# New Mead Maker- Questions



## DJbrewer (6/6/09)

Hello,

I am going to try brewing mead for some Xmas presents...

I am going to buy some 5L demijohns for this purpose rather than use a large fermenter.

This is my plan but I may be incorrect...

- ok, so I add water + honey + yeast + nutrient(?) to a 5L demijohn
- after it has finished fermenting (check SG, i guess) do I syphon to a second demijohn and try to leave as much of the sediment behind?
- add some spices , fruit, etc. to this second demijohn
- wait for some (unspecified) time until it is clear
- then syphon to bottles
- let sit for 2-6+ months
- open and drink
?

I have read a few mead-makign sites but the recipes seem a bit complex...

and, being new to it, I have a "couple" of questions:  

1. racking to a secondary
- well, not even sure what this means...
- Is that where I syphon into the second demijohn?

2. Do I even need to syphon to a second demijohn? can I just ass the spices, fruit, etc to the first demijohn after a week or two?

3. How long can you leave mead in the bottle?

4. do you recommend bottling with glass or plastic?

5. If bottling in glass, should I use a cork or a cap (like beer)?
- if with cork, do i need to lay the bottles on their side for long- or short-term storage

6. Honey
- can I just use honey from the supermarket? 
- or does supermarket honey have preservatives, etc.?
- or is the taste just not that good even with spices added and I should use market-bought honey (can get a bit expensive...)?

7. how do I "sanitise" the honey? 
- do I boil it?
- do i dissolve it in hot water and add some sort of sanitising agent to the mix? then add it to the demijohn, sanitising agent and all?
- do i need to worry?

8. Nutrient
- i have Yeast nutrient but some recipes recommend DAP, too. Is that necessary?


9. or do i just go with the JAO?

10. To bentonite or not to bentonite?
- and if i use it, do i add it to the secondary (if I have a secondary) or if I make in one demijohn, do i add it to that near the end before bottling?


11. i am sure there are/will be more... :lol: 

thanks for any advice!


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## pdilley (6/6/09)

DJbrewer said:


> Hello,
> 
> I am going to try brewing mead for some Xmas presents...



Noble plan, but not the best for doing ones first Mead. It is better to do a simple Mead as your first and just get used to the process on all your new equipment.

It is moving into cold brewing months so you adding an additional stress factor on the yeast, which could lead to an error in the fermentation process if you do not already have the ability to control the fermentation environment from equipment and experience gathered from brewing, say beer or another fermented beverage.

Meads are notoriously slow fermenting and aging in their nature without the assistance of a controlled fermentation process with a Standard Nutrient Addition scheme applied. Don't promise this Christmas, maybe not even the next Christmas, keep it a happy surprise to show up with a few bottles if all goes well in the first few times. Get comfortable with yourself and your equipment in a few seasons to know how they will react and change fermentation times.



DJbrewer said:


> This is my plan but I may be incorrect...
> 
> - ok, so I add water + honey + yeast + nutrient(?) to a 5L demijohn
> - after it has finished fermenting (check SG, i guess) do I syphon to a second demijohn and try to leave as much of the sediment behind?
> ...



On the water, just add in Boiled and then cooled water. Chlorine, just from the residual taste perspective of a Mead fermentation alone, has the ability to bind with the residual tars and saps and form medicinal tasting compounds. Some Eucalyptus based honeys have enough medicinal throwing capability without enhancing it further.

On the additional spices, fruit. This is the next level of Mead making to save after making your first one, more so with the fruit. You open up a whole can of worms of how does the fruit change acidity levels, what source did the fruit come from, what level of ripeness is the fruit currently at, how do you adjust how much quantity of fruit you add. You won't get much joy from supermarket fruit. You get better outcomes from fruit frozen at the peak of ripeness, or tree/vine/bush ripened on older varieties of fruits that used to be the norm but no longer make it on to Supermarket shelves. Blending fruit to achieve a perfect balance is the "art form" portion of Mead making where you can add and add to achieve a better result but suddenly cross the line and are unable to remove it and back up to before you started. 

It is rather difficult to mess up a plain Mead in that only the choice in Honey and the technique you use to ferment it out: yeast selection, temperature control, nutrients or not, starting Gravity a.k.a. how much ABV are you trying to reach in the finished Mead -- all these can change the final taste of your Mead which is plenty enough for the very first Mead(s) to play with and worry about.

Syphoning to another vessel ("racking") and away from the residual yeast that settles is an important part of all forms of brewing so you will definitely be doing that.

