzyme and run that through a screen to get just blackberry juice.  The seeds should be left in the screen too.  Then put the resulting pulp in a mesh bag in the brew bucket and rack on to it, mixing the mead into it.  Then give the flavors a few months to integrate, take out the mesh back and rack until clear or as clear as it in   The Oaking and Aging.


On a seperate note, My aprentice has her first mead going.  I asked her to make choices for yeast and honey and sweetness level desired.  She went with Wildflower honey 3.75 pounds, Lavin 71B yeast, 1/2 teaspoon of yeast energizer, 1/4 teaspoon of yeast nutrient and we watered it to 1 galon.  Then I asked her to take pictures of it daily at home, so she can see the color changes and the differences in it over time.  This is going to be a very sweet show mead.  While I am disapointed that she went with wildflower, I can't blame her for going a bit safe on her first batch.  We are going to check it in 2 weeks, possibly rack it.  She has yet to decide if she is oaking it or what else.  We shall see how it turns out.

That's all for now

Dave

Do I didn't get to bottling on Sunday.  I did remove the oak though.  Some of the oak smelled rather green.  Hope it was ok.  I also removed the bamboo leaves.  This stired up the lees and made the mead a bit fogy.  But I noticed about an hour or so later it was already stating to get clear again.  Should be fine to rack in a week or so.  And then bottling of the Bamboo Jasmin should be about a month off.

Looking forward to bottling but my dishwasher is down.  So I will need to wash and sanitize the bottles by hand.  That is going to be a pain.  I may just do it over the course of the next week in small batches.  I have over 6 cases to get sanitized and clean as I am next bottling the Tale of 3 Toasts. 

Well that's all for now.

Matrix

Ok, so I just moved here from Livejournal. Seems that Livejournal is mostly dead. Ah well.

In other News, I plan on bottling my Tale of Three Toasts mead on July 7th.

Hopefully with bottling 3 batches of my Rockbitter mead will go quicker now that I have an aprentice.

Dave

So I have the Bamboo Jasmin "Oaking" on about 9 bamboo leaves.  I bought the bunch, probably about 30 or so for about $3.00.  They were really dried but had a nice scent.  So I put them in the steamer for about 5 minutes to rehydrate them a bit and open up the leaves a bit.  Smeelled great, I then put them it.  Plan on leaving them until my next time with my aprentice on July 7th.  So that will be nearly a month on the bamboo leaves.  If this works out well I may just "Oak" other meads with just the leaves as I have a bunch left.

So, Short post today.

Next up will be bottling the Trianry Toast and cleaning the carboys.  Then I need to get the new honey and get up to 3 new batches going.  I saw at costco yesterday Raspberries for $3.74 for a 18 oz container.  Doing the math of 1 pound is 16 oz for the Raspberry batch of 9 pounds would be: $30 and 10lbs 4 oz would be $ 37.40 Plus Taxes.  That brings another Raspberry batch into the fold.  Looks likely that I can get that Raspberry Thyme, touch of cinnomin for Jessie.  I just need to get money as I am currenty broke.  She had promised me that she could provide some compensation for 1/2 of that batch cost for my process and instruction on how to make it herself, as I cannot sell it to her.  I can accept donations for instruction and bottle storage.

But I will have to look over my notes on the other raspberry thyme and check to see how much I used.  That ended up being a 6 gal batch as I needed to backsweeten it alot.  So I cut the yeasties off a bit more and backsweeten better.

Sigh, I need to get more of the orange blossum honey and the buckwheat honey.  Unfortunately the same stuff was not availible fromt the same source.

Matrix

This past sunday I racked several meads, some may have been prematurely, possibly not.
so starting in order of working:

First I made some material to back sweeten with.  I made the crystalized honey soft in the tub, hot water and time with the big 42 pound bucket in the tub for a couple of hours.  I started with the Buckwheat honey.  Got about 10 pounds out of the last of it.  So that's nearly a gallon.  I heated up a gallon of water and mixed the two, then placed in 2 glass gallon jugs.  The Orange Blossum Honey I did get a full gallon of and about 3 pounds left in the bucket, which will go to backsweetening the Bamboo Jasmin.

Pumpkin Hazelnut: I racked off a bunch of sediment and added about 5 pounds of honey in the mix, this bulked up the volume lost and I also mixed in some sparkloid and Potasium Sorbate.  The Sparkloid is a clearing agent.  The Potasium Sorbate will inhibit the yeast and stabalize it so that the yeast doesn't eat up all the sugar.  I also added 3/4 cup of the Hazelnut extract that I have been making for the past 10 weeks.  So, Backsweetened, Added Flavor, Stabalized and put in the clearing agent.  Only thing left here is to oak it and for it to clear on it's own.  So a few rackings and oaking and this is done.

Blueberry Vanilla:  Did the same but with about 6 pounds of Buckwheat honey to backsweeten it.  Added the 1/2 cup of vanilla to it.  Should be enough.  This one had lots of pulp, both as sediment and as a bit floating.  It may require a bunch more rackings to clear but it is an excellent purple color.

