fury_tea
Landlord.
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2018
- Messages
- 806
- Reaction score
- 510
I was looking through my yeast stash and it's getting quite dire.
I had a lager yeast, a hefeweizen yeast and a kolsch, as well as some wilko wine yeast which I've used in mead and wines before.
Bit bored of the wine yeast so I was tempted to try the hefe, but I know lots of the good flavours come from the interaction between that and the malt so decided to go with the kolsch yeast. Not sure it will add much flavour really because it's known for fermenting clean, and also not sure how it will cope with the higher gravity and honey but I will find out in time.
Recipe - 11.5L - 1.080
~3kg blossom honey
2 teaspoons citric acid
1 cup strong brewed tea
1pkg Kolsch yeast
1 teaspoon Young's yeast nutrient
I topped up with RO water to 11.5L (plus a pint of regular tap water) treated with half a Campden, then taken to 90c and cooled to pitching temp (managed to get it to 20c).
Fermenting at 17c, but will step that up a little each day, and add some DAP (arriving tomorrow) and half a teaspoon of the yeast nutrient each day for a few days.
If it finishes at 1.000 it'll be 10.5% which is an ok level although I was hoping for a little more.
Once it's done I may split into separate demijohns (2 or maybe 3) and degas, and then treat them all differently. My ideas are: - keep one dry and add a little sugar and bottle carbonate it,
- pasteurise one then backsweeten slightly with the leftover honey
- 'wildcard' idea - dilute some down to hydromel or session mead strength (around 5%) add some Mr Fitzpatrick's Sarsaparilla flavouring and carbonate it in a mini keg
I had a lager yeast, a hefeweizen yeast and a kolsch, as well as some wilko wine yeast which I've used in mead and wines before.
Bit bored of the wine yeast so I was tempted to try the hefe, but I know lots of the good flavours come from the interaction between that and the malt so decided to go with the kolsch yeast. Not sure it will add much flavour really because it's known for fermenting clean, and also not sure how it will cope with the higher gravity and honey but I will find out in time.
Recipe - 11.5L - 1.080
~3kg blossom honey
2 teaspoons citric acid
1 cup strong brewed tea
1pkg Kolsch yeast
1 teaspoon Young's yeast nutrient
I topped up with RO water to 11.5L (plus a pint of regular tap water) treated with half a Campden, then taken to 90c and cooled to pitching temp (managed to get it to 20c).
Fermenting at 17c, but will step that up a little each day, and add some DAP (arriving tomorrow) and half a teaspoon of the yeast nutrient each day for a few days.
If it finishes at 1.000 it'll be 10.5% which is an ok level although I was hoping for a little more.
Once it's done I may split into separate demijohns (2 or maybe 3) and degas, and then treat them all differently. My ideas are: - keep one dry and add a little sugar and bottle carbonate it,
- pasteurise one then backsweeten slightly with the leftover honey
- 'wildcard' idea - dilute some down to hydromel or session mead strength (around 5%) add some Mr Fitzpatrick's Sarsaparilla flavouring and carbonate it in a mini keg