Time to clear is dependent upon your fermentation control choices you decided to use if you are clearing naturally. If you force the clear then there are products to help you do that.

Aging time again is dependent upon all the factors you chose to implement in the fermentation process all mentioned above. General rule is higher starting gravity and higher resulting ABV level the longer the aging before drinkable. Old recipes versus the modern controlled fermentation with Standard Nutrient Additions and the longer the aging will be before drinkable. And in all cases no matter what you decide to do in making your Mead, aging even longer generally improves the Mead to a point even more.

2-6 months is a very/too short aging time if you are doing a standard recipe without SNA process. Even with SNA you will see improvements when aging 9 months as your lowest end of the spectrum. You want to hold bottles in reserve for years (4+) tagged with a code on the bottle cap or label that you can refer back to the original recipe and fermentation notes to see how well it holds up and improves with age.

Finally on the 5L demijohns you will need to be able to very accurately measure your SNA if you wish to do modern Mead making techniques with SNA additions. The smaller the fermenter the smaller the amounts you need to measure so if you have a spring loaded kitchen scale immediately toss it back into the kitchen cupboard as it will no longer serve you well. An electronic digital pocket scale should not cost you a fortune if you buy overseas from a retailer who is close to the factory in China. It will cost you a bomb if you buy local because many people got their hands on it and doubled the price at each handover in the supply-chain.

I use a 1000g digital scale with 0.1 gram resolution. It will serve you well for all your Mead making as well as a great hop scale for use in beer brewing. Get it from China for $13.88 including shipping to Australia. They have a newer model than I got but this is basically what I ordered. Because it is so inexpensive ordering direct from China/HongKong I also got a 3kg digtal scale at the same time for the kitchen and use it for larger measurements of grains and so on for beer brewing, honey weighing for Mead making, and of course kitchen uses like making bread.

If doing SNA/modern Mead making techniques you also have to consider how you will oxygenate your Mead during the first parts of fermentation. I have a very large paint stirrer that goes on the end of a battery/power drill that I use in my large fermenters. You would need a small one that fits through the demijohn such as a Wine Lees Stirrer. Or make your own if you are handy with a drill, its very simple to make. Two paddles on a pin placed through a hole drilled in a stainless rod.




If not doing SNA then don't worry about any stirrers.



DJbrewer said:


> 1. racking to a secondary
> - well, not even sure what this means...
> - Is that where I syphon into the second demijohn?
> 
> ...



1. Racking already talked about above.

2. Yes you need to syphon. In most cases, leaving it on the yeast that falls to the bottom is not desired so you rack away to a new vessel. This also helps the Mead with the clearing process.

3. Thats a very open ended question, depends on the recipe, your technique and cleanliness during the process, bottle choice, sealing device for bottle choice. etc. 100 years aging is not unheard of in some recipes but aging vessel choice will impact here.

4. One of the myriad of choices when done with a recipe is what to bottle in. If you are trying to make a still Mead I always prefer glass. If you are trying to make a sparkling Champagne style of Mead then you ask yourself if you are doing it for the first time or have done it before. Initially safer to start with plastic when doing your first fizzy ones and use of quality glass bottles highly recommended if you do glass, doing Champagne bottles if reusing is good as they are designed for high pressures of the style you are aiming for.

5. If you are brewing beer and have a capper and beer bottles, by all means go for it. Nothing wrong with Mead in beer bottles. You can age quite a number of years in them and if you are good at measuring out priming sugar amounts and have good quality glass bottles you can do sparkling Mead without a worry. If you are a wine brewer and have a corking machine, by all means go for it. Nothing wrong with Mead in wine bottles. You can age quite a number of years depending or cork choice and if you have your Champagne making techniques down you can easily apply them to Champagne style Mead.



DJbrewer said:


> 6. Honey
> - can I just use honey from the supermarket?
> - or does supermarket honey have preservatives, etc.?
> - or is the taste just not that good even with spices added and I should use market-bought honey (can get a bit expensive...)?
> ...



6. Yes. But its not the best choice. For utmost aroma and flavour you need unpasteurised honey. That rules out both Supermarket honey and boiling your honey. Buying Supermarket honey is buying Super-Mark-Up honey. A large batch of Mead you will find yourself with over $200 of honey in the fermenter when you would only be having $75 of honey in fermenter if you bought it wholesale from a packer or better yet straight from the Farm. I get my honey from the Farm direct from a very large beekeeping family with a lot of large flatbed trucks that drive hives all across the state chasing different types of flowering trees at different times of the year. I get my honey fresh and in a large plastic bucket. I know exactly what varietal of honey I have and know that no dodgy blending has been done in the background before bottling as you can not always be so sure of with some of the Supermarket honeys I have tried.

