Batch 054: Holy (Gallberry) Hand Grenade

I've been meaning to start trying staggered nutrient additions for a while now, and I've been meaning to see whether Bray [Denard]'s One Month Mead (the BOMM) really is delicious, so I'm trying that recipe. Since we've got a bunch of gallberry honey right now, and Xenia's got a non-SNA, non-BOMM one-gallon batch going, I thought that trying this might be a good way to have a sample for comparison. (Besides, gallberry honey is delicious. Since it's a BOMM, we're going to call it Holy (Gallberry) Hand Grenade in honor of the weapon used against the killer rabbit living in the Cave of Caerbannog.

Oh, and this recipe was actually brewed by my sister acting under my direction. It's her first brew!

Ingredients in this batch

2½ lb. gallberry honey from Bennett's Honey Farm.
½ tsp. Fermaid K
¼ tsp. Fermax yeast nutrient
¼ tsp. potassium carbonate
Distilled water to 4 liters
1 pouch White Labs WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale Yeast
Nutrient addition on 21 Feb:
- ½ tsp. Fermaid K
- ¼ tsp. Fermax yeast nutrient
Nutrient addition on 27 Feb:
- ½ tsp. Fermaid K
- ¼ tsp. Fermax yeast nutrient
Post-fermentation additions on 13 Mar:
- 3 grams French oak chips
- 2 x 1 cm. American oak cubes, medium toast
- 1 vanilla bean (the whole thing), sliced and dissected

Sanitized everything, added ingredients, and agitated. Pulled out enough for a hydrometer tube to test the gravity, which I believe took the total volume down to just about a gallon. Pitched the yeast, then capped it with an airlock and, despite Denard's instructions, filled the airlock to the line with vodka. (Asking on reddit's r/mead didn't turn up a compelling reason not to, though I may play with just using sterile cotton in the future. Also, Denard's recommended yeast, Wyeast 1388, isn't easily available here; I'm trying White Labs WLP570, which is supposed to be the same strain.) Labeled the carboy and left it in the kitchen to ferment.

Performed additional nutrient additions on 21 Feb and 27 Feb.

Added oak and vanilla on 13 Mar.

Brew date: 17 February 2017.
Original gravity: 1.093.
Bottling day: 2 April 2017
Final gravity: 1.004
Estimated ABV: 11.8%

Yield::

2 x 22 oz. bottles
5 x 12 oz. bottles
hydrometer tube

Total yield: approx. 110 fl. oz., or about 85% of a gallon.

Observations

2017-02-17T23:11: There's already carbon dioxide in the airlock.
2017-02-21T20:53: Gravity reading is 1.060; added another dose of nutrients. Holy jeez, did that foam. Poured the contents of the hydrometer tube back in to avoid losing about 4% of the total batch volume. Tried to avoid oxygenating, though perhaps that is unnecessary or even counterproductive.
2017-02-27T22:45: Got home from several days of camping and realized I'd forgotten the ⅔ sugar break nutrient addition. Gravity was only 1.006; added nutrients anyway, though it's perhaps unnecessary and even counterproductive to do so now. Poured the contents of the hydrometer tube back in.
2017-03-13T20:22: Added oak and vanilla.
2017-04-02: Bottled, yielding 110 fl. oz. at approx. 11.8% ABV. Wow, that vanilla is prominent: maybe I'll use less next time. I think that the yeast may need a bit of time to settle: it got stirred back up during bottling.