Beer on Lees

K

Kevin the grey

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Aug 26, 2005
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Would beer on lees be the same thing as making a small batch of mead and aging it with the sediment on the bottom of the bottle.

Say you made mead in a quart bottle. Let it do its burble thing with a valve of sorts on the top. When this burbling has stopped could you cap it as is?

You would have essentially the same situation as a beer on lees . The onus being on you to pour it out in a single pour to leave the sediment behind.
 
You could, but you'd end up with a huge lot of gunk in the bottle. The yeast would probably start into autolysis (eating itself and its byproducts) relatively soon, and make the beer go bad.

That is, if the bottle survived. If there was a fair bit of sugar left in the mix, the continuing fermentation could easily over-pressurize the bottle, making it explode. Not good.

It is possible to do a single fermentation with beer, rack it off the lees as the fermentation's mostly settled down, and let it finish completely in the bottle. This way it doesn't need to be primed in the bottle itself ... but it's still rather risky in terms of pressure. When I made beer, I preferred to wait till everything was still, rack it into a clean bucket, prime with a bit of malt extract, and bottle.

t
 
Tom, I had a masons jar of tomatos explode in the early morning hours.
I leapt out of bed at what sounded like a window shattering. A big window . I guess because the glass was tempered it withstood a fair amount before its surprise demise. I was still finding bits of glass a year later. I don,t want to talk about the tomatos.

Thanks for the advice . I am trying to find the easiest ,least amount of equipment or ingredients way of making mead.
 
Get used food-grade 5-gallon plastic buckets from a restaurant. Use however many you need as your primary fermenter(s), and keep one as your priming bucket. They'll be free at many restaurants, or maybe $5.

Probably, you'd have better mead if the primary fermenter(s) were fitted with fermentation locks - so get buckets with lids, and put a fermentation lock into a rubber stopper in the lids' hole. The less air contact, the less oxidization, and the cleaner/fresher the mead will taste. Lots less chance of picking up a stray bacterial infection too, and the mead will also probably be lighter in colour. Siphon off into the priming bucket, and stir in maybe 1/2 a cup of corn sugar (you get a slightly metallic taste from regular sugar). Once dissolved, bottle and cap. Presto - and do the same thing with however many additional primary fermentors you have.

Back in the day, I didn't make mead, but did a fair bit of red wine and dark beer. For those, you want the oxidization during the primary fermentation, so I just covered the fermentors with a towel to keep out the fruit flies. White wine, though, you minimize air contact to preserve that clean-ness ... hence always using a fermentation lock.

BTW, if you keep anything in bulk before bottling after fermentation's slowed down, you have to keep the air away from it, or it will spoil. Goes for red wines and dark beers as much as the lighter stuff.

t.
 
Tom it is no doubt that with time my tastes will mature . For the 'non I actually enjoy the heavier meads. As in wine I find lighter akin to dryer. Too acerbic.

Take my choice in honey. I prefer buckwheat in most cases than the lighter varieties. If it is accompanied by light tasting breads a blueberry honey is outstanding . There is nothing like a modicum of buckwheat honey on a buckwheat crépe. Blueberry would pale into insignifigance by comparison.

In the future I will get into five gallon batches or thereabouts . I want to make a couple of different one gallon batches with cheesecloth as my primary bastion against infection. Could you be tolerant of a novice's thrift?

I do see it is perhaps a false economy. In the long run I think I may come out ahead or without a head:rolleyes: in the case of mead.
 
I usually age my hard cider on the lees (because I just don't want to mess with the methode champaignoise or whatever), which is also done with Champaign as well. But, you really don't want to leave all the lees in the bottom in a thick cake. You wanna drink something that stinks like dog crap? Your chances are far better if you let it get mostly fermented, and then siphon it into a different clean container, leaving the thick nasty crap in the old one. I suppose if you simply can't spend $1.37 on a piece of tubing for a siphon, or don't have an old fish aquarium laying around with some tubing you could use, you can carefully pour it into the new container, but this risks getting too much air.

Likewise, I think your chances of success would be greatly improved if you used some kind of seal rather than cheesecloth. Again, if you can't spring the three dollars for a fermentation lock, poke a hole through a cork/stopper/lid and insert a bendy straw. (short end in the cork) Then put the long end into a cup of sulphited water to provide the seal. Be creative.