If worried about costs and freshness you can always simply join the ranks of Australia's backyard beekeepers. There are over 600 in the ACT alone. It will net you up to 120kg of honey a year so its a natural progression for a Mead maker to consider but not a complete replacement of farm honey as you will be collecting what is essentially local wild-flower variety of honey unless you start a small-business and drive your hives to farmers with a specific crop making a little side money and getting a specific variety of honey in the end to make Mead or sell as you see fit.

7. Honey is antibacterial and antiviral. It lasts almost forever, it breaks down slowly but during the process it produces natural hydrogen-peroxide! Its the most amazing stuff on the planet. That said freshest is best when making Mead as you want honey at its peak for flavour and aroma. Save the old stuff for toast and cooking. So you will not sanitise your honey. You simply need enough warm water to help it start dissolving then pour that into the fermenter with cold water up to the level of water you need for your recipe. Boiling, skimming, an all that is very old school and will ruin your aroma and flavour contribution from that farm fresh honey you went to all that trouble to get.

8. If the recipe calls for nutrient add it. If you are doing it the modern controlled fermentation way with SNA then you add it. If you don't add it, you simple are making Mead the old time honoured way. Emphasis on *TIME*  Fermentation can take sometimes up to a year almost and aging a year or two after that.

9. JAO is designed for the utmost beginner. The actual target audience of JAO is a person who has made a cake or muffins in their kitchen and that is all their experience. They have never made a single fermented beverage in their life, no beer, no wine, no Mead they understand absolutely nothing about making anything fermented and all the intricacies and nuances of selection of ingredients or advanced techniques. It is also helpful for a brewer of other beverages to try without getting to the expense of a lot of equipment when they have never tasted a Mead and just want to see if they like it before going all the way into kitting out to make a whole lot of recipes and start experimenting with blending with spices, fruits, wines, and beers.

10. Clearing already discussed above.

11. I am sure there will be 


Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## DJbrewer (6/6/09)

Brewer Pete said:


> Noble plan, but not the best for doing ones first Mead. It is better to do a simple Mead as your first and just get used to the process on all your new equipment.



thanks for the detailed reply! I am sure I have read elsewhere on the forum that you should write a book about this and I agree...

i thought this would be about as simple as my cider...not so, it seems... :lol: 





> It is rather difficult to mess up a plain Mead in that only the choice in Honey and the technique you use to ferment it out: yeast selection, temperature control, nutrients or not, starting Gravity a.k.a. how much ABV are you trying to reach in the finished Mead -- all these can change the final taste of your Mead which is plenty enough for the very first Mead(s) to play with and worry about.




still, i am not one for holding back B) and purchased some honey from a farmers market (red gum).

since I plan on buying 6 x 5L demijohns (for 3 batches of mead) I think I will go for:
- 2 x plain meads with different yeasts
- 1 x mead with some fruit/spices added to the secondary. perhaps I will base it on the JAO (a little) or from one or two posts on the forum

add some yeast nutrient and see how it goes...maybe
SNA process...not sure, but your comment about fermentation and aging time worries me if I do not go this route...especially as I live in Melbourne in a cold house. i am not in a hurry but I need to drink it some time.



> Finally on the 5L demijohns you will need to be able to very accurately measure your SNA if you wish to do modern Mead making techniques with SNA additions.



thanks for the tip on the stirrer and the scales. I have some scales but only 1g resolution.

and the demijohns will come in handy for some different varieties of cider I am planning...

(hopefully, i will not have any more questions...)


This reply does not do yours justice...



thanks, again!


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## pdilley (6/6/09)

Cheers for the kind words.



DJbrewer said:


> still, i am not one for holding back B) and purchased some honey from a farmers market (red gum).
> 
> since I plan on buying 6 x 5L demijohns (for 3 batches of mead) I think I will go for:
> - 2 x plain meads with different yeasts
> - 1 x mead with some fruit/spices added to the secondary. perhaps I will base it on the JAO (a little) or from one or two posts on the forum



Man after my own heart  In that case if you are set on jumping into small batch brewing like that by all means go for it. Brew on!

