Hey guys!
In my last blog post, I mentioned a couple of things that made me a little nervous about the status of my developing honey/mead wine.  First, I don’t like the way it’s tasting at the moment (kind of yeasty and odd), but I’m not sure if this is due to a problem with the wine, or due to the fact that I don’t know what mead is supposed to taste like at this stage.  Maybe it’s a little of both?
Second, I mentioned the issue of there being a lot of headspace right now, and my admission that due to my insane schedule and lack of confidence with this particular batch, I’m just going to leave it as is and hope for the best.
One thing I did not mention, which might turn out to be very important, is related to the specific gravity of the wine. According to the mead instructions, the specific gravity should be between 0.990 and 0.998 at the end of secondary fermentation. Well, when I measured the specific gravity right before I racked the wine the other day, it was 1.002 (with a temperature correction around 1.003—I guessed the temperature of the wine since I destroyed my last thermometer….oops).
Doing a brief search around the web, it seems as though people are suggesting to try racking the wine, and then maybe adding either a little acid or super ferment/yeast energizer to jump start the remaining yeast to finish the job.
My concern with adding acid is that I have no idea what the acid levels currently are in my wine.  A pH meter of sorts sounds like it would be a good investment at this point.  I already have a food-grade acid blend and yeast energizer, so it’s all a matter of deciding which to add.  The easiest thing at this point would probably be to add the yeast energizer, but if my wine is at the wrong pH, I would certainly want to fix that problem first.  Looks like ECKraus has a lot of options available for testing pH, so I’ll add the Acid Test Kit to the list of things I need to order and hopefully get this problem straightened out.
Finally, one teeny little thing that isn’t make-or-break with my wine but a little annoying to me was the fact that my new glass carboy (that I bought from a local homebrew place and not ECKraus) is a little taller than my ECKraus carboys, so the original racking cane that I bought doesn’t quite reach to the bottom of the carboy, leaving a little bit of perfectly good wine behind.  After a quick search on the ECKraus site, looks like there are a bunch of options for longer racking canes, so I’ll add one of those to the list as well!

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My name is Leigh Erwin, and I am a brand-spankin’ new home winemaker! E. C. Kraus has asked me to share with you my journey from a first-time dabbler to an accomplished home winemaker. From time to time I’ll be checking in with this blog and reporting my experience with you: the good, bad — and the ugly.

In several earlier posts, we introduced a few home winemaking terms that you may or may not be familiar with.  There are many terms to learn in home winemaking, and this post, like all the previous posts, gives you a short introduction to a few of those terms to help you get started in home winemaking, or perhaps brush up on some of the terms you may not have seen in a while.

• Pectic Enzyme:  Used during the clarification process, Pectic Enzyme effectively eliminates the pectin cells that can cause a milky-like haze in your wine.  Additionally, Pectic Enzyme can help with the extraction of body and color from your pulp.
• Diatase Enzyme:  Just like Pectic Enzyme, Diatase Enzyme is also utilized during the clarification process of winemaking.  However, unlike Pectic Enzyme, Diatase Enzyme is used to clear the haze caused by various starches (while Pectic Enzyme clears Pectin).
• Polishing: Similar to giving your car a good wax job, polishing a wine is a method of ultra-fine filtration that leaves your wine particularly bright and clear.  To polish wine you can use a fining agent such as isinglass. One downside to polishing, which is often cited by premium winemakers as a reason for not using the method, is that this type of ultra-fine filtration may also remove important flavor compounds or other polyphenols that are required for complexity and quality.
• Transfer Method:  The Transfer Method is just one of several different methods for producing sparkling wine, though is not a method that is used in the Champagne region of France (they use the Traditional Method there).  For the Transfer Method, the wine goes through secondary fermentation within the bottle, however when the bottles are open, the wine is then transferred into a single tank where it is then filtered and then rebottled into large format bottles.
• Aromatized Wine:  An aromatized wine is a wine that has been flavored with herbs, flowers, fruit, or other spices.  Two examples of an aromatized wine are Vermouth (flavored with various seeds, herbs, barks, flowers, etc) and mulled wine (hot, spiced wine).
• Devatting: If you’ve ever made wine from red grapes, there is a chance you’ve already performed some devatting (even if you weren’t aware that is what it was called).  Basically, devatting is the term that defines the process of separating the red wine must from the grape pomace that remained after the crushing process.  Another way to think of it is you are basically removing the solid bits from the liquid bits before fermentation has started.
• Hogshead: Contrary to what imagine may come to mind, a Hogshead is just a wine barrel that can hold up to 63 gallons or 239 liters.

More Winemaking Terms: Here is a list of other post about home winemaking terms: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 |
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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.

