Make your own cheap CO2 generator

In regards to my initial batch (recipe 1) I was a little worried about transferring the mead from one fermenter to another and loosing the protective CO2 layer covering the surface. CO2 is heavier than air so all I need is just enough to cover the surface. That said, I am not sure that there is enough in the solution to generate a new layer.

What to do then? Buying a CO2 spray is expensive and using compressed gas you need expensive equipment. So why not just prepare a CO2 generator yourself.

All you need is sodium bicarbonate (= baking powder