GTMonster
Member
Evening all (UK time).
Last weekend, I pitched an orange and ginger metheglin. Recipe from Big Book of Mead Recipes by Robert Ratliffe.
1.5kg honey made to 4.5l water (boiled with ginger)
6 cut up oranges and skins
225g cubed ginger.
OG circa 1100.
The Lalvin D67 yeast was activated with 2.5g GoFerm. Fermaid O was added in small 0.47g doses as instructed in daily quants till day 4 and again on day 7 as instructed. This was done while using a mixer to add air.
Normally, using conventional methods, the mead takes several weeks to make the correct FG. So I'd not considered taking measurements.
To my suprise, there were no bubles this morning and assumed it had stalled! I took the SG and found that it had not stalled out, but hit FG, just shy of 1000. Not good as this was meant to be semi sweet!
A few questions...
1) Is it normal using the TOSNA method that fermentation is over in a week.
2) As I blended air in and the yeast up yesterday, will I have ruined the final product? Looks like it's settling back to the bottom slowly, however massively cloudy.
3) As the orange and ginger pieces were steeped in the mix for only 1 week, is that enough time for flavour. I was meant to stop at FG-1015 which would have been far shorter.
3) I have a basic desert mead on the go which is on the sweet side with FG looking to be at circa 1040.
This leaves me 2 options.
A) Mix some of this with the metheglin to return it to FG 1015-1020
B) Back sweeten with boiled and cooled honey?
My thought is that (B) would keep the intensity of the orange and ginger flavour.
Mixing with a sweeter mead (A) may dilute.
Does adding fresh honey back to mead change the flavour beyond sweetness?
Thanks for any pointers. Sorry for so many questions!
Last weekend, I pitched an orange and ginger metheglin. Recipe from Big Book of Mead Recipes by Robert Ratliffe.
1.5kg honey made to 4.5l water (boiled with ginger)
6 cut up oranges and skins
225g cubed ginger.
OG circa 1100.
The Lalvin D67 yeast was activated with 2.5g GoFerm. Fermaid O was added in small 0.47g doses as instructed in daily quants till day 4 and again on day 7 as instructed. This was done while using a mixer to add air.
Normally, using conventional methods, the mead takes several weeks to make the correct FG. So I'd not considered taking measurements.
To my suprise, there were no bubles this morning and assumed it had stalled! I took the SG and found that it had not stalled out, but hit FG, just shy of 1000. Not good as this was meant to be semi sweet!
A few questions...
1) Is it normal using the TOSNA method that fermentation is over in a week.
2) As I blended air in and the yeast up yesterday, will I have ruined the final product? Looks like it's settling back to the bottom slowly, however massively cloudy.
3) As the orange and ginger pieces were steeped in the mix for only 1 week, is that enough time for flavour. I was meant to stop at FG-1015 which would have been far shorter.
3) I have a basic desert mead on the go which is on the sweet side with FG looking to be at circa 1040.
This leaves me 2 options.
A) Mix some of this with the metheglin to return it to FG 1015-1020
B) Back sweeten with boiled and cooled honey?
My thought is that (B) would keep the intensity of the orange and ginger flavour.
Mixing with a sweeter mead (A) may dilute.
Does adding fresh honey back to mead change the flavour beyond sweetness?
Thanks for any pointers. Sorry for so many questions!