Hi everyone!
So, I’m a few weeks behind on racking my mead, but there didn’t appear to be anything growing on it, so I figured that was probably OK.
My mead is still very cloudy, which comes as no surprise to me since after doing a little research I read it takes a long time for mead to clear AND I haven’t added any clarifying agents to speed up the process.  At the rate it’s going to clear, I most likely will have to help it along a little with some clarifying agents at some point, because I don’t want to have to run the risk of transporting a carboy full of wine to a new home if we end up moving in a couple of months.
I’m not very confident about this particular batch of mead for a few reasons:

1. I’ve never made mead before, nor have I tasted anyone else’s developing mead, so I have no frame of reference when it comes to what the wine should taste like during each stage of the process.  I’ll be honest, I don’t like what I taste right now.  Of course, wines take time to develop into themselves, but at least with grape wine, I am more confident in determining whether or not I think it’s in the “right place” at any given time than I am right now with the honey wine.  To me, my mead tastes kind of “off”.  It tastes yeasty and something else I can’t put my finger on.  There doesn’t appear to be any nasty after taste in my mouth after swallowing, so maybe this is what it’s supposed to taste like at this stage?
2. I have a lot of head space in my carboy (a few inches deep).  I’ll be honest, I’m not putting much effort into this batch of wine as I should be, due to the fact that I am getting married soon and the majority of my energy has been spent preparing for that big day.  I know I could add water or more wine (the latter which I don’t have) to top the carboy off, but I’m really lazy right now and am just doing the bare minimum.  Also, the fact that it’s been sitting in a carboy for 2 months and doesn’t appear to have anything growing on it makes me feel a little bit better about it.

I suppose one good thing is that my fiancé doesn’t think it’s as bad as I think it is.  Then again, my fiancé loves super cheap grocery store boxed wine, so his tolerance for off-wines is pretty high.
Well, I’m hoping that things will change a bit in the sensory department after I clarify and sweeten the wine, but for now, I’m not so sure.  It would be nice to hear from you if you’ve made mead—am I just being crazy and everything is just fine?  We’ll see!

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My name is Leigh Erwin, and I am a brand-spankin’ new home winemaker! E. C. Kraus has asked me to share with you my journey from a first-time dabbler to an accomplished home winemaker. From time to time I’ll be checking in with this blog and reporting my experience with you: the good, bad — and the ugly.

Hi everyone!  I hope things are continuing to go well for you all, and if they not, chin up!  It’ll get better!
As I sit here waiting for my mead to hang out in secondary fermentation for about 6 weeks, I’ve noticed that it isn’t clearing up nearly as much as my other grape wines have done in the past.  Of course, I haven’t added any clarifying agents to the mead, but I do remember in the past my wines have cleared up pretty well on their own if I left them to sit for a similar period of time.  I see a lot of sediment at the bottom of the carboy, but the liquid is still very cloudy.  Perhaps this is a trait of the mead making process?
Looking around the internet a bit, it seems as though some people are saying to just let the wine sit until its clear?  This one guy several years ago on this one thread said he waited months and his mead never cleared.  He was told that it might have had something to do with the type of honey that he used, and that the haziness could be related to the proteins and/or pollen in the original honey. Continue reading →

In several earlier posts, we introduced a few home winemaking terms that you may or may not be familiar with.  There are many terms to learn in home winemaking, and this post, like all the previous posts, gives you a short introduction to a few of those terms to help you get started in home winemaking, or perhaps brush up on some of the terms you may not have seen in a while.

• Malolactic Fermentation: We could write a lot more on malolactic fermentation than just these few sentences, but on a very basic level, malolactic fermentation is used to convert malic acid into lactic acid, which transforms the wine from a tart, acidic wine, to a smooth, buttery finished product.  In both home winemaking and professional wineries malo-lactic culture is a frequently used for a nice and slow malolactic fermentation process.  Each package is enough for 6 gallons of wine, and can take anywhere from weeks to months to finish the conversion.
• Ascorbic Acid:  Ascorbic acid is a commonly utilized antioxidant that is often used to prevent the grape must from oxidizing and otherwise going bad.  Ascorbic acid can be used at other times during the winemaking process, including at the bottling stage.  Ascorbic acid will help prevent your wine from oxidation, and will also protect against any color changes that are often associated with an oxidized wine (i.e. browning). Continue reading →

Hi guys!
Here I am, still in the holding pattern while I wait for my mead to do its secondary fermentation thing!
If you remember last time, I did some preliminary research on sweetening my mead once secondary fermentation was complete, and I had asked your opinions and advice on what you think I should do that might be different from what I already found.  Please feel free to continue sharing your thoughts, as it’ll not only help me, but will help others trying to figure out how to sweeten their mead wine as well.
Since I’m still in research mode, I figured today I’d chat a little bit about another thing I’ve been pondering related to my home winemaking practice: wine filter systems.  If you’ve read any of my previous entries, you know I’ve been back and forth with the idea of getting a filter for my wine.  My biggest problem right now has to do with space, and the fact that we will likely be moving into a new home by the end of the year and that would be one more thing I’d have to pack up and haul. Continue reading →