Bottling the Sack Mead and then corking it.

Oh what fun we had. I lost the connecting tube for the bottler but cut some of my racking tube and used that. You've seen the pictures so I wont bore you with the details. Here's the porter bottling. And here is the dry mead bottling. You've seen one, you've seen them all. The new thing for this bottling was I used wine bottles and I used real honest to goodness cork. Here's me bottling.



And here is me corking like a fiend.





And we are DONE!! Look at that nicely corked bottle. I got a few muffin tops but I'll just hammer them in with a rubber mallet.



The essence of bottling, this time, is the corking. And this is my hand corker. I may need a Portuguese Floor Corker if I get into making mead, which is very possible. This sweet mead, with lovely flavor, came out to an impressive 9.51% alcohol content. It's a beautiful Sack Mead. I'm laying this one down for ages.

Bitter and Esters (formerly The City Brewshop)

No this isn't about a Folies Bergère star performer but rather this is about my brother John's new store for all things alcoholic. Or rather for all things about making alcoholic beverages. It used to be called The City Brewshop but they changed it to Bitter and Esters.

700 Washington Ave, in Brooklyn NY.
Phone: 917.596.7261

It's an amazing space. Beautiful! And they crammed it will all the things you will need to make, bottle and enjoy your beer, wine or mead. And take it from me, it's worth making your own bear or mead or even wine. They also have a great space for teaching classes. So, if you aren't a beer, wine or mead maker, you can become one.



John is on the left and Douglas, the other owner, and the mead, cider and wine expert, is on the right. John is the beer expert. Carla, John's main squeeze, is in the middle.

Founders.

They even have a cool basement. I was not allowed to take pictures. Hush, hush, big secret plans for the basement. They have a patio too, which is amazing for Brooklyn.



But I did sneak a picture of their grain storage bin. They're putting in some organic dark chocolate that I brought into the bin for safe keeping.



One reason I went was to visit my brother and Carla as well as to see their new shop. They had a soft opening. The other reason that I went to Brooklyn was to pick up bottling material for bottling my mead.



I listened to Doug and I bought the white champagne caps to go with the champagne bottles I had gotten and I also bought some corks to bottle the still mead and a corker to put the corks in. I also bought baskets for the champagne bottling.



What fun. I tried the mead, this is the high alcoholic, not sweat mead, mine is somewhere around 10% Though it may be as high as 11.5%. I'm hoping that 10% is enough alcohol to keep the mead from turning. We'll see. I may have put in too much water on start up. But even so, the mead tastes pretty good. The Sack Mead, which I'll be bottling soon, is much better.



I was going to try and use my 29mm caps but the capper I have is strictly for beer bottles. If I'm going to make Champagne or sparkling wine, methode Champenoise, or very sparkling mead, I'm going to have to get another capper.

Secondary Fermentation for the Mead Big Step

It's simple you rack the mead into a secondary glass carboy and you put the rubber stopper in and that's it. Well, it may sound simple but it isn't. As you can see by the pictures, we did this in the basement in the laundry room. Lots of space and I don't have to carry a slippery glass carboy weighing a ton up and and especially back down the stairs. The basement is nice a cool.

I lost the stopper into the mead and didn't have an extra. So, always buy at least 2 extra. Also, if you want the stopper to stay down in the mead, you make sure it is BONE DRY. Kim found this out by looking on the internet. She's a lifesaver. Also, when you put the stopper on, if you have to lock in the stopper, take off the top and the bell, put the stopper in and then put the lock back together. If you do that, everything will be very simple. I screwed up on the Dry Mead, which doesn't taste anywhere near as good as the Sack Mead which I did like clockwork.



I also used a little duct tape to hope the stopper down. I hope this doesn't contaminate anything. John suggested aluminum foil. Well, I don't think the duct tape will be any more contaminating than the open air.

More mistakes. On the Dry Mead, I had way too much mead, about 16 oz more than I should have. On the sweet mead, I had too little, about 32 oz too little. I used water on the latter and drank the former. I just hope this works out.

I filled the carboy up to the tippy top leaving only a 1/2 inch for the collection of CO2.

I didn't use any fining agent, egg whites, clay or anything like that. I just hope it clarifies. The Sack (Sweet) Mead is a lot clearer than the Dry Mead

Next day. The mead is fermenting like crazy and the mead is up in the lock. The pressure is very high and it forced the mead up into the airlock.

Making Mead at LBC part 2,3,4

Getting ready to lift the lid off of these very tight buckets. I got this equipment form City Brewshop. Brew. Drink. Repeat.


