Mead not ready to rack

I was expecting my mead to be ready to rack tonight, but its SG was only at 1.01.  My general rule is to rack before it falls below 1.  The fermentation has, expectedly, slowed.  At the current rate, it should still be above 1 tomorrow night.  So, I installed an airlock and shook the carboy.

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Mead Proceeding Nicely

I’ve come to expect D47 yeast to be a fairly slow fermenter (1-2 weeks). That being said, my mead (pitched this past Friday) is at SG 1.018 with a pH of 3.20. In another day or two, it will be time to rack it out of the primary fermenting vessel. I have always fermented my whites in a carboy, under an airlock as soon as fermentation takes off. For some reason, I haven’t installed an airlock yet. I’ll have to see how that works.

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Mead @ 24hrs

SG 1.070
pH 3.09

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Bread-$0.90 per loaf

A recent online forum discussion about the price of homemade bread made me a little curious, so while at the grocery store this morning, I checked some prices. Here’s what I found:
Yeast, Fleischmann, 4oz — 7.05
Kosher salt, Morton, 3lbs — 2.75
White flour, Hudson Cream, 25lbs — 10.49
Wheat flour, Hudson Cream, 5lbs — 2.65

Per loaf:
Water, 354g — 0
Yeast, 8g — 0.496
Kosher salt, 10g — 0.020
White flour, 300g — 0.277
Wheat flour, 90g — 0.105
Total — 0.898

This does not include the utilities (water, electric or gas) used.

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Mead Rematch

After my recent mead failure, I knew that I had to try it again. Last time, I blindly followed a recipe against my better judgement. It didn’t use any meta and did not test anything. Never again.

I just couldn’t bring myself to throw out the ice chunk left over from the Faux Ice Wine that I started last weekend. I can’t help but think there would still be a little bit of chardonel left, even if there’s not it’s still just as good as filtered tap water. I put the chunk in the fridge and it melted to about 1qt.

Yesterday, I filtered it through cheesecloth to remove the heavy sediment. I added about 3qt of filtered tap water, to bring the total volume up to about 1gl. It had an SG of 1.004. I added 29.3oz of raw wildflower honey, which raised the SG to 1.058. I added the remainder of my honey, 9.7oz, which brought the SG up to 1.073. I hadn’t expected to use that much honey, and the containers that I thought were 2lbs were only 24oz. I added 1 1/4t of yeast nutrient and 125ppm DAP, as well as meta (the chardonel had been meta’d at pressing, but I had to add more for the tap water). So then I was off to the store for more honey. Another 7.7oz of honey and the SG was at 1.086.

I know that the pH in meads can drop sharply when fermentation starts, but I just couldn’t accept the initial pH of 5.27. I added enough acid blend to bring the pH down to 3.56. I may regret this, but only time will tell. I’m planning on checking the pH during fermentation, while I normally only monitor SG.

I pitched the D47 a few minutes ago. Now…we wait.

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SG @ 1.002 in 4 days

Wow, that K1V is something else.  After only 4.5 days, the must had a SG of 1.002, so I transfered it to a gallon jug last night.  It has more headspace than I’d normally be comfortable with, but the airlock is still bubbling.  That should mean there’s still enough CO2 to insulate the wine for now, at least until I open the jug.

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Wanted: sole meuniere

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any sole (I wish I was surprised), so I went with tilapia.

I dusted the fish with flour and fried it briefly in a mix of butter and veg oil.  I removed the fish and tented it with foil.  I wiped out the pan and added another T of butter.  As soon as it browned, which didn’t take long, I added some parsley and a little bit of lemon juice.  I poured this over the fish, sprinkled it with salt, and bon appetit!

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The omelette stayed together

Let me start by saying that I don’t like eggs.  So whenever I make an omelette, usually to use up some eggs, I have to put enough stuff in it to cover up the taste off the eggs.  This means that  it normally comes apart when I try to get it out of the pan.

Tonight, it came out in one piece.

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SG 1.06 already!?!?

My faux ice wine started with a SG of 1.15 on sunday morning.  Last night, monday, it was at 1.06.  A drop of .09 in less than 36 hours, is that even possible?  I filled my test jar and went to the video store.  When I got back, the must in the test jar was still bubbling away.

I’m going to check it again tonight.  If it keeps up this rate, it will be done today or tomorrow.  That’s not going to happen.

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Faux ice wine

The book, “Home Winemaking Step by Step” by Iverson has a section on making faux ice wine by concentrating the must by freezing.  Since the juice has a lower melting point than water, it will melt first.  The freezing was the easy part, I already keep all my must in the freezer.  I put a heavy colander over a bucket and inverted a 6qt plastic container of chardonel must into it.  After a little while it melted enough for me to remove the plastic container.

The book calls for a brix of 35-40°.  The highest mark on my hydrometer is SG 1.16 (which corresponds to about 38°).  The melting took 7+ hours, helped at the end by me with a heat gun.  I started with 5qt and ended up with just under a gallon.  The SG was 1.154 (the heat gun caused me to overshoot my SG goal slightly).  I reserved 10% of the must for back sweetening. Then I added yeast nutrient and DAP to the must and went to bed (since it was after midnight by this time).  I know that high SG is hard on the yeast, so I used double the yeast nutrient and DAP.  The must is at room temp this morning so I’ll be pitching the yeast shortly.

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