I do see it is perhaps a false economy.
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My last batch of cider was stupendous, but really I think I've had just as many bad ones as good. And I've been trying to adhere to sound practices, too. (I think the 30 year old metabisulfite I'd been using had lost its potency over the years or something.) How many hours do you have invested just thinking and dreaming about this? After months of waiting and hoping as it ferments, you don't want to find out it's undrinkable.

With all this talk of exploding containers, you really need to get a hydrometer. You need to bottle when it has just enough sugar left to provide carbonation without exploding. This is very difficult to guess, but very easy to measure with a hydrometer.

But, if you're still wanting to scrape by without one, here's a tip. Bottle your brew into empty (and thoroughly washed) 20 oz plastic soda bottles. They can withstand a huge amount of pressure, but if they feel like they're getting too tight, you can just unscrew the cap a bit to release some of the pressure.
 
Kevin,

If you are going to do it in a bottle I highly suggest a champagne bottle with the conical bottom that would trap the yeast somewhat.

If I were you though I'd put it in a gallon jug with an air lock and then siphon it off the yeast and into the bottles. They are big enough you really dont have to wash too many to get a gallon bottled.

Also you probably want to put maybe a third campden tablet in each bottle to avoid contamination.
 
Besides, A gallon of mead is just slightly more than one serving :)
Love the soda bottle idea, Tom. I'll hafta try that some time, even though I have a hydrometer.
Pat
 
Here's some out of control fermentation, ended up real tasty though.

http://ramanon.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36935&highlight=danger+robinson

Here's a pic of it being consumed!

ourplace5.jpg
 
It is the two solitudes I grew up in;) and the separate reality that surrounds me:confused: that allows the equipment I must use. I also have a geas upon me. :eek:

Aside from all that, I'm cheap. :cool:

Good ideas. As said more than enough to get me started. I,ll be drinking me under the table in no time.
 
Kevin...your exploding tomatoes?...sounds like botulism to me...better red than dead (I always wanted to say that :D )
 
the possum said:
My last batch of cider was stupendous, but really I think I've had just as many bad ones as good.
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I was at the local wine/beer/cigar making shop just this week looking for sources of apple juice that were suitable for making cider. Do you have a commercial juice source?
 
I prefer to get my juice from a local orchard just a few miles down the road from me. I think this guy actually cares about things like flavor; I wish I could remember the several different varieties he carefully blends together just to get the right taste and acidity he's after. Winesap, granny smith, jonathan, and maybe another variety or 2... It really showed through in the finished product.

Commercial juices I've used of course made a satifying quaff, but lacked the subtle & complex nuances of aroma and flavor. All I've tried were also watered down, probably contributing to this, and required sugar to be added. (Again, something you may not know without the hydrometer. Hard to know what you'll end up with if you don't know what you're starting with.) But, hey, don't let me discourage you here. I still enjoyed the stuff ten times more than a Bud Lite or somethin.

The main thing to watch out for is to just get some juice with no preservatives. Find some that was pastuerized to kill the germs rather than via potassium sorbate or something. The chemical preservatives will kill your yeast, too. Beyond that, just get whatever's on sale at the supermarket. :)
 
the possum said:
The main thing to watch out for is to just get some juice with no preservatives. Find some that was pastuerized to kill the germs rather than via potassium sorbate or something. The chemical preservatives will kill your yeast, too. Beyond that, just get whatever's on sale at the supermarket. :)
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Just throwing something out here from the novice's view.
Could you stop any undesireable residual fermentation in just finished cider by the addition of a modicum of potassium sorbate or polysorbate preserved juice?
Would this have the twofold effect of also sweetening up a batch?
 
Kevin the grey said:
Just throwing something out here from the novice's view.
Could you stop any undesireable residual fermentation in just finished cider by the addition of a modicum of potassium sorbate or polysorbate preserved juice?
Would this have the twofold effect of also sweetening up a batch?
Click to expand...

Yes, this is done fairly often, mainly in brews that will still have some amount of sugar left, so that they don't restart in the bottle. Or, you can kill the yeast before fermentation is complete at whatever sugar level you desire.
 
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