2022 Batch 02 - Pecan Brandy Mead

I watched an episode of Moonshiners: Master Distiller late in 2020 where one of the contestants made a Pecan Brandy that he (and the judges) described as being very tasty, like drinking a pecan pie. I thought that sounded good, and although distilling it into brandy would not be a legal option for me, turning it into a mead would be quite possible and might be good.

The recipe as described on the show was pretty simple... honey, water, yeast, and pecans.

Ingredients

12 pounds of Wildflower Honey
2 pounds of Pecans, crushed and ground
4 gallons of water, treated with some gypsum
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
1 package of Premier Des Cotes champagne yeast

Batch Size: 5.0 gallons (actual and estimated)
Original Gravity: 1.090 (actual and estimated)
Final Gravity: 0.984 (estimated)

Brewing Instructions

Bring water to a boil and sterilize wort chiller.

Add half the pecans in a muslin bag. Add the other half, in a different muslin bag, to the fermenter.

Gradually add honey while stirring the liquid.

When all the honey is added, pump the must through the wort chiller into the fermenter.

With sanitized tongs, transfer the bag of pecans to the fermenter so that both bags and all the pecans are in the fermenter.

Pitch two packages of the yeast when the must temperature is in range for the yeast.

Ferment until completely fermented, then bottle and enjoy.

Post-Brew Notes and Observations

01/08/2022: Fermenter volume read exactly 5 gallons at 78F with a gravity of 1.089 SG.

01/09/2022: Gravity has dropped to 1.088 SG.

01/10/2022: Gravity is down to 1.086 SG at a temp around 66F. There are clear signs of activity in the airlock if you check, so I assume the yeast are still getting up to speed and that we'll see activity pick up today. If not, I may need to add more yeast and perhaps a farmentation heat wrap to get things kickstarted.

Comments

Yellow Label Angel Yeast vs. Typical Brewing Yeast

I currently have my second batch of rice wine fermenting with the "magical" yellow-label Angel Yeast from China, and wanted to share some of the more unusual aspects of using it. If you've never seen or used this yeast, I suspect you're not alone. It ships in a 500 gram package that looks like this: What makes it "yellow label" is that yellow box you see in the upper left corner of the package. This implies that it's yeast for distilling (though you do not need to have a still or distill the output to use it). As I understand it, inside the package is a mix of yeast and other materials which will convert starch into sugar and directly ferment it, without the need for a traditional mash step. This can radically shorten your brewing time. For my most-recent batch of rice wine, I heated 3 gallons of water to 155F, poured it over 13+ pounds of uncooked rice straight out of the bag, let that soak for an hour, rehydrated some of this yeast in warm water,...

2021 Batch 1 - Rice Wine made with Yellow Label Angel Yeast

I've become a big fan of the Still It channel on YouTube. About a month ago, Jesse posted a video about how he made rice wine using nothing more than water, rice, and a purported "magic" yeast from China called Yellow Label Angel Yeast. Perhaps even more amazing was the fact that he was able to make the rice wine without gelatinizing or mashing the rice. He shows three batches in the video. One was made by cooking the rice before adding the yeast mixture. Another was made by adding uncooked rice to boiling water. The last was made by adding uncooked rice to room temperature water. All three fermented out to roughly the same amount of alcohol in about two weeks. He was amazed by this, as was I. I resolved to buy some of this magical yeast from Aliexpress.com and try it out. In the Still It video, the rice is ground up in the grain mill into smaller chunks to make it easier for the enzymes in the yellow label yeast to convert and ferment. I'm changin...

What I Learned About Brewing in 2021

Last year, I brewed 20 batches of adult beverages (primarily beer and test mashes). In no particular order, here are things I learned during the year: The COVID-19 pandemic left me with more time at home to brew, but at the same time made doing so a bit less enjoyable. Why? Because I could not share my homebrew with family and friends as easily as I could pre-pandemic. Without feedback from my friends about what they did (and didn't) like in my beer, I was less motivated to brew and less able to improve my beer than in prior years. The pump on The Grainfather has a life span (in my experience) of around 200 brews before it dies, and the "official" replacement is way too expensive to suit me (like $190). I was able to replace it with a pump from Amazon for about $70 that seems to flow much better and stronger than the official pump. It took some redneck-looking jerry-rigging to fix it, but the system flows better now and I can continue brewing. On a personal...

Begin Brewing!

Search This Blog