Mead Journal: Racking of Binary Rockbiter test, to Oak or not to Oak

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A little delayed because I discovered the last time that I racked my mead my plastic hose was dead due to my boiling some implaments and putting that in there.  Seriuosly, white plastic tubing should not be used when it should be clear.  So, went to brew store, got more oak chips, only had lightly toasted chips but I plan on correcting that with a little toasting in the oven on my own.  I racked into my brew bucket, then mixed in some potasium sorbate to stop fermentation, some campher tablets because I thought that I may be geting an infection in it and that will kill it and because it is taking too long to clear for my tastes I put in a dose of Sparkloid to help clear it.  All the information is good.  Took Gravity readings to get an idea how it is going and to test the fermentation stop.  Because this is an experiment about Oak I am still treating both batches the same.  Exactly.  I topped it up with 12 cups of water in both carboys.  I hope to have a good yeild. 

Impressions:

Non-Oak:  Tastes like my first batch at this stage, which is encoraging.  Basically my first batch tasted like antiseptic at this stage, sweet but still heavy with fusel alcohols,  In the termanology of mead/wine making, It tasted Hot.  This Hotness ages out and goes away.  In all repects that I can tell, except taking longer to clear, it is just like my first batch.  Maybe it will end up a little less sweet but that's ok.

Oaked Batch:  Tastes like it is drinkable almost now.  Very little Hotness to it.  I have high hopes that this will be a great batch.  By all indecations I am a believer in oak.  Hence the buying of more.  So I currently have 3 oz of oak chips.  I plan on oaking my two freash batches that are in the primary.  As of now, I have two batches of rockbitter waiting to clear and age and two in primary.  Again, High hopes.

 

I bottled Hagrid's Secret stash.  This took longer than most to clear, especially with back sweetinging and adding some more spices.  Dispite the mistake of not toasting the pumpkin first, This tastes like it will be wonderful after it ages.  Not too many of the fusel alcohols in it now.  It may be drinkable in 6 months rather than a year but I will still wait.  I still need to create the label for it.  That is what I will to today or tomarrow.  Should be a good lable, less on the pretty faries though than the others.  Those that may have noticed I used some goblins in the vanilla almond label.  I liked the over all affect of it.

Oh, I don't believe I mentioned it.  I scored 2 extra  gal carboys and about 19 cases of bottles.  They still have lables though.  I plan on fixing that.  But I got all the botles for really cheap.  Like $2 a case of 48 bottles.  Compair that to $10 a case,  Yah go me.  But more work involved with removal of lables.  I plan on trying amonia and water but not yet sure of the concentrations, then a quick run in the dish wash and they will be ready to be sanitized and used.  I need to get more honey to make more batches.  I have 3 carboys empty now and in 1-2 months will have 2 more empty carobys.  5 empty caroboys could be 25 more gallons of mead in 2 years.  1 year to make and 1 to age.  Slow hobbie but worth it when I can share the results.  That and I won't have to buy booze when I retire at what 80.  I hope to have several dozen types of mead to choose from by the time I am 70.  Ah, 30 year old mead.