I'm down to my last unopened pallet of 6 5L demijohns and I'm already feeling stressed  beware its an addiction!

It is much nicer to only have a 5L demi full of a new recipe and not a full 23L fermenter and worrying if a new recipe is even going to turn out right or be something you will want to drink a lot of before scaling it up to a full brew size. It is also completely awesome to do lots of variety in brewing and always have something different to drink handy, and it also means you can do AG or BIAB on the kitchen stove with standard sized pots and less expensive grain bills per brew and no heavy weights to worry about lugging around.

The practice you get scaling down a recipe to suit the 5L demijohn means you have your volumetric skills perfected when you want to scale up or even convert a foreign recipe.

May I suggest to maximize your brewing do not hold 3 5L back, put 2 of those 5L demis that you were holding back into brewing right away and have 5 demis going strong. Then just rack one into the single held back demi and immediately clean and sterilise the demi you racked from and use it to rack the next 5L into. That way you get the most from your small batch brewing.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


EDIT: With the freedom the 5L provides you may wish to fill them from the kitchen sink. Make sure your tap is very high and you are not forced to hold the demi on its side as you fill. They are still large enough that the water weight inside them will easily pull the demi against the tap and crack the glass on the lip.


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## Airgead (9/6/09)

DJBrewer

There's not much I can add to BP's opus there only to say that I usually don't bother with the fancy nutrient additions. This is an ongoing debate but for a first mead I'd be tempted to keep it as simple as possible. Just bung the nutrient in at the start. Oxygenate once before you pitch the yeast and let it go. It may take a bit longer to ferment out but the quality will be fine. Once you have the basics you can make it as complex as you like.

As far as Honey goes, find a beekeeper or someone who wholesales it. Supermarket honey is pretty bland and you really want something with some complexity for a really good mead. I have had really good results with Yellow box, napunya, ironbark and spotted gum.

Good luck.

Cheers
Dave


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## DJbrewer (9/6/09)

Airgead said:


> DJBrewer
> 
> There's not much I can add to BP's opus there only to say that I usually don't bother with the fancy nutrient additions. This is an ongoing debate but for a first mead I'd be tempted to keep it as simple as possible. Just bung the nutrient in at the start. Oxygenate once before you pitch the yeast and let it go. It may take a bit longer to ferment out but the quality will be fine. Once you have the basics you can make it as complex as you like.
> 
> ...




thanks, dave. and thanks for the previous reply, brewer pete.

Honey, well, i hope the farmers market red gum honey is ok. tasted nice... plus with 6 x demijohns I may have to fins another source (i bought 5kg of honey = 3 x batches).


I went down to the LHBS (whcih is abotu 1.5 minutes from work!) and have some more questions/comments :lol: :

1. ok, maybe just Yeast nutrient, then. certainly seems easier than everything else...

2. 5L demijohns- they are so small...it seems crazy to use them instead of 10L demijohns, especially as mead takes so long to age... but, given people with experience use them then i shoudld not worry... also, 5L is easy to work with- 10 L gets a little bit heavy, i guess.

3. yeast choice and amount:
- i was going to buy liquid Wyeast (dry and sweat mead varieties), as well as perhaps use a dried champagne yeast I have handy in the fridge.
- also, i cannot seem to get the D47 people spak about so need to check out other choices, especially if I go for 5 x brews (good idea, brewer pete!).
- given the size of the batches (5L demijohns with 4L water), do I pitch the entire packet of dry yeast? 
what about the liquid yeast? 
I opened a thread about small batch brewing and for 10L I would just have used the entire packet or maybe halved it (or use 2/3) but that was for cider, whereas mead seems more exacting...

4. stirrer for aeration
- the LHBS did not have one of the stirrers you recommended. so, what about just swirling by hand? or what about just using a long, then kitchen utensil or a glass pippette? stick it in and stir around?

5. wide or narrow neck demijohns
- what are teh feelings here?
teh wide neck might be useful for cleanign and additions but would be harder to get a syphon to fit.

6. corks/bottle caps
so, i had a look at the offerings and there were:
- corks (1-3+ years)
- synthetic corks (1-6+ years)
- zork corks (no aging time given)
- beer bottle caps (maybe 2 years max?)
- swing-tops (maybe 2 years max)

if i go for cork/synthetic cork, so i need to lie the bottles on the side?

or just go for the beer bottles/caps.
note that I do not have a beer bottle capper and thought to buy one of the lever-type cappers rather than the small ones you hit (i guess with a hammer?).

any thoughts? something to stick corks in ranges from $35 to $88 (I was told the cheaper end $35 ones do not do synthetic corks well because they are harder)


phew!

thanks again for any help.