After the initial pitching of the yeast and the initial adding of the nutrients and energizer, you have to stir the mead 3 more times and add the nutrient/energizer combination each time. I started out with the mead in the kitchen, along with my Petite Saison d'Été. The weather had been lovely and cool. Then it got hot. The kitchen soon became a very bad place for the mead and beer. In the middle of the day, the temperature rose to around 80 degrees. I moved the three 5 gallon buckets to the cellar where it ranged from 63.5F to around 67F. The mead and beer is very happy down there. I don't think it ever gets above 70 degrees in the cellar. At least, I hope not. I don't have any more places to move it. I wish I had some dry ice, I could always throw that in. It's an old wine making trick.

The golden mead. I used a lot of honey on these two buckets.

First I stir to release the built up CO2. When I did this the first time, the mead, the Dry Mead, actually hissed at me. And then when I threw in the nutrient. It really bubbled up.

Not as energetic the second time. This is from the second day. Or it may have been the third day.

Weighing out the nutrient mix I made up.

Now adding the mixture.

And as you can see, it's starting to foam up.

Stirring. This is the Sack Mead, which isn't quite as energetic as the Dry.

This is the Dry Mead and as you can see, it's bubbling like crazy.

Wow. Will you look at that head. I had to do this once a day for 3 days. I had to sanitize all my equipment and it was a little bit of a pain doing it in the cellar but I managed. The Sack Mead is supposed to be like a great Ice Wine and the Dry Mead, which I'm going to bottle condition and make bubbly is probably like nothing I've ever had. We'll see in 3 months for the Dry and 4 months for the Sweet Sack Mead. I can't wait.

A quick update on the Mead...

The Sack (Sweet) Mead I was worried about is bubbling away. Not as aggressively as the Dry but it's bubbling. The Dry is going crazy. I also just finished another Petite Saison d'Été. But this time, I put in the Styrian Golding, the entire amount, for 10 mins, .75 oz of the Saaz for 10 minutes and the rest for 2. I also added 3 oranges quartered, everything, rind and all, and a little more than a pound of pineapple chopped up, fresh. no rind about 30 minutes before chilling. I did a very rapid chill. Less than 10 minutes it was about 47F. Fast. Now it's fermenting. In a bucket. Enjoy your beer and chocolate.

I just noticed I never blogged about the Petite Saison d'Été, A shame. It is a great beer.

Making Mead at LBC and other adventures

A lot of honey.

Well, gentle and gentile readers, I made mead today. No, not just a simple 5 gallon batch and howdy do, ma'am, but rather two different 5 gallon batches with the honey we use in the Bee's Knees bar. As a matter of fact, I used up all the honey that is for Bee's Knees. Well, almost all. I now need another 100 pail of honey as soon as possible. I've called my apiaries. I am going to have to get about 20 hives on this property somewhere in the back. That's right, I need to resurrect my beekeeping.

On Easter Sunday, Happy Eostre Bede, I went to visit my brother Johnny, of City Brewshop fame, and picked up another boatload of equipment. It's been a life long dream of mine to make mead. And now, because of my brother John and the wonderful help of my sweat wife Kim, I'm making two batches of mead. Huzzah!

Two more primary fermenters, with locks, etc, and two new glass secondary carboys, with locks etc. John gave me a great deal. I brought him my new toffee formulation with Pilsner Malt. Really good toffee. On sale soon.

Anyway, this wasn't a very sticky operation, though as you will see by the photos, a lot of water got on the floor. Just a typical brewing and fermenting operation. Now, instead of my kitchen smelling like hops, it smells like honey. Well, honey and chocolate and maybe lamb tangine and pizza.

So, how do you make mead? Well, it's simple. Sanitize everything as for brewing. You glop a lot of honey in a bucket,





17.8 pounds for the Sake Mead, a sweet mead, made with my special local honey and 12 lbs for my Dry Sparkling Mead. Unfortunately, I shorted this recipe by almost 1 pound but will make it up t tomorrow when I add in more nutrients and stir. Making this mead sparkling by bottle conditioning will be a challenge. Think Champagne. Think billions of pounds of pressure. Think explosion. I'm going to have to use Champagne bottles with special caps. Huzzah!

Glopping in honey in water and nutrients.

More glopping and water.

Taking gravity reads.

Add some warm water, nutrients, stir and then pitch the yeast in and cover.

Pitching the yeast.

Covering and praying this works. LOL. I had sanitized gloves and everything was clean and sanitized except for the honey though it's hard to culture anything in honey. I did pitch it a little warn, 79 F for the Sack Mead with Sweet Mead Yeast, which likes it warm, and 76 F for the dry mead, with the Champagne yeast, which does not like it warm. Other than that, I think we are on our way. A two week fermentation and then another 2 month secondary fermentation for the dry mead and a 3 month secondary fermentation for the Sack (Sweet) Mead.

Stay tuned folks for updates.