Batch 072: Thanksgiving Cranberry BOMM
We finally picked up some cranberry honey on a recent trip to Colorado: the excellent Bee Squared Apiaries carries it, and holy jeez, is it tart and delicious. I'm backing that up with some of the (quite sweet) clover honey that Bee Squared also sold us. This should be ready (and thematically appropriate!) by the time we host people for Thanksgiving, and so we're going to call it Thanksgiving Cranberry BOMM.
Ingredients in this batch
- 1 lb., 8 oz. cranberry varietal honey from Bee Squared Apiaries.
- 1 lb., 11.6 oz. clover varietal honey from Bee Squared Apiaries.
- ½ tsp. Fermaid K
- ½ tsp. Fermax yeast nutrient
- ¼ tsp. potassium carbonate
- Approx. 2 fl. oz. fermenting mead from batch 068, which contains White Labs WLP570.
- filtered and (in much greater quantity) distilled water to just over one gallon
- First nutrient addition, 18 June 2017:
- ½ tsp. Fermaid K
- (note that the list of nutrients included at the beginning accidentally included two doses of Fermax, so none is included here.)
- Second nutrient addition, date not recorded (at approx S.G. 1.040):
- ½ tsp. Fermaid K
- ¼ tsp. Fermax yeast nutrient
Sanitized everything, then poured the cranberry honey in through a funnel. Followed this with the Fermax, Fermaid K, and then the clover honey. Poured in water to total about a gallon in the carboy. Poured in the K₂CO₃. Agitated for five minutes to oxygenate. Pulled off enough to take a hydrometer reading, taking the volume down to almost exactly a gallon. Pulled off a single turkey baster's worth of fermenting, yeasty mead from batch 068, which contains White Labs's Belgian Golden Strong yeast (WLP570), at which time the temperature of the must was 80℉, and dropped the must from batch 068 into this carboy. Popped in a fermentation lock and filled it to the line with vodka. Set the carboy under water in the same container providing a water bath for batch 068. The must in the carboy is entirely below the level of the water; only the carboy neck and airlock protrude above the water.
Brew date: 12 June 2017.
Original gravity: 1.124.
Bottling date: 17 October 2017
Final gravity: 1.012.
Estimated ABV: Approx. 15.5%.
Yield:
- 7 x 12 oz. bottles
- 2 x 22 oz. bottles
- (hydrometer tube was emptied into the last 12 oz. bottle after measurement)
Total: Exactly one gallon.
Observations
- 2017-06-13T17:11: No visible carbon dioxide production in the carboy.
- 2017-06-14T22:37: There is some sluggish carbon dioxide production visible from the airlock.
- 2017-06-18T20:00: There is still sluggish carbon dioxide production visible from the airlock, though still only at the rate of approx. 10 bubbles/min. Measured gravity: 1.072. Performed first nutrient addition (with no Fermax, because Fermax was overrepresented during the initial nutrient addition).
- 2017-10-17T22:38: Bottled, yielding a gallon at approximately 15.5% ABV.