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## Airgead (9/6/09)

DJbrewer said:


> thanks, dave. and thanks for the previous reply, brewer pete.
> 
> Honey, well, i hope the farmers market red gum honey is ok. tasted nice... plus with 6 x demijohns I may have to fins another source (i bought 5kg of honey = 3 x batches).
> 
> ...



Yeast wise I use dry wine yeasts (or they used to be dry wine yeasts before I added them to my yeast farm). A lot of people swear by Champagne yeast but any suitable wine yeast will be good. its like beer - the yeast does determine a large part of the finished flavour. there is a Gervin wine yeast designed for fruit wines that I have used very successfully before. My next batch will be a blackberry mead made with a red wine yeast...

As for pitching rates, use the appropriate amount. each pack is (usually) sized for 25l (5 gal) as for 5l pitch 1/5th in a good active starter. You can use the mr malty pitching rate calculator for this.

Stirring - I only aerate once so I just bung a solid bung in and shale the crap out of it for a while.

As for corks, If I cork I use the regular composite corks (the ones that are made from compressed pieces of cork) from the LHBS. I have also bottled mead into beer bottles and just used crown seals. That's one of my experiments - a batch bottled half with corks and half with crown seals. Both in 375 ml bottles. So far the corks are ageing faster but the crown seals seem to do very well (though they do look like crap). My guess is that the corks will age to optimum maturity faster but won't have as long a shelf life as the crown seals which should last almost indefinitely as the mead will over age due to the additional micro oxygenation.

If you do use caps but a good bench capper. the hammer ones cause broken glass and the lever action types tend to snap the necks off bottles. Get a good bench capper. You will thank yourself for it every time you bottle anything. Same goes for a corker. I have a lever action corker and I curse myself every time I use it for being a cheap bastard and not buying the bench corker.

Oh and for the record, all my 5l demijohns are narrow neck but I'm not fussed either way. Could be harder getting corks for the wide neck though. the 5l is small but its a good way to start - you are only using a few kg per batch and can experiment. I make test batches in the 5l and when i hit on a good recipe I scale up to the 25l. Only getting 5 or 6 bottles per batch is a pain though. I tend to use half bottles (375 ml dessert wine type) for test batches as it gives me 10-12 and I can try a bottle/month for a year to see how its ageing.

Cheers
Dave

P.S. The red gum should be fine. I have used that before and its a nice honey.


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## DJbrewer (10/6/09)

hey, thanks for the reply.
based upon some of the mead-related posts on the forum I have purchased a variety ofyeasts:
- Wyeast Dry mead 4632 (liquid)
- US-05
- Champagne Yeast

This is one way to get a feel for yeasts, although perhaps meads are not the best way to test this given the aging times...

Aerating: great, i like the idea of shaking the demijohn. so easy with 5L...

Cappers/corks: thanks for the tip on the bench capper/corking machine. That confirms what the guy at the LHBS suggested.
I also thought the crwon seals would not last as long as cork...pity it takes so long to determine the difference...

- still, would like to know if, with cork, do i need to lie the bottles on their side?
- and what about Zork Corks? Iwill look around the forum about these guys.

the red gum was tasty. i was a bit concerned that it may be too dark and woudl need extra aging but I am not going to buy any more honey...


thanks, again!


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## Airgead (10/6/09)

DJbrewer said:


> - still, would like to know if, with cork, do i need to lie the bottles on their side?
> - and what about Zork Corks? Iwill look around the forum about these guys.
> 
> the red gum was tasty. i was a bit concerned that it may be too dark and woudl need extra aging but I am not going to buy any more honey...
> ...



Yep if you cork you need to store the bottles on their sides. The corks need to be kept damp. Not sure about synthetic corks, zorks or other types as I have only ever used the real cork types.

The general rule of thumb is that the darker it is the longer it takes to age but the better it is when it gets there. A beekeeper friend of mine inherited a couple of hives from a guy who had dies. They had been neglected for a year or two before that and what came out was 15kg of thick black tar. Tasted like a mix of honey and treacle. I had one taste and bought the whole 15kg off him. The mead is a dark amber and is aging beautifully now. Its more an aperitif than something you would drink with dinner but as a before dinner drink it is fantastic. I'm guessing another 2 years before it hits its peak.

