BakerMikeRomeo
Quick like a bunny, like a bunny quick-quick.
Hello, new friends!
Like four and a half years ago, my brother bought me one of those little 1 gallon brewing kits for Christmas. A couple of months ago, whatever insidious time-delay fuze he built into it activated, and now, this has happened:
Oh, the humanity.
At any rate, I'm Baker. I'm from North Raleigh, North Carolina, and I took my first baby-steps into homebrewing by making mead, thus ensuring that my tiny apartment would be cluttered with carboys full of aging honey-booze for a thousand years.
In the picture above you can see, from left to right:
1. My second batch of mead, made using this recipe: http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/fast-cheap-mead-making.htm
2. My first batch of mead, made using this recipe (plus a punnet of raspberries, plus a packet of boiled yeast because I didn't read it beforehand and didn't have yeast nutrient or energizer on hand) http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/brew-1-gallon-of-honey-wine-mead.htm
3. My second batch of cider (the first one was a headache-inducing nightmare, because I'm impatient and ignorant; I drank it, though, because I'm also stubborn) made more or less following the recipe here: http://howtomakehardcider.com/
4. My third batch of mead, made somewhat more carefully following the recipe from #2. Hopefully that'll turn out to be a half-decent dryish mead.
The two carboys on the left will be at two months in their secondaries in about two and a half weeks, in early September. The two carboys on the right will be at two months in early October. I'll probably then bottle the cider, but i intend to keep the meads in their secondaries for a minimum of six months each.
You can see they all live in a cooler, which lives in my kitchen with its lid propped open by a couple of giant clamps. I cover it with a couple of trash bags to keep the light off of it. Until about three days ago it was totally temperature uncontrolled, but now i throw a frozen water bottle in their daily to keep the interior of the cooler cool-ish. I did, at least, have the foresight to ask the guys at the brew-store for yeasts that could put up with a bit of heat (red star pasteur blanc and premier cuvee), so hopefully I'll be able to salvage something drinkable out of this mess.
As you can plainly see, my brewing setup and skills are still fully clown-shoes, but I'm working my way through The Compleat Mead-Maker and I am looking forward to absorbing as much information as I can from more experienced brewers on these here forums.
I've got a question about trying to airlock my aging beverages in a more compact way (so I can close the lid on my cooler, to make it easier to maintain a steady temperature), but I'm not 100% sure where to put a general question about airlocking equipment. Since I'm mostly making mead, would I put it in the mead forum?
Like four and a half years ago, my brother bought me one of those little 1 gallon brewing kits for Christmas. A couple of months ago, whatever insidious time-delay fuze he built into it activated, and now, this has happened:
Oh, the humanity.
At any rate, I'm Baker. I'm from North Raleigh, North Carolina, and I took my first baby-steps into homebrewing by making mead, thus ensuring that my tiny apartment would be cluttered with carboys full of aging honey-booze for a thousand years.
In the picture above you can see, from left to right:
1. My second batch of mead, made using this recipe: http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/fast-cheap-mead-making.htm
2. My first batch of mead, made using this recipe (plus a punnet of raspberries, plus a packet of boiled yeast because I didn't read it beforehand and didn't have yeast nutrient or energizer on hand) http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/brew-1-gallon-of-honey-wine-mead.htm
3. My second batch of cider (the first one was a headache-inducing nightmare, because I'm impatient and ignorant; I drank it, though, because I'm also stubborn) made more or less following the recipe here: http://howtomakehardcider.com/
4. My third batch of mead, made somewhat more carefully following the recipe from #2. Hopefully that'll turn out to be a half-decent dryish mead.
The two carboys on the left will be at two months in their secondaries in about two and a half weeks, in early September. The two carboys on the right will be at two months in early October. I'll probably then bottle the cider, but i intend to keep the meads in their secondaries for a minimum of six months each.
You can see they all live in a cooler, which lives in my kitchen with its lid propped open by a couple of giant clamps. I cover it with a couple of trash bags to keep the light off of it. Until about three days ago it was totally temperature uncontrolled, but now i throw a frozen water bottle in their daily to keep the interior of the cooler cool-ish. I did, at least, have the foresight to ask the guys at the brew-store for yeasts that could put up with a bit of heat (red star pasteur blanc and premier cuvee), so hopefully I'll be able to salvage something drinkable out of this mess.
As you can plainly see, my brewing setup and skills are still fully clown-shoes, but I'm working my way through The Compleat Mead-Maker and I am looking forward to absorbing as much information as I can from more experienced brewers on these here forums.
I've got a question about trying to airlock my aging beverages in a more compact way (so I can close the lid on my cooler, to make it easier to maintain a steady temperature), but I'm not 100% sure where to put a general question about airlocking equipment. Since I'm mostly making mead, would I put it in the mead forum?
