Batch 083: Mountain Chai Mead (with tart berry variation)
Like a fool, I'm still chasing another batch of that first chai mead. Batch 022 wound up being a much less successful attempt, so I'm trying another approach this time. Once again, there's a fruit-based variation in another carboy. Until a better name becomes apparent, I'm going to call this Mountain Chai Mead (with tart berry variation).
To make sure the chai stands out more this time than it did on the last chai-based batch, I'm infusing it twice: prior to primary fermentation, and after fermentation completes. Too, this time I made a strong tea for primary fermentation instead of cold-infusing, as I've done before. (Anothe rdoes of chai spices, or perhaps chai tea, will soak in secondary after fermentation slows.) The tart berry variation is intended to draw ideas from Ken Schramm's Mambo
recipe and Bray Denard's Berry BOMM: it started with an addition of blackcurrant syrup that we'd had sitting around for a while, and it'll get whole-fruit berry additions later: I have some dried elderberries that I think I'll throw in, and some others—blackberries and blueberries, maybe? We'll see.
Ingredients in this batch
- 5½ gallons Denver municipal tap water, untreated.
- 17 bags of black chai tea from Private Selection.
- 3 lb. 15.7 oz clover honey from Bee Squared.
- 2 lb. 2.9 oz alfalfa honey from Bee Squared.
- 3 lb. 15.6 oz seasonal [i.e., mid-Spring, when we purchased it] wildflower honey from Copoco's Honey.
- 3 lb. 1.4 oz gallberry honey from Bennett's Honey Farm.
- For batch 083A:
- 1 tsp. potassium carbonate
- 2 tsp. Fermaid K
- ½ tsp. Fermaid O
- Approx. ⅔ pouch White Labs WLP008
- 20 bags Tazo black chai tea, with each bag opened and the contents poured into a muslin bag, dropped into the carboy on 3 Jan 2017
- 4 oz. Kirkland clover honey, heated and dropped into the mead on 3 Jan to induce a bit more carbon dioxide production after racking.
- For batch 083B:
- ½ tsp. potassium carbonate
- 1 tsp. Fermaid K
- ½ tsp. Fermaid O
- Approx. ⅓ pouch White Labs WLP008 (this was an underpitch, and the yeast was expired, and never took off enough to produce visible carbon dioxide discharge: see notes below).
- 1 liter ZerGüt blackcurrant syrup (Slovenian; the vendor who sold it to me assured me it has no preservatives, and a quick Internet search seems to agree).
- 5 lb. Dole frozen mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries), added on 3 Jan 2017.
- 10.6 oz. gallberry honey from Bennett's Honey Farm, added on 3 Jan 2017.
- approx. 300 nL extra-strong special ingredient A, added 25 February 2018.
- Late nutrient addition, batch 083A, 3 Jan 2017:
- 2 tsp. Fermaid O
- Late nutrient addition, batch 083B, 3 Jan 2017:
- 1 tsp. Fermaid O
Sanitized everything. Heated 5½ gallons of untreated tap water in the ten-gallon brewing pot. When the temperature of the water hit 140℉, tossed in the tea bags and continued to heat until the water hit 168℉, then turned off the heat and left the pot to cool, covered with its lid, with the lid's small rubber placeholder for the immersion chiller removed and the hole covered with a dish towel. Meanwhile, pulled the yeast from the refrigerator and allowed it to warm to room temperature and rested all of honey except for the gallberry in a warm-water bath to get it into a more liquid state—much of it was very crystalized.
Poured the honey into the cooling water, mixing thoroughly, and poured it into two carboys, labeling them batch 083A
(approximately five gallons) and batch 083B
(a little under three gallons). Batch 083A was left as-is; batch 083B got additional honey and some blackcurrant syrup. Both carboys got Fermaid O, Fermaid K, and potassium carbonate. Split a pouch of White Labs WLP 008 between them (unequally). Did not notice until after this small quantity of yeast was pitched was from a yeast packet that was ten months past its expiration date.
