Pineapple Coconut Melomel (Mead) - Let there be COCONUT!

Cool.  So that addition of Super-Kleer K.C. worked pretty well I would say.  The picture below doesn't really look it but once I shone a flashlight into it I could clearly see the compacted lees on the bottom.  Since most of the major crap fell out I decided to pull the trigger on racking and also add the coconut to the mix.

I found some bulk shredded died coconut at a local Smith's Grocery and bought 5 pounds of it.  It looked like a lot of Coconut in the bags, but in a 6 gallon carboy it looks like a LOT of coconut...

The racking went smooth.  My total volume of mead was just right.  As you can see in the photo below it came right up to the neck just as the racking cane started sucking air.  After this photo I ended up adding a touch of water to bring it up just a bit more...

Along with the mead itself I also added 6g of K-Meta (Potassium Metabisulfite) which works out to the addition of total SO2 = 150ppm.  Considering the rule of thumb that ~50% of added Sulfite gets bound immediately that results in 75ppm of Free SO2.  This mead's pH is 3.4 so that mean the molecular SO2 is 1.84ppm.  For normal bulk aging a molecular SO2 level of 0.8ppm is the target.  But since I put a bunch of very non-sanitized coconut into the mix I wanted to bump it up a good notch.  The nominal sensory threshold for Sulfites lies at a molecular SO2 level of 2ppm.  So my addition of 1.83ppm molecular SO2 should be just fine at this point.  Once I rack off of the coconut into a 5 gallon carboy I'll maintain a 0.8ppm Molecular SO2 level.

Here is what was left in the primary fermenter... YUMMY!

Well, that's it for the next few months.  I'll pop a few pictures here and there to show off its progress but at this point I'm going to be hands off...

Time to think of my next batch.


UPDATE: 5/21/12 12:30PM
After slapping the carboy around a bit along with some swirling and shaking I got most of the coconut to drop.  On further though I'll probably stick a racking cane down there and stir it up a bit once a week for 3-5 months....

Triple Mead Racking Day

I got off my lazy ass this last weekend and racked the three Meads that were needing it.  The Strawberry Banana Melomel,  Orange Zest Traditional Mead, and the straight Strawberry Melomel.

Racked the Strawberry Banana Melomel

The strawberry melomel got racked.  I sweetened it with 1.5 lbs of honey.  Added 50ppm of K-Meta and 1.25 tsp of K-Sorbate.  As per standard protocol I added 2.5 tsp of Bentonite just like with the Traditional.

Pics:

Just before Racking

Racking underway.  Auto siphons ROCK!

Racking onto the Honey

Racked and racked

Orange Zest Traditional Mead - RACKED (Pictures...)

Okay,

So it turned out to be a few days since I posted and promised these pictures... Well, here goes.

Sanitize... Sanitize

Just before racking... Looking good

Racking Begins

Orange Zest Traditional Mead - RACKED

Last night I went ahead and racked my Orange Zest Traditional mead.  On top of that I setup a mead shelf in my small ass apartment so i can now fit about 6 five gallon carboys.  Sweet!

This one measured a specific gravity (SG) of 1.008.  However, my hydrometers are fucked up a bit.  Tap water reads 1.004.  So, if I take that into account it means this mead is just about bone dry.  The pH measured @ 4.1.  That's a little high and means SO2 won't do shit.  I'll write up an article on SO2 and its relationship with pH at some point in time...

Anyways, I decided to make this  a semi-sweet mead so I racked it onto some honey.  All in all I added the following:

• 1 lb Orange Blossom Honey - This should get me to semi-sweet.
• 2.5 teaspoons on Bentonite mixed into 2 Cups of boiling water then blended for 5 minutes.  The bentonite is added to help the haze of the added honey to drop faster.
• 1.85 grams of K-Meta (~50ppm).  Not sure why I added this since the pH is too high for it to do much good...
• 1.25 teaspoons of K-Sorbate.  This chemically neuters the yeast rendering them unable to reproduce.  Don't imagine that it actually kills the yeast mind you!  The K-Meta works to stun/kill the beasties and the K-Sorbate cuts off their junk!

Pictures to follow shortly...