After attending a mead-making workshop and listening to some tips from the pros, I’ve decided it’s time to make my first mead! Since it’s my first go-round, I’m keeping it simple: honey, water, yeast, and yeast nutrient. If the flavor needs adjusting later on, I can easily do that during secondary fermentation, but for now, I’d like to start with the basics of making mead.
Preparing the mead couldn’t have been easier. I actually mixed it together while making a batch of homebrew, so it took essentially zero extra time out of my day. While the malted grains for my beer were steeping, I mixed the honey and the water for the mead in a fermenting bucket. Since this is my first try, I’m just doing a one-gallon batch.

My First Mead Recipe (1 Gallon)
1 qt. blackberry honey
3 qts. reverse osmosis water
1/2 pack Lalvin 71B wine yeast
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient, added in fourths over 72 hrs

Since there is no boiling or mashing in making mead, mixing the ingredients together was a cinch:

• Pour the water into the sanitized fermenting bucket
• Pour in the honey
• Add 1/4 tsp. of the yeast nutrient
• Mix well with a sanitized stirring spoon
• Pitch the rehydrated yeast

*Note: Rehydrating the yeast is simply placing the yeast in a small amount of pre-boiled water at about 100˚F. Just practice good sanitation and follow the directions on the packet.
 
All in all, the mixing of the mead probably took about 30 minutes tops, including rehydrating the yeast and cleaning/sanitation. Per Michael Fairbrother’s recommendation, I set the fermenting bucket in my new fermentation chamber at 62˚F.

Staggered Nutrient Additions
You probably noted that the yeast nutrient in the recipe was divided into four parts. Many mead makers suggest adding yeast nutrient gradually during the fermentation process. I followed Michael Fairbrother’s recommendation again, adding a quarter teaspoon of the yeast nutrient during the initial mixing step, then a quarter teaspoon each at 24 hours, 48 hours, and 72 hours into fermentation. Pretty easy. Once again, sanitation is really important any time you open the fermenter. Sanitize the stirring spoon, the teaspoon, and anything else that may come in contact with the mead when adding the staggered yeast nutrient additions.

So that’s it! I’m planning to leave the mead alone at 62˚F for about three months before transferring it to a one-gallon jug. I’ll taste the mead at that point to decide whether to add any tannin, acid blend, or any other flavorings to enhance the mead.

Have you ever made mead? How did it turn out?
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

I recently shared my plans for making hard apple cider this year. Pasteurization and pitching the yeast was pretty straight forward, and for the first week or so fermentation chugged along without a hitch. The plan for secondary fermentation was to add hops to some of the cider, fruit and spices to some of it, and leave the rest plain.
To make room for my Flower Power clone, I went ahead and transferred my cider into the three different fermenters and added the extra flavoring ingredients. Turns out, I might have done this a little early – my gravity was still about 1.025 – but like I said I needed the space.
Here’s how I went about racking the cider into three different fermenters:
1. Cleaned and sanitized all fermenters, transfer tubing, stoppers, and airlocks.
2. Filled the three-gallon carboy with about 1 ounce of hops that I had on hand: .5 ounce Palisade and .5 ounce Columbus.
3. Filled one of the one-gallon jugs with about 10 ounces of frozen blueberries, plus 5 grains of decorticated cardamom. Cardamom can be a pretty assertive spice, so I wanted to use a light hand.
4. The last one-gallon jug didn’t get any additions. It’s the “control” batch.
5. Racked the five gallons of juice from the 6 gallon carboy to the three gallon carboy and the two, 1-gallon jugs. This was a little tricky. There must be a good way to do this without getting juice on the floor, but I haven’t figured it out yet. One of these flow control hose clamps, or better yet, a siphon faucet, would probably help.
6. Sealed up each fermenter with a bung and airlock and return to the fermentation chamber.
Aside from some mess on the floor, making this hard apple cider had gone pretty easy. But within a day or so noticed an issue.
Since I wanted to avoid headspace and potential infection, I filled each fermenter to within an inch or so of the bung. Unfortunately, I found that transferring the cider and adding hops really agitated the hopped cider, so much so that it started pushing cider into the airlock and hops into the upper portion of the carboy – some of the hops didn’t have good contact with the cider.
I ended up using a sanitized auto-siphon to remove about a cup of cider from the fermenter. This gave the cider a little extra room for fermentation activity and it seemed to resolve the issue of clogging the airlock.
So after that relatively minor episode, the ciders continue to ferment away in the mid to upper 60s. Hopefully they will hurry up and finish so I can go ahead and bottle. With any luck, I’ll have three hard ciders to get me through the winter!
I’ve heard that cider takes time to age. What is your experience with making hard apple cider? How quickly can it be consumed? Share in the comments below!
Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
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David Ackley is a beer writer, homebrewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