One of the things I want to experiment with here is allowing the must to continue getting oxygen while the majority of the yeast is still in the reproductive phase. Instead of popping in an airlock in, covered the necks with pieces of foil and molded them to the shape of the carboy necks, allowing air exchange but hopefully keeping any nasty microorganisms out.
Brew date: 24 November 2017.
Original gravity: 1.080 (batch 083A) / 1.118 (batch 083B) (treating batch 083B as if it had an initial gravity of 1.129 due to later honey additions).
Bottling date: Batch 083A: 25 February 2018; batch 083B: 4 February 2018
Final gravity: 1.000 (batch 083A) / 1.004 (batch 083B).
Estimated ABV: Approx 12% (batch 083A) / Approx. 17.5% (batch 083B)
Yield: TBD; hopefully, somewhere near eight gallons total for both batches.
- Batch 083A:
- 42 x 12 fl. oz. beer bottles
- 5 x 500 mL beer bottles
- approx. 16 fl. oz. mead slop, from hydromter tube and sample glass (not bottled)
- Batch 083B:
- 1 x 1L swing-top bottle
- 7 x 22 fl. oz. beer bottles
- 2 x 500mL beer bottles
- 9 x 12 oz. beer bottles
- approx. 10 oz. leftover mead
Total:
- Batch 083A: 605 fl. oz., or almost 4¾ gallons
- Batch 083B: 365 fl. oz., or 2.85 gallons
- Total for batch 083: just over 7½ gallons of mead
Honey starter
Fermentation in 083A remained sluggish after several days, and batch 083B never started fermenting at all, so I made a starter with a wine yeast to get things moving.
- 8 oz gallberry honey from Bennett's Honey Farm.
- ½ tsp. Fermaid K
- ½ tsp. Fermaid O
- untreated Denver tap water to approximately 2 quarts
- 1 packet Lalvin K1V-1116 yeast, rehydrated in ½ cup of tap water at 100℉.
Agitated vigorously for five minutes, pitched in rehydrated yeast, and popped in a filled airlock.
Observations
- 2017-11-26T14:22: No visible carbon dioxide production in the carboy.
- 2017-11-27T17:14: Batch 083A is starting to develop yeast rafts. Still no signs of fermentation in batch 083B. Replaced the foil covers on the carboy with air locks.
- 2017-11-27T23:32: Batch 083A is moving toward full krausen. Still no signs of fermentation for batch 083B. Is the gravity too high for an expired ale yeast, maybe, or is it that the blackcurrant syrup had undeclared preservatives?
- 2017-11-28T20:00: Made a two-quart honey starter in a one-gallon carboy.
- 2017-11-30T02:09: Pitched one quart of the honey starter into batch 083A and one quarter into 083B. In both carboys, the less-dense starter formed a layer on top of the more-dense pre-existing must in the carboy.
- 2017-11-30T16:34: Batch 083B is finally fermening! Quit vigorously, too: I had to clear out the airlock. Batch 083A is fermenting more vigorously than before, too. Both carboys show evidence that the lower-density top layer is merging with the higher-density lower layer, too. Gods bless Lalvin K1V-1116: the yeast for when you're not fucking around.
- 2018-01-03T20:31: Racked batch 083B into a new sanitized bucket, adding five pounds of frozen berries and a little honey to encourage a little more carbon dioxide production. Finally added the only nutrient addition the batch is going to get, apparently.
- 2018-01-03T21:22: Opened 20 bags of Tazo black chai tea, emptying the tea and spices into a muslin bag. Put that bag into a new sanitized carboy. Racked batch 083A on top of it. Added 4 oz. honey to induce a bit of new carbon dioxide production.
- 2018-02-04: Bottled batch 083B. Holy jeez, it's amazingly delicious. Not quite three gallons at 17.5%. This is going to age nicely. Next time, maybe just a hair's breadth more sweetness? ... Xenia thinks it should be kept exactly where it is, and I think she's probably right.
- 2018-02-25: Bottled batch 083A, adding an extra-strong version of special additive A at bottling, resulting in 47 bottles (approx 4.7 gallons) at just over 12%.