Cheers
Dave


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## DJbrewer (10/6/09)

Airgead said:


> Yep if you cork you need to store the bottles on their sides. The corks need to be kept damp. Not sure about synthetic corks, zorks or other types as I have only ever used the real cork types.
> 
> The general rule of thumb is that the darker it is the longer it takes to age but the better it is when it gets there. A beekeeper friend of mine inherited a couple of hives from a guy who had dies. They had been neglected for a year or two before that and what came out was 15kg of thick black tar. Tasted like a mix of honey and treacle. I had one taste and bought the whole 15kg off him. The mead is a dark amber and is aging beautifully now. Its more an aperitif than something you would drink with dinner but as a before dinner drink it is fantastic. I'm guessing another 2 years before it hits its peak.
> 
> ...




Thanks, Dave.
Just what I needed to know.
since I need to buy corks or caps, plus the tools to insert them I might just go corks. The cost difference is not that large, really.

as for the honey- sounds good. can't wait to get my mead started. waiting for teh yeast ordered from QLD (hurry up Australia Post!)
Thanks.


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## pdilley (11/6/09)

Nothing to add to Dave's excellent information except that an added bonus of going the corker and wine bottle route is that because you are focused on giving them as gifts you can get a ton of lipstick to put on your bottles. The easiest is to get the red wax pellets from the LHBS if they are wine oriented and just melt them down in an old tin saved from a can of soup or stew or veggies or fruit you bought from the market. Once melted you hold your corked bottles upside down, dip for a second or two and pull it out and hold it while a drip or two drops back into the melted wax in the tin. In a few more seconds it will harden and you can turn the bottle upright and you have waxed wine bottles that look great.

You can also get premade shrink tube sleeves in different colours that go over the neck of the bottle instead of wax dipping and you simply hit them with a hair dryer or heat gun and they shrink down tight and make the seal you see on wine bottles at the bottle shop.

Now I had neither corker nor capper since I had to rebuild my brewing gear collection since moving but because I do the occasional beer I went the capper route because not many people around me know much about Mead so it would be the rare person at work I crack open a bottle with.

A crown seal on a beer bottle I know can last up to at least 4 years depending on your cleanliness and method when bottling especially if you are right into your beer brewing and make a counter-pressure flow bottle filler, I'm not sure how much longer as I don't have anyone who didn't drink all their stock by then  The cpf bottling technique is used in competition submissions for beer brewers and takes a bottle cleaned, sanitised, and filled with water, the cpf is inserted and a rubber o-ring completes the seal. The bottle is inverted and CO2 is pumped in pushing out the water. Once the entire bottle is full of CO2 gas it is then inverted to be right-side-up and CO2 line closed and beer line is opened and the pressure differential in the completed system (leaving out bits and parts in my quick explanation) pushed the beer or mead into the bottle and removes the CO2. When the cpf is removed a full layer of CO2 remains in the neck instead of oxygen and because the beer is kegged it is already carbonated to the exact amount you dialed in and stays that way in the bottle. Then 2 seconds in the bench capper and its sealed and will last a long long time without changing much from what you bottled.

Synthetic corks btw would not need to have the wine bottles laid on their sides. Natural cork needs the liquid contact in the bottle to soak and swell and compress against the sides of the neck of the wine bottle to do their job. The quality of cork used determines the number of years you can age the contents inside with an acceptably small percentage of bottles spoiling.

In the States you can buy a bench capper that does both crown seals for beer and wine bottle corks. I have never seen this animal for sale in Oz so I decided to go bench capper and crown seals for all my brewing products.

Corks are a whole new area of decisions and sometimes opinionated arguments as to which one is better than the other on the shelf so do your research into what is available for sale and what each is best for as far as years aging and you feel comfortable with and you are set to ignore anyone trying to sway you different as sometimes the difference can be splitting hairs. Also ignore the marketing "truth-stretching" (some people just use the outright term "lies" ) you see in all the advertising and web-sites from synthetic manufacturers about natural corks and spoilage rates. I have seen them greatly overblown (mostly from that other synthetic stopper I have not mentioned in my reply you listed) from independent studies not funded by synthetic stopper manufacturers that are generally accepted worldwide among most of the hobby brewers.

Again go for the "bench" version of anything, corker, or capper over any hand held versions you see. You'll thank yourself a million times or at least every time you seal a bottle of your home brews.

