This post will be updated with a log of my journey brewing the show mead using the starter kit bought from PGW mentioned in earlier blog post.

Above is an graph of measured burps per minute (bpm) over time of this brew log, showing the fermentation process.

Day 0 - 2017-04-02

I followed the receipe from the begin to end and was about spot on every step. I measured the mead for an OG (Original Gravity) 1.060 and put the carboy in a good place for fermentation.

Day 1 - 2017-04-03

Added the Fermaid-K nutrients as per receipe and stired a little and boom the foamy scum rasied out of the carboy and seemed to never stop. Waited for 5 minutes and it settled and I could stir carefully once again.

I could see bubbles (carbon dioxid) which is a sign that the yeast is happy and alcohol is producing. The mead smells a bit of alcohol and yeast. However there is no bubbles in the airlock as expected. It seem to leak in the rubber cap so I ordered a plug for the carboy as replacement.

Day 2 - 2017-04-04

Gently stirred the mead and put it to rest. Seems to be more active now, however I could not recreate the foamy scum as of yeasterday by stirring.

Day 3 - 2017-04-05

Added the last nutrient without stiring as per instructions. I also replaced the rubber cap with the plug and the airlock started to bubble as expected. I used a BPM (Beats per minute) android application to track bubbles per minute aka. bpm.

First reading was 2 hours before the nutrient addition and then there was 35 bpm. After adding the nutrients it raised to 94 bpm which after an hour went down to 44 bpm.

Day 4 - 2017-04-06

Now the bubble rate is down to 33 bpm and the fermentation is very active. I can hear the carbon dioxid bubbling through the mead, just as when you upon up an can of coke.

Day 5 - 2017-04-07

I took three readings of bubbles this day and it drastically decreased from 27 bpm to 6 ppm. I wont take any reading on regular basis from here. Just check the mead from now and then.

Day 8 - 2017-04-10

There are several minutes between each bubble in the airlock. There are no signs of bubbles in the mead. Seems to have reached a very slow fermentation process. There yeast seems to have settled on the bottom of the carboy and the mead seems a bit clearer then last days. I decided to rack this into another carboy to remove the sediment and measure the SG (Single Gravity) in one week eg. 2017-04-16.

Day 11 - 2017-04-12

Took a bpm metering of @ 18:00 and measured 0.2 bpm. This is about 1 burp per 5 minutes. As you can see on the image below, the yeast have settled and im very curious what the SG is right now. There are signs of something floating around at the top which looks like the Fermaid-K nutrients added.

Day 12 - 2017-04-13

Today I racked the mead into another carboy. I didn’t have the amount of mead to fill up to the top, so I used our soda streamer to push some co2 into the carboy before siphon over the mead. I also took a sample of SG and I measured up 0.98 which is a very dry mead. The taste sample was yeast and alcohol but there were some sweetness. I guess ageing it for a few month will be good.

My intention was to sweeten it with honey but changed my mind. I want to know what an aged FG 0.98 mead taste like. I messed up with the OG reading but I used mead calculator and got these figures:

1.25Kg honey with 79.6% sugar volume in 4 litre water give OG 1.094

with the formula following the receipt from PGW to calculate %ABV I get the following results:

(OG-FG)*131.25 = (1.096-0.98)*131.25 = 0.114*131.25 = 14.96%

Now lets bulk age this mead and I will test it in 3 months.

Day 19 - 2017-04-20

I bought a “Vaco Vin” today, a manual pump tool with cap for wine bottles that is used to pump out air. This vacuum in draws out the co2 in the mead to make it flat. The mead is definitly clearing up and there are some subtile sediment visible on the bottom, not that distinct as first one created from the fermentation.

I pumped up vaccum and I noticed that bubbles started to raise to the surface of the mead. I will let this vacuum cap sit for a day or two and when there is not more visible bubbles raising I will rack to wine bottles.

Day 21 - 2017-03-22

I have kept the vacuum cap on and now and then through the days been pumping up the vacuum. Today I can’t see any buble raising at all through the bottle so I think it is time to bottle this mead. The mead has cleared a bit through the last days and I took a taste sample today. I can taste yeast, alcohol and honey, it is very dry almost a bit sour. The yeast and alcohol is very dominant and there is a small taste of honey which increased in after touch. There was a sticky residue on the glass when it stand to dry so thats a sign that there still is some sugor in this mead.

I decided to bottle the mead today and will store them in our basement which is a bit chiller then in our apartment. I used a siphon and filled up four and ³⁄₄ 75cl whine bottles. Put a vacuum cap on the ³⁄₄ filled bottle to remote some oxygen.

Here follows and image showing the clearness a bit better of a filled bottled.