Make your own cheap CO2 generator

In regards to my initial batch (recipe 1) I was a little worried about transferring the mead from one fermenter to another and loosing the protective CO2 layer covering the surface. CO2 is heavier than air so all I need is just enough to cover the surface. That said, I am not sure that there is enough in the solution to generate a new layer. What to do then? Buying a CO2 spray is expensive and using compressed gas you need expensive equipment. So why not just prepare a CO2 generator yourself. All you need is sodium bicarbonate (= baking powder) and citric acid. Both chemicals are available in any […]

Recipe 1: Cyser with rosehip (continued 2) – Racking 2nd time

Ingredients:Kieselsol 15 mlChitosan 50 ml It has now been 3 weeks and 5 days since I prepared the batch. For the past week there has not been any bubbling from the airlock, so I am assuming that the fermentation has stopped. I had hoped that the mead would sort of clear but it is not even close. When I opened the fermenter a very pleasant smell filled the kitchen – so far so good. But the solution was very murky and was about as clear as orange juice. I am wondering if I will have any change of fully clearing it. Anyway, to start with I measured the relative density […]

A little care of one self….

Getting a second child and carrying fermenting buckets takes its toll on dad :o). I had a voucher for Chinese therapy/massage something that I got long time ago and I figured I could use it now that I was on leave from work.  I enter a small, and very Chinese looking clinic. Is was asked to lie down and the Chinese doctor started working. Now, my voucher just said massage, but he started using these cups. Fair enough, I have seen the latest Karate Kid with Jackie Chan, so I figured that it would do no harm.  Afterwards I was really tired and really felt loosened up – but damn, […]

Recipe 2: Sack mead

This is a basic mead recipe that I found in the book “The complete mead maker” by Ken Schramm. It is slightly modified due to the yeast that I used, so here we go Ingredients: 7.20 kg of my own garden honey about 15 L of tap water Wyeast “yeast nutrition” 2 g / 10 L Vinoferm – Bioferm Killer (up to 16%, low residual sugar)  All equipment was first washed thoroughly and then sterilized with an iodine solution.I started by adding 7 L of water to my 15 L pot and began bringing it to a boil. The original recipe use 6.8 kg  (15 lps) of honey to about 19 […]

Estimating %alcohol

I have found 3 ways of estimating the final alcohol percentage in alcoholic beverages.  I:The first is just based on the concentration of sugar added to the must. I have used the calculations for recipe 1. The calculations can be seen below. Honey 7.50 kg Sugar content 85% Sugar 6.38 kg Convesion factor 17.0 g/L/% Total volume 20.0 L Theoretical ABV 18.8 % Actual ABV 15.5 % Residual sugar 1.11 kg Concentration of residual sugar 55.3 g/L The sugar content of the honey is estimated so far since I do not have a refractometer. When I get hold of one I will be able to measure the water content in […]

Recipe 1: Cyser with rosehip (continued) – Racking 1st time

Ingredients:Wyeast “yeast nutrition” 2 g / 10 L Today was the second week after the preparation of the my first batch of mead and it is now time to rack it it to a second fermenter. This was quite easily done by placing the initial fermenter on the kitchen table and put two plates underneath to tilt it. Take the fermentation lock out first before moving the fermenter, so that the old water in the lock is not pulled into the fermenter by accident. It can be infected. With a siphon the liquid content was moved to the second fermenter, a process that takes about 15 min. This has to […]

And so I became a farther again

Great things have happened these past few days. I became a farther once again. My wife gave birth to a baby boy the 15th of October , 52 cm long and weighing 3450 g.  He will be named Alexander. He is so cute and his brother Julius is so happy that “his” baby finally was born. Both mother and baby are doing great. Alexander was born within 4 hours after the water broke, which is a lot faster then with Julius, whose birth took 18 hours. He has an excellent appetite and is generally eating and sleeping, and in the evening, he is looking around “checking out” our flat for […]

Good stuff to read

I figured it would be advantageous to study a bit before preparing my first mead. There are quite a lot of recipes on the internet but most leave out what I think is significant details of the brew such as honey types, OG, fermentation temperatures, yeast selections, etc. Basically all the information needed to repeat the mead. I also found that danish mead recipes are often based on old recipes and are often spiked with alcohol. In my opinion an old recipe does not necessarily live up the expectations to an alcoholic beverage today. Honey would have been more difficult to obtain, and what was available perhaps not as clean […]

Recipe I: Cyser with rosehip (Æblemjød med hyben)

Ingredients: 10 L of apple juice from “Inger Marie” apples (English name unknown) 5 L of apple juice from Cox Orange apples 385 g of fresh yet frozen rosehip where all seeds have been removed.  7.50 kg of my own garden honeyZymex Pectinase enzyme + maltodextrine (10g) “A fruit wine package” with yeast (unknown) pre mixed with nutrients Kitzinger Port yeast (5g) Now that all the ingredients were in place it was time to prepare my first mead. As always, all equipment was first washed thoroughly and then sterilized with an iodine solution. Then it was time to boil the apple juice. I only have one 15L pot so the boiling […]

It all begins with bees…

Last winter I participated in a bee course just to get an idea of the basics of how to keep bees. I had absolutely no prior experiences and my general impression was that bees took care of them self. Ah, not quite but ignorance is bliss. Another “surprise” was the amount of equipment needed. I went shopping with my family and found that I could hardly have the beginners package in the car. In Denmark the typical size of a stacking box is 12″x10″. I decided to use Hoffmann frames instead of frames with corner blocks and so far I think it works well for me – (but I do […]