In the afternoon session of my recent BJCP beer judging experience, I was assigned to Category 20: Fruit Beer. Check out my previous post about Judging In A Homebrew Competition: English Brown Ales.
The Fruit Beer category is an odd bird. It basically allows the homebrewer to add fruit to any beer. As with about any style, the keys to success in the Fruit Beer category are balance and overall harmony with the base style. This creates some interesting combinations on the beer side, and presents some challenges for someone who is judging fruit beers, who will be confronted with a range of different beer styles. For example, you might come across a strawberry wheat beer, a blackberry porter, and a raspberry stout, and have to judge each beer based on its own merits.
Balance is the key with this style. Since just about any base style can be declared, someone who is judging fruit beers has to determine whether the base beer is in balance with the fruit. This is the case in the flavor as well as aroma. However, the judge must keep in mind that some fruits have very distinctive flavors and aromas. Typically hops are reduced in fruit beers to allow the fruit to come through.
Fruit can do some funny things to the appearance of beer. Though the appearance of the beer should be appropriate for the base style, sometimes fruit can contribute color or haze to a beer. It’s not necessarily a problem for the beer to take on some color from the fruit, but a clear beer generally gets higher marks for appearance than a hazy one. Pectic enzyme can help break down the pectins that are responsible for fruit-derived haze.
For about 80% of the entries that came across my table while judging fruit beers, the fruit was out of balance, much too heavy. On the flip side, the handful of beers that showed restraint in the fruit could have used a little more. It was evident how challenging it is to find the perfect balance when brewing fruit beer.
Interestingly, some of the more robust styles stood up to the fruit better than some of the lighter styles. Though there were some excellent strawberry blondes and strawberry wheats, the porters worked very well with blackberries and raspberries. This seems to indicate that the more delicate the fruit, the more delicate the base style should be.
Ultimately, one of my favorite beers of the bunch was a blackberry porter. Check out this article to make your own fruit beer.
Have you ever brewed an award-winning fruit beer? What’s your secret?
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

