My Mead Equipment Part 1 - Fermenters
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2024
- I'm doing a small series on my equipment that I use to make mead. This one showcases not only my current fermenters, but the ones I used throughout the time I've been making mead, whether or not I still do. I also go into brief Pros and Cons on each one and I go in the order that I got them.
Music: Village Ambiance by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
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Wild West Vikings by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
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Dreamy Interlude by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
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What ever you use make sure if you use an airlock make sure it has some structure! I got this cheap 2 gallon bucket from the brew store and went to make banana wine and the plastic is so thin that when I pick it up it causes the pressure in my airlock to reverse and dumps star San water into my wine! Learned my lesson on that one. Only use fermenters that have good solid structure!
Ah, I've not encountered that particular problem. It's a good thing to look out for! Thanks for dropping this in the comments so people can see!
I like shorter (~15min) videos. Thank you for sharing with us!
Thank you for the feedback!
Hi !
Can't wait to see you brew in the "bad boy" ;-)
Thumbs up and greetings from Switzerland !
Should be a fun one!
Nice one mate will watch when I get home 👍
I like the shorter videos and I would like a video were you share what we should spend our money on, more or less on fermentors, whatever.
OK, now I'm stoked to see what you have planned for the big brewer...
It'll be a video game mead. Not giving much more info than that, but it's largely figured out, recipe-wise.
I like your video, dude. You're not reciting things learned from not doing. You are actually speaking from experience. Very thought out and measured. Professional.
Thanks for this kind of videos.
I am about to start myself so these tips are really helpful.
So far i was not able to find a useful small fermenter local enough to ship that doesn't cost a fortune.
So for now i am just going to use 5L plastic jerry cans as fermenters.
Holed bungs, airlocks and other small pieces of equipement are no problem to source.
If i decide to scale up i can have 20L balloon bottles for free.
My Uncle used to make apple wine in those but since he doesn't do that anymore he has like 20 of them standing around.
They just are a bit too big for experimenting.
Yeah, if there's any place where the budget for getting started has some wiggle room, it's in this equipment.
A suggestion for your next mead - one that is in The Kingkiller Chronicles and is a real thing too. Metheglin. Can't wait!
This one I probably won't do since the author posted an official recipe. I think the great joy of what I'm doing is largely in interpreting the mead based on descriptions and lore (when I have that).
I watched a test video on that catalyst fermenter, and it does seem to do its job, but there were some caveats.
First, you wanna make sure that mason jar is on really tightly, or it could leak a bit when you fill the cone.
The other thing was that if you try to use it for both primary and secondary, the process of taking that mason jar out and replacing it is inevitably going to cause a mason jar's worth of air to bubble up through the brew right at the start of secondary. I don't know if it's enough to do anything noticeable in a six gallon batch, but apparently it's cause for alarm among some of the pickier brewers out there. It's easy to rack it into secondary, though, since it has that nifty bottling attachment.
I'm thinking about getting my hands on some inert gas to replace the air in the mason jar with in secondary to prevent that. They sell it as a wine preserver in spray cans.
@@MethodtotheMeadness I honestly didn't even know that was a thing. I was trying to contrive some way to get C0² into the jar and then carefully screw it back on. I think it could work since it's heavier than air, but I feel like it would be a pain.
@@redbeardthepink4809 It's called Private preserve, and I think it's mostly argon? It's all inert gas anyways.
just beginning and I'm limited on the equipment available so I have set my objective to buy 1, 2, or 3 of what I'm needing per month based on how much it'll cost without going over my budget, so I find many of these suggestions/ideas as well as your own experiences a huge helping hand.
I'm so glad I can help out in some way. If you have any specific questions, please let me know!
I started making wine with juice. So when I wanted a carboy, I just bought a gallon of apple juice and made a Cyzer (honey and apple juice). It cost me about $12, so the juice was free. I say free because that's about the cost of a carboy without juice around here. I have a wine fermenting in a Carlo Rossi wine bottle (carboy) right now. If you have a bar that sells that wine, they might give you one. They recycle (I hope) a lot of glass bottles of different sizes. Anyway thought I'd give you more options.
Most of the equipement needed can be sourced quite cheap if you are willing to put up with a bit of additional hassle.
Like for the fermenter:
Any food safe vessel with a way to close it that can be used for an "airlock"
Most "cheapo" solutions like water jugs, jerry cans or whatever work well but are a bit of a hassle to clean and or fill.
A very positive point for some of them is when they come with a lid you can completely close which is great for shaking it at the start.