One last note on fermenter sizes. You are not limited to 5L or to say it another way it is not "better" than 10L just as 10L is not "better" than 5L. As people go one brewing kits which predefine 23L as the batch size then they get it stuck in their head this *is* the size normal people should be always brewing add. Thats all a pack of hooey. 5L or 1US gallon has become the de-facto for small batch brewing primarily from the beer brewing side of small batch because each batch can get you a "six-pack" or very close to it or a six-pack and half a bottle extra when done with your batch of beer you made in the 5L.

This six-pack is perfect for beer drinkers like me who halfway through a 23L batch really start getting sick of the taste of even their home brew no matter how awesome it turned out. There is a decent sized group of us that don't always order the same beer every time we go out or to the local bottle shop but depending on how we feel at that time or less so with beers what we have planned to eat we order something we think would match our plans or feelings. If you go to the bottle shop and buy six's or single bottles of different beers you are a perfect candidate for small batch brewing. Some of us just love having tons of different varieties of drinks in the home cellar we can just pick and choose among over the year than trying to guzzle a ton of beer just so we can make the next style we have been reading about. Small batch is freedom to have tons of different style all going at once or anytime your fancy gets tickled and know that if its new and/or exotic, if its not so great you only have 6 bottles to get through instead of a whole 23L batch.

Its also great when you want to try anything that has lots of costly ingredients. Less money on the line per batch. And of course you can scale up to any volumetric batch size you want if you really think you made something absolutely mind blowing in your 5L demijohn!

Food for though 

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


EDIT: The lees stirrer is actually use for De-Gassing CO2 before bottling in the wine making side of home brewing but is also an awesome oxygenator when used to whip up a Mead at the start of fermentation. Its not the only way just one I think gets the most Oxygen in with the least amount of time and the least amount of money involved. Big pluses in my books when looking at your average home brewer. And of course mine is a gigantic paint stirrer from Bunnings which I use in my 30 and 60 litre plastic brew barrels and in my wide-mouthed 54litre glass demijohn (actually used for making brined olives but also a great fermenter for those who already are passed their must-have-airlock-always anxiety.


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## DJbrewer (12/6/09)

Thanks, again, for another informative (and large) post! Again, my reply will not do it justice...

One set of new questions:
1. 
a) For meads: how do you know when to rack to the second fermentation vessel? I presume you use sepcific gravity, as you do with Beers/ciders?
b )for meads: how do you know when to bottle from the second fermentation vessel? From 1a, I assume that fermentation has stopped alrerady so...

2. This applies to small batches (5L demijohns) of mead/beer/cider, how do you check specific gravity without wasting too much precious liquid?

man, why does this seem so challenging...or is it just me...

My comments/replies are inline below.



Brewer Pete said:


> Nothing to add to Dave's excellent information except that an added bonus of going the corker and wine bottle route is that because you are focused on giving them as gifts you can get a ton of lipstick to put on your bottles. The easiest is to get the red wax pellets ... and you have waxed wine bottles that look great.
> 
> You can also get premade shrink tube sleeves in different colours that go over the neck of the bottle instead of wax dipping and you simply hit them with a hair dryer or heat gun and they shrink down tight and make the seal you see on wine bottles at the bottle shop.




great idea- i saw the wax pellets at my LHBS. 
I think you have done this before.  
Shrink tube sleeves also seem liek the go- makes it look quite professional, i imagine.



> A crown seal on a beer bottle I know can last up to at least 4 years depending on your cleanliness and method when bottling especially if you are right into your beer brewing and make a counter-pressure flow bottle filler, I'm not sure how much longer as I don't have anyone who didn't drink all their stock by then.



4 years sounds fine for me. I don't have children to leave the mead to so my wife and I may as well drink it with friends...
and I guess the wax cover mentioned earlier would also work with capped bottles.

I have seen a lot of contentious argument on the internet about corks...
I might decide on cork/cap/zork/etc. when it is time to bottle. defer decision until the last moment...

The CPF technique sounds interesting... maybe in a few years. it would take me back to my chemistry days...
I think I will look for a youtube video on this- it sounds interesting.



thanks for all of the input.


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## Airgead (12/6/09)

DJbrewer said:


> Thanks, again, for another informative (and large) post! Again, my reply will not do it justice...
> 
> One set of new questions:
> 1.
> ...