One of the benefits of joining a homebrew club is that you’re often exposed to group events and discounts. My local homebrew club does an annual cider pressing at a local cidery. This year I picked up five gallons of juice. Here’s my game plan for making hard apple cider.
From my five gallons of apple juice I want to make three different hard ciders: one plain, one with hops, and one with fruit and/or spices. I plan to ferment the five gallons together, then split them up at secondary fermentation into three different fermenters: one three-gallon glass carboy and two one-gallon glass jugs. (I already have the appropriate bungs and airlocks from previous experiments.)
As for the other ingredients, I opted not to use any additional sugar at this time. Upon recommendation from a friend, my yeast of choice making these hard apple ciders was Wyeast 1098: British Ale Yeast.
The first step when making hard cider from soft (non-alcoholic) cider is to stabilize the juice. One dilemma I had to sort through was how to stabilize the juice.
Campden Tablets vs. Pasteurization
Last year, I tried making hard apple cider using the standard method of adding Campden tablets to the juice. The Campden tablets stabilize the juice by releasing sulfur dioxide, which kills off any microbes that my have been living on the fruit. Yes, it smells a little like rotten eggs, but none remains at the end of the cider making process. Typically, the cider maker will add one tablet per gallon of juice, wait 24 hours while it does its thing, then pitch the yeast.
For some reason, this didn’t work out for me last year. Either the juice was especially funky, or I left the apple cider in the primary fermenter for too long and with a more head-space than it should have had. The cider got moldy and I had to dump the whole thing.
This year, I’m doing things differently. In an attempt to prevent infection, I’m pasteurizing the juice. Yesterday afternoon, I picked up the juice. Last night I pasteurized the juice by heating it to 180˚F. Why 180˚F? 180˚F is hot enough to kill off wild microbes, but not quite boiling. Boiling the apple juice could result in a pectin haze. The pectin haze wouldn’t affect flavor, but I’d like to get a clear cider if I can. (I may still end up with some haze. In this case, pectic enzyme could come in handy.)
In theory, this pasteurization process should have killed off any yeast or bacteria that may have been living on the apples. During this run of making hard apple cider I had been thinking about adding sugar to boost the potential alcohol content, but my hydrometer showed the juice had a specific gravity of 1.050. Since apple juice will usually ferment completely dry, this should come out to about 6.5% ABV. That’s right where I want it, so no sugar needed.
Yeast Nutrient for Hard Cider
I added 1 tsp. of yeast nutrient per gallon of juice. I mixed this in while pasteurizing the juice.
Yeast Starter for Hard Cider
While pasteurizing the juice (see above), I pulled off a half gallon for use in a yeast starter, pasteurized it separately, cooled it down and pitched the yeast. This gave the yeast a couple hours to grow and multiply before being pitched into the main batch. That’s not much of a head start, but it’s better than nothing.
I’m no cider master, but I have a good feeling about where this one is headed. I’m learning that making hard apple cider may not be as difficult as I first had suspected. Today, it’s fermenting away at 68˚F!
Stay tuned to see how it turns out!
Series: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.

I recently had the opportunity to judge at a local homebrew competition. Judging homebrew in competition is a great way to improve your sensory technique and your abilities to detect subtle differences in ingredients within a certain style. I will share my experiences to shed some light for those who are interested in competing in homebrew competitions.
The competition I judged for was a BJCP-sanctioned homebrew competition. That means all of the beers were submitted in and judged against categories based on the Beer Judge Certification Program Style Guidelines. Though the BJCP has recently announced changes to the style guidelines, this competition was judged using the 2008 Style Guidelines.
What typically happens with these homebrew competitions is that the host homebrew club seeks out volunteer judges and stewards. Judges judge the beer; stewards facilitate distributing the entries to the judges. Judges are assigned to different style categories. There are at least two judges per category. Sometimes categories are combined if there aren’t enough judges to go around.
For this homebrew competition, I was assigned to judge English Brown Ales and Fruit Beers. I’ll start by sharing my experience with the English Brown Ales.
One of the challenges in judging this category was in the diversity of the three sub-styles within the broader category:

• Mild: “A light-flavored, malt-accented beer that is readily suited to drinking in quantity. Refreshing, yet flavorful. Some versions may seem like lower gravity brown porters.”
• Southern English Brown Ale: “A luscious, malt-oriented brown ale, with a caramel, dark fruit complexity of malt flavor. May seem somewhat like a smaller version of a sweet stout or a sweet version of a dark mild.”
• Northern English Brown Ale: “Drier and more hop-oriented that southern English brown ale, with a nutty character rather than caramel.”