Airlocks can be had extremely cheap from china just don't expect them to last a long time. (also clean and sanitize them really well before use)
A holed bung that fits your vessel should not be much of a problem either.
As I mentioned in an earlier comment to one of you videos, you resurrected and kickstarted my decade old interest in meadmaking! I got me some of these 3,5 gallon wide mouth fermenters and now both are close to the end of their first primary! I'm doing two classic meads, one with orange flower honey and one with forest honey. I'm very excited and want to thank you for the inspiration! Looking forward to more of your content and for me to brew more! Cheers from Germany!
I'm so glad I was able to provide some impetus in this! Let me know how these brews go!
Great insight, thanks for this! As an amateur meadmaker, its nice to hear that starting off with jerryrigged equipment and fermenters is so common. This sort of video and first-hand information is exactly what I need for going further!
Everyone's journey starts somewhere and every mistake along the way is a learning experience.
Honestly, I'm really glad I'd never had a commercial mead before starting. I'd either have gotten one that was way too sweet and scared me off, or gotten a really good one and found out how bad my early mead was in comparison 🤣
Having used a conical fermenter if you have a high attenuation all the trub should fall out into collection. I have had to do it twice sometimes.
I got a complete mr beer kit (fermenter, bottles, sanitizer, extract, carbonation drops) for $10 at a thrift store, along with a $3 hydrometer.
YT makes it very difficult to find your channel. I stumbled across your YT channel during a cooperation video between you and some other guy. I instantly wanted to be a subscriber to your channel but for some reason YT made it very difficult and I have to find an alternate link by searching different videos. Anyways, I love your work!
Yeah, I think if I get bigger or they stop suggesting "Madness" for "Meadness" it might help 🤣
@@MethodtotheMeadness that was definately an issue I ran into last night lol
I've looked at those conical fermenter's before, but I've never seen one used from start to finish. It would be nice to see how it works for you. And if you have any of the issues I've read about.
Just picked up a 3gal FastFerment, I've messed up my ferment so bad and the fermenter isn't making it any easier with its leaks QQ save me, Mr. Mullins!
Feeding the algorithm. I'll have to look for a Mr. Beer since all my fun money went into bee gear. I have plenty of time since we've hit the dearth period and the bees don't have enough stores to share. Have you ever made a mead using lavender honey? If so, was it any good?
I've not yet used lavender honey, but I bet it's great! A lot of the honey character makes it through in a clean brew.
Remember that you can only do a Primary fermentation in a Mr Beer, so you'll either need to have a fermenter of a n appropriate size to move into or do sparkling meads.
@@MethodtotheMeadness at the rate the girls are going, and the Lavender I started seems to be struggling I won't get a chance to try until next year any ways. I think I know what I'm asking for for Christmas though. Thanks.
I have an exact same wide mouth 1.4 gallon fermenter which was a gift from my friend and what got me into brewing. They are really good but I had to replace the seal on mine. Mine still smells of the elderberry wine I did in it like 6 months ago (they weren't kidding when they said elderberries stain). I don't use the build in airlock and just jam a bung with the typical airlock.
It really snowballs as I started with just that one that was gifted to me and currently own about 8 fermenter of various sizes. I made a point of keeping some empty 5l water bottles as I had a demijohn/carboy crack on me not long ago.
I'm looking forward to seeing the conical in action.
I was going to ask you about ageing things in plastic. I know this may be bit offtopic considering its about cider but you have much more experience than I do. Is it ok to age it in plastic barrels? I have a spare 25l plastic pressure barrel and wanted to leave in it for about 6 months. I can't seem to get a clear answer from Google on that.
Yeah, this hobby can definitely snowball 😅
I think it mostly depends on the type of plastic. You may have better luck googling with that bit of information? Certain plastics are probably going to be fine for this.
@@MethodtotheMeadness It gets out of hand very quickly!
So I actually found some info on ageing in plastic. I'll go over it here in case somebody else finds it useful.
You can age in plastic, but apparently its not 100% impermeable to oxygen. So you will get oxidation over time. I found bag in a box type products as well which claim you can store pasteurised cider up to 12 months in one. Unpasteurised 6 months.
So basically just in case stick to glass.
@@gotorm2 Actually, the sort of semi-permeable micro-oxygenation is very appealing as an aging process. It's similar to how corks work in wine bottle-aging.
@@MethodtotheMeadness Good to know cheers!
Do you temperature control or just ambient ferment?
In these batch sizes I just ambient. There's a vent relatively close to where I ferment and I can position my carboys relative to that.