Strawberry: Backsweetened with 6 pounds of honey, the 1 gallon 1/2 honey and 1/2 water solution, mixed in stablizer and clearing agent.  Also racked off of a ton of sediment, the left over fruit sediment.  The volume of this was pretty big, Looks like this will end up around 6+ gallon mark.  Almost didn't have room for it in the large 6 1/2 gal plastic bucket carboy that I have.  This only requires clearing and oaking and done.  I was tempted to put a touch of vanilla into it.  I still might.  Not enough to make it a strawberry vanilla but enough to round out the flavors a bit.  I only used the orange blossum honey on it so it should be great.

Mango: Did the same as the Strawberry.  Same results needed.  Both the Mango and the Strawberry are a bit cloudy but that could easily be the honey addition.  This one was almost overflowing, I am sure that I will get 6 gallons out of this one as well.

Bamboo Jasmin: in the recient 4 weeks this one has dropped dramatically and was nearly clear with a bunch of sediment.  I took out the Jasmin at the 3 week mark.  I didn't backsweeten this yet but I did Stabalize and put in some sparkloid to clear it more.  Next step on this one is to backsweeten it with the remaining orange blossum honey.

Tale of 3 toasts:  Did nothing with this one(3) but I did check it.  I think that I do need to rack it onto some sparkloid.  It is a little foggy and does have some sediment at the bottom.  Not much but enough so that it won't clear the rest of the way.  So this delays the mead out to about New Years for being ready.  At next mile hi con, I should have it aged a little over a year.

Once I bottle up the Tale of 3 toasts it is my plan to get some honey again and make three primaries.
The meads I plan on making, possibly: Peach Vanilla, Raspberry something, Lime Vanilla.  In the fall/Winter to make possibly a Cranberry Vanilla, another Pumpkin something.  I have a list of requests here somewhere.  I also plan on trying to make some less potent meads as well.  This will use up less honey or make for a bigger batch one or the other.  Late Winter I expect to be bottling the Strawberry and Mango, in Fall the Bamboo Jasmin might be ready to bottle.  Early Winter, the Blueberry Vanilla should be ready to bottle.   So by my estimation, I should have all current batches bottled by early to late winter.  The new batches should be going down at that time too.  I have honey money and just need to get the honey.  I am trying to step up my game a bit and use more varietal honeys that are of a higher quality.  Also, Next Fall should be my next rockbitter test.  I plan on testing step nutrients and non-step nutrients, for 2013.  With the same toast level, possibly Medium toasted oak.  Also, I may refine into the recipie just a little vanilla.  Just enough to round out the flavor a bit. Then in 2015, the next rockbitter test is going to be a yeast test with maybe 6 rockbitters doing different yeasts.  So slowly, I am refining technique.  Hopefully, I can see about getting a large barrel and a pump to do a big batch and see how it turns out with a lot of attention.  That's once I get the rockbitter formula really good, then I can see about big batches.  Then after a big batch 2 other big batches with different styles then I can go professional.  but honestly, I don't think that it's going to happen until well past into my 50s.  I may just be done brewing at that time.  Though I plan on trying to brew until I am at least 70.  Then with the 1-6 pack that I have put away from each batch I plan on just drinking.

Unfortunately, My apprentice may not work out, I got called by her parents and she couldn't come over this time due to both parents needing to work.

That's all for now.

Matrix

Ok, Over the weekend I got together the two primary batches that will eventually become the Blueberry Vanilla and the Bamboo Jasmin.

Blueberry Vanilla
     I started with the blueberry vanilla.  I put 12 pounds of buckwheat honey that should be a good base for the blueberry and give it some legs and a more complex flavor.  My plan after the primary is to get 2 large bags of blueberries and render to juice again.  This I have done twice before.  It should yeild about a gallon and about 1/4 of Blueberry Juice.  The Blueberry Lemon taught me that to enhance the blueberry flavor it is best to add some lemon, so I plan on using 2 cups of lemon juice.  I am thinking on using vanilla extract, home made, for this brew.  That way I can keep it liquid for the additions and only need to use the glass carboy.  The primary should last just under 2 months.  It should be good.  I was thinking about 3/4 cup of home made extract that I have in the jar at the moment.  So this one is bubbling away in it's primary fermentation as I type.

Bamboo Jasmin
    For those that are unaware, I am a part of a Shinai club.  Just a group of friends that get together about 1 to 2 times a month and beat eachother with sticks.  Ok, the "Stick" is a Shinai which is a split bamboo sword held together with leather and a plastic disk for a hilt.  I have constructed myself a Double Shinai or a Shinai Staff.  That is what I wield.  But the point is in about 2 years or so we will be coming up on our 10th year.  This mead is to inaugurate this.  We are even having a tournament in April 28th, I think.  People can send me a message if they are intrested in participating or even just coming and watching.  The Bamboo Jasmin will be a batch that will be aged and ready for our 10th aniversery Sharps party.  That's our yearly party where we bring out the blades and slice apart 2 liter bottles filled with water, great fun.