I try to avoid racking more often than I absolutely need to. i don't use campden as an antioxidant (SWMBO is allergic) so if I rack too often I get oxygenation problems. For a straight mead I rack once fermentation has finished and it has started to clear. I usually won't rack again until bottling time. If its a fruit mead I'll usually add an extra racking to get the mead off the fruit pulp after a week or two. If there is a lot of yeast at the bottom of the secondary once it has fully cleared I might rack again a week or so before bottling so i don't end up with sludge in my bottles but that's pretty rare. 

Quite apart from the oxygenation issues, too many rackings in a 5l batch and you end up with nothing left...

When to bottle is another story... you can bottle as soon as fermentation has finished and it has fully cleared or you can bulk age before bottling. Both do different things to the flavours. Experiment with both and see how it goes. One of my next experiments will be 2 identical batches one bottled straight after secondary the other bulk aged for a few months. 

Cheers
Dave


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## pdilley (12/6/09)

Airgead said:


> I try to avoid racking more often than I absolutely need to. i don't use campden as an antioxidant (SWMBO is allergic) so if I rack too often I get oxygenation problems.



Hey Dave, Bunnings has those portable CO2 tanks for ?compressed air tools? that I always see the beer brewers bringing to meetings for portable keg and beer-gun serving on the go. Perhaps use one of those to flush out O2 from a racking. Shouldn't need much as its heavier than oxygen and should layer down quite well on top of a racked wine or mead.

Should be buggar all money to fill one of those up when they finally run out.

Check out the tool section next time you are there.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete


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## Airgead (12/6/09)

Brewer Pete said:


> Hey Dave, Bunnings has those portable CO2 tanks for ?compressed air tools? that I always see the beer brewers bringing to meetings for portable keg and beer-gun serving on the go. Perhaps use one of those to flush out O2 from a racking. Shouldn't need much as its heavier than oxygen and should layer down quite well on top of a racked wine or mead.
> 
> Should be buggar all money to fill one of those up when they finally run out.
> 
> ...



Once I have my new shed/brewery set up I'll be able to rack my meads using CO2 from the tank attached to my kegs. At the moment they are on the other side of the house. I'll set up a completely sealed O2 free transfer system. But first I need to build the shed.. actually, first I need to knock down the old one.. actually, first I need to free up space in the garage so I can move stuff out of the old shed to knock it down...

Cheers
Dave

Edit: spelling due to the bottle of red wine I consumed with dinner...


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## O'Henry (1/7/09)

I put down a mead this time last year and it is still yet to clear. I last racked it maybe 6 months ago and it still looks like cloudy apple juice. The smell was shit but the taste was awesome. It is a 5L batch, and was topped up with boiled water to avoid over exposure to air, as advised on another forum. The recipe was:

1.5kg honey,
4 litres water,
1 cup of cold tea,
25g citric acid,
nutrient,
yeast (dry wine from LHBS)

I dont remember exactly what I did, it is a little while ago and I have misplaced the notes from my early brewing adventures.
Any advice on what to do? It still bubbles through the airlock occasionally but I just dont know where to go from here. Should I take the SG and see where it is at and then do the same in a fortnights time? And then bottle regardless of clearing?


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## Airgead (1/7/09)

[quote name='O'Henry' post='485074' date='Jul 1 2009, 01:52 PM']I put down a mead this time last year and it is still yet to clear. I last racked it maybe 6 months ago and it still looks like cloudy apple juice. The smell was shit but the taste was awesome. It is a 5L batch, and was topped up with boiled water to avoid over exposure to air, as advised on another forum. The recipe was:

1.5kg honey,
4 litres water,
1 cup of cold tea,
25g citric acid,
nutrient,
yeast (dry wine from LHBS)

I dont remember exactly what I did, it is a little while ago and I have misplaced the notes from my early brewing adventures.
Any advice on what to do? It still bubbles through the airlock occasionally but I just dont know where to go from here. Should I take the SG and see where it is at and then do the same in a fortnights time? And then bottle regardless of clearing?[/quote]

I'd definitely take an SG. It sounds like you have a really slow fermentation going on. My guess would be that its still around 1.010 or so. It will drop clear when the yeast runs out of puff. If the Sg is still up fairly high you could try adding some more nutrient and gently rousing the yeast (don't splash just swirl the yeast off the bottom) to kick things along. If it has finished and is still cloudy it may be an infection. Meads usually drop really clear.

Whatever you do don't bottle until the FG is absolutely stable. If you bottle early the fermentation will slowly dribble on in the bottle and will eventually cause bottle bombs.

Cheers
Dave


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