Home Brew Adventures

Well, after too much time I've decided to launch into another Home Brewing Adventure. This time I am going to two meads. A three gallon batch of Raspberry and a one gallon mini-batch of a spiced Christmas mead. I purchased an additional carboy and some champagne yeast at Docs (the local home brew store) this week and once Steph goes berry picking I will have fresh raspberries too! Hopefully I will have something brewing within the next week. In the meantime I have begun to sketch some plans for building wine racks to install in my basement closet, soon to be wine cellar.

If you have any plans for easy to build wine racks (or cheap temp. control solutions) let me know!

Mead Update

i racked my mead for the first time about three weeks ago. it was beginning to clarify, and fermentation was definitely slowing down. after a couple of days i noticed clearish white flecks beginning to develop on the top - i knew it wasn't mold, but it didn't seem like natural proteins either. after consulting the local home brew store, i determined my mead had been plagued by the flowers of wine - most likely because of too much head space in the carboy. i immediately treated it with a double dose of crushed campden tablets and racked again. it has been about 10 days since the second racking, and the mead is perfectly clear. ideally i would have liked to let it age like this, but i'm thinking i will bottle early due to my flowers of wine problem. such a beautiful name for such an ugly disease...

MEAD!

i started my very first batch of mead this weekend. the yeast seems to have started nicely, and i'm looking to rack in 3-4 weeks. it should be about ready to sample around christmas time.
steph and i are about to take a visit uo to tour the Black Bear Winery in Chenango, NY. i'll be posting about our visit, and you can also expect more on mead soon!