Yay mead!

[Parrothead]

I started a gallon of mead last Tuesday, and it's coming along nicely.


Except I made it fizzy, and I don't know how...



So I have mead soon!

[Crossbow]

Cool! I love mead.

Any idea yet if this one's going to be dry or sweet?

[SongsOfDragons]

MEEEEAAAAADDD!!!

Fizzy mead? Fizzy is good too ^^

[AccountingDrone]

Fizzy is secondary fermentation after bottling, and is good as long as the bottle doesn't explode

Typically secondary fermentation is achieved in brewing and vintning by adding a tiny amount of extra sugars to reactivate live yeasts in your tipple. Occasionally though just the act of bottling shakes things up enough to stir up the yeast and sugars in the liquid so that you get a bit of secondary fermentation going.

Why yes, brewing is half of what my SCA AoA is for, how did you guess

[other half is clothing research and making]

[wolfie]

You say that you started it last Tuesday - is it in the primary fermenter (bucket with fermentation lock), did you transfer it to bottles already (I'd say that's premature), or did you put it directly into bottles to ferment?

If it's in the primary fermenter, the fizzy is a normal part of fermentation (after all, bread is fermented too - but unlike beer/wine/mead, the carbon dioxide is the desired product). When fermentation finishes and it's ready to bottle, it'll go flat.

If you transferred it to bottles already, fermentation was incomplete, so it's the same phenomenon (except uncontrolled - with secondary, you have a KNOWN amount of priming sugar) as secondary fermentation.

If you bottled it before fermentation, STOP! You need to transfer it to a primary fermenter IMMEDIATELY - there's no way a bottle will withstand the pressure of the gas released by the entire fermentation process.

Side note - hundreds of years ago, a monk in charge of the monastery's wine making was plagued by exploding bottles (this was case #2 in action). He opened one of the non-exploded bottles, took a sip, and said "it was like drinking the stars". His name? Dom Perrignon.

[Parrothead]

It's still in the primary fermenter. And it will be sweet mead.

[XCashier]

I've never tried mead, but have always wanted to.

[MoonCat]

http://www.blackwillowwinery.com/htm...selection.html

Freyja's Passion. It slides down your throat like warm silk.

[ArcticChicken]

A home brewery store opened up near my house and I'm thinking about going in on a basic kit with my cousin. He likes beer, but they tell me the same kit can be used for cider and mead, my drinks of choice.