So with this one, I searched for bamboo leaves of an edible variety to put in the primary to no avail.  I found the Pacific Ocean Market, which has all sorts of great food.  They had lots of stuff and I could put together a mead with an orential flavor on it.  Still no fresh bamboo leaves for eating.  Best I could find was bamboo shoots in water.  I found sour bamboo but that had preservatives in it.  I found caned, bamboo tips boiled in water with no preservatives.  I also found some Lotus Root.  Fresh.  So I took both, chopped up smalll and boiled it for about 1/2 hour or so.  Then blenderized and ran through a siv.  Then put the Juice in the primary.  I am hoping that it didn't have any anti-baterial qualities.
   I made the primary with about 11 pounds of honey, 5 pounds of Buckwheat and 6 pounds of Orange Blossum.  This will give the mead a bit of complexity.  My plan for the secondary is to backsweeten with more orange blossum and to "Oak" with dried bamboo leaves.  To make sticky rice and other items in much orential cooking they wrap it in bamboo leaves.  These leaves are not ingested but are more of a garnish and add flavor when steamed.  So I plan on sticking a couple of leaves in the secondary as it's clearing, after backsweetening it.  It should be a very good batch.
    As of yet the mix has not yet started to ferment or bubble.  Which is why I am worried about the anti-baterial qualities of bamboo or lotus root.  I may have to dose with more yeast.

Well that's all for now.

Dave

Ok, Got lots of stuff done on Sunday:

Started 2 primaries with orange blossom honey.  I had to spoon the honey out as it was not even semi-liquid.  It was more like a hard cream.  The honey had an orangey look and smelled nice and oh my god tasted really good.  It was a bit of a bitch getting it out.  I don't think that it will get harder but it's 1/2 crystalized already.  I hope that I wont be taking a chissle to it.  Don't laugh, it's a possiblity.  But The flavor was worth it.  I could do just a traditional and be happy with it.  So I got the two batches going with some Lavin D47 yeast as it is highly unlikely to get over 70 degrees in the hearth room, in the winter/spring.  Now in the summer it's a consern.  That's why I have the Lavin 71B which has a higher temp tollerance, up to about 82.  When you go over the temp tolerance the yeast produce what are called Fusels, which are a type of alcohol that tastes alcoholic and "Hot" and doesn't age out quickly or at all in some cases.  So Lavin D-47 has a temp of up to 70 degrees but likes the lower end, down to about 55 degrees.  Perfect for fall/winter/spring.  Summer ferments need to use the Lavin 71B which is tollerant of up to about 82 degrees and is completely ok in the range of 65-75. 

The two primaries are destined for my Strawberry and for my Mango meads.  Yum.  Can't wait till the primary is done, about 2 weeks to a month from now.

Then I racked the Tale of 3 toasts and took out the oak.  So all that is left there is clearing.  I didn't hit it up with some of the fining agent, sparkloid, to clear it.  It should be fine.

Then I racked and took out the pumpkin and spice bag out of the Pumpkin Hazelnut.  This one was cloudy as all hell but that should clear up.  I think that it is going to be an orangy amber when done.  Smelled good and tasted ok. 

I did not touch the Chocolate and Chocolate Mint.  Those I had thought of puting in come calcium carbonate to lower the acidity, But I don't think that I really need it.  I already backsweetened this.  So All I need to take out the oak in one, rack one more time, then wait and bottle.  Should be ready to bottle in a  month or so.  Then the long wait of about 1 1/2 years for aging.  When I bottle these, I hope to move the Strawberry and Mango on to their fruit into the buckets that these are in.  So, I hope that it will only be a month.  Then I will have 2 more carboys open. Should be 2-3 months before I can bottle the Trinary toast.  So as my scedual is conserned, 2 primaries that will be the Bamboo Jasmin and Blueberry vanilla should go down in spring, summer/fall for anything else.  And I would need honey late summer or fall.  Prob for the next Pumpkin batch,  Hmm, Pumpkin Vanilla?  Or something vanilla, I got enough of it.

On the non-brewing end, I should have 3 cups of vanilla extract ready at the end of this month.  And be ready to start the second run of the same beans.  I am thinking on possible doing more almond and letting it go longer, toasting the almond first, then hit it with the cofee grinder, then in the alcohol.

So upcoming projects: Spring: Bamboo Jasmin, Bluberry Vanilla, Fall: Vanilla Lime, Pumpkin Something
Then Who knows.  I will have to check what I want to make.  Maybe a Cranberry.  I was also thinking a Chocolate Orange as I have 1 pound of the chocolate beans still.  Could be good but 1/2 as much chocolate that I put in the chocolate batches.

That's all for now.

Dave