If you click the links above, you’ll see that each has fairly specific specifications for the aroma, flavor, appearance, and mouthfeel of each beer. The judge scores each entry on each of the four sensory areas, as well as their overall impression. Scores are given by each judge, which are then averaged out by the steward. The top three beers in each category are awarded prizes, with the top beer in each category moving forward to compete for the Best of Show (the top three best beers out of the whole competition).
In this homebrew competition, there were about 5-6 entries each for Mild and Northern English Brown Ale, and a single entry for Southern English Brown Ale. It quickly became apparent how subtle the differences could be between each beer. Though each beer within a subcategory may look identical, some would have more prominent malt flavor than others. Some had more of a toasty character, while others had stronger caramel notes. Most of them were very good, but a few had some fermentation faults and off-flavors, such as diacetyl, in which case the judge is expected to make suggestions for how to fix it.
In judging the English Brown Ales, I found that while color may be similar between the three subcategories, Mild is more nutty, Southern English Brown Ale more fruity, and Northern English Brown Ale more nutty with a more assertive hoppy character. The Southern English Brown is very fruity compared to the Mild and the Northern English Brown. With the Mild being such a delicate style, it was hard to hide subtle faults. The beers with clean fermentation were quite good, and those with fermentation problems stuck out. There just aren’t that many hops to hide behind.
For the best beers, the key was balance, which leads me to believe that to achieve such a balance, it really requires a brewer to brew the beer multiple times to really refine the recipe. If you’re interested in competing in homebrew competitions, you might consider picking a style or two to concentration on in order to really get your recipe dialed in.
Have you done any judging in a homebrew competition? Do you ever submit beers in competition to be judged? What has your experience been like?
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Last week I put together a clone recipe for Ithaca Beer Co.’s Flower Power, a deliciously hoppy American IPA. As I prepare to brew the beer, the next thing I will focus on is a water profile and making brewing water adjustments necessary.
I’ve been getting relatively obsessed with water profiles and brewing water chemistry lately. After conducting an experiment with gypsum, I am absolutely convinced that it can have an effect on the perception of hop flavor. I’ve also noticed that including elements like magnesium, which are beneficial to yeast health, my fermentations have appeared stronger and healthier.
To figure out how to adjust the brewing water for this IPA, I need two sets of figures: a source water profile and a target water profile. There are several programs that can help with these water calculations, but in this case I’ll use the water adjustment calculator on Brewer’s Friend. It’s free to use and relatively straightforward. Let’s walk through how to use it.
1. Input water volumes
Here I will stick with the defaults:

2. Input source water profile
Here’s what my municipal water profile looks like:

3. Select a target water profile and compare source water to target water
Here I’ll choose the “light colored and hoppy” water profile. Brewer’s Friend also provides target water profiles for many of the major brewing cities of the world.
After clicking on Update Calculations, I can now see the difference between my source water and the target water profile. A number in green is relatively close to the target, a number in red is off. The arrows show whether your water has too much or too little of a given mineral. It’s easy to play around with the Salt Additions (next box down) to see how they will adjust the water profile.
One trouble spot in this example is the alkalinity. Since I can’t add minerals to remove alkalinity, I have to change my source water by using reverse osmosis or distilled water. That’s the only way to get the HCO levels down to 0 (as far as I know).
In this case, I’ve gone back to edit my input water to match distilled water:

4. Compare source water to target water and determine salt additions
Now I can play around with the mineral salt addition inputs to get the brewing water profile adjusted to as close to the target as possible. Here’s the initial difference between the two waters:

And here’s the mineral salt combination I’ve found that will get me pretty close to the target water profile I need:

On brew day, I’ll use a small digital scale to weigh out the different mineral salts. This mineral salt combination will be added to the total water used in the beer recipe – all 8 gallons as determined in the original water volume input. For now, I can add the additions to my homebrewing notes so they’ll be ready when I need them.
The Water Calculator goes on to include brewing water adjustments and inputs for adjusting mash pH as well, but I’ll save you the trouble and just say that in this case none are needed. Feel free to play around with the calculator to determine whether you need to add any acids to acidify your mash.
Next, stay tuned for the Flower Power Brew Day!
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Review the whole Flower Power clone brewing process below:

• Part 1: Developing a Recipe
• Part 2: Brewing Water Adjustments
• Part 3: Brew Day
• Part 4: Primary Fermentation Mishaps
• Part 5: Bottling & Kegging
• Part 6: A Conditioning Taste Test
• Part 7: Final Side-by-Side and Recipe Edits

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David Ackley is a beer writer, homebrewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder of the Local Beer Blog.