Friday, May 18, 2012

Pineapple Coconut Melomel (Mead) - Fermentation is complete

I took a sample Wednesday night and subjected it to quantitative analysis.... I measured it.  At this point the gravity is down at right about 1.002.  But, that is a subject of some debate.  Here's the deal.  Hydrometers aren't exactly precision pieces of measurement equipment. I own three hydrometers and they are all off from each other by around two points.  I have been using the same hydrometer for every measurement for this batch.  That way the relative gravity readings are correct.

This becomes an issue however when trying to see if this is completely dry or not.  For this particular hydrometer, pure water measures at a gravity of about 1.004.  Based on that assumption I need to subtract 4 points from the measured value to get the real gravity.

By that logic, the mead is currently running at a gravity of 0.998.  Leading me to call this dry and finished.  The airlock is producing one blip every minute or so.  I am assuming this is just dissolved CO2 coming out and perhaps a final kicking of the yeast.

SG = 1.002 (Corrected to 0.998)

I also measured the pH @ 3.4.   With this pH it means I won't have to add too much total SO2 to protect this mead.



Update: 5/19/2012 5:00PM
I am trying something different.  I added some SuperKleer K.C. to promote a faster clarification of the mead before I rack onto the coconut.  I just don't want to carry over a lot of yeast and crap as I plan on leaving it on the coconut for a good while...  I didn't take a photo at the time I mixed it all in but here is one that I took about 4 hours after I mixed it up.  From my perspective this looks like it has already clear up quite a bit.  Let's see what happens.


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