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Has anyone adapted an automotive vacuum pump (for car A/C) for degassing your wine? If so, how'd you do it? Talking about this kind of pump, BTW: Thanks!

So, as I understand it, a short mead is essentially supposed to be a quick mead, i.e., drinkable quickly. Is a short mead also typically lower ABV (6% as opposed to 12%), or is a "normal" ABV common?

So I've done some cursory searching but ha'n't found a clear answer. When performing Staggered Nutrient Addition, it's recommended to add nutrient/energizer when you pitch your yeast, and at the 1/3 sugar break. But how much nutrient/energizer do you add? For example, say you have a...

I started a batch of traditional mead yesterday, 12 lb of honey and 4 gal of water, K1V-1116 yeast. OG was 1.086. My plan is to step feed, adding honey to another vessel and racking onto it. At what SG should I plan on doing that? Wait til it goes to .998, or earlier?

Looks like humans aren't the only beings that HFCS is bad for: Article on Ars Technica (thought this was relevant to us mead-makers, if it doesn't belong here, mods please delete or move)

Does the capsaicin in peppers inhibit yeast at all? Just wondering whether it's best to allow a traditional mead base for a capiscumel to ferment to completion before soaking peppers in it. TIA!

What's the proper procedure for putting together a must using White Labs yeast? I bought a tube of Sweet Mead/Wine yeast I'd like to use. I'm keeping it in the fridge for now. How do I get it ready for pitching--just take it out of the fridge and let it come up to room temp?

I made a 5-gal batch of cyser. I started with 3 gal of apple juice with 5 lb of honey. After a couple of weeks I added 3.5 lb of honey dissolved in a 1/2 gal of juice, and then added the same again, so I have 12 lb of honey and 4 gal of juice. I used 71B yeast. Obviously my OG doesn't mean...

If one is going to make a cyser using bottled apple juice (ascorbic acid only) that appears to be already clarified, is it necessary to use pectic enzyme, or does the fact that it's already clarified remove the necessity for that?

I started a batch of traditional this past Sunday and used D-47 (with Fermaid-K in the must). There's some very slow bubble activity in the S airlock, maybe one blurp every 30 seconds. I've only used K1V-1116 and EC-1118 previously, and those were pretty fast fermenters. Could something be...

n00b question: are the yeasties at the bottom of the fermentation vessel all basically dead? The live yeast is in suspension?

I bought a Diamanti wine kit, and was perusing the instructions. They include some Lalvin EC-1118 yeast and they say to just sprinkle it on the surface of the must. Is this OK, considering the actual yeast packet gives instructions on preparing it in warm water before pitching? Or should I...

Am I correct in my assumption that pectic enzyme is not necessary when adding processed fruit juice to your must, but is necessary when adding fresh fruit or juice to your must?

I understand that instead of using sulfate/sorbate to halt fermentation, one can simply starve yeast. I assume this means you just rack to secondary or tertiary for some period of time. How long? How do you know when all the yeast is dead?

Has anyone tried making a metheglyn with parsely, sage, rosemary and thyme?

I have a batch of the basic recipe (from Ken Schramm's Compleat Meadmaker) fermenting. He says to rack after a couple of weeks when the fermenting activity slows down. What should be considered to be "slowed down"? I have a bubble or two every 15-20 seconds in the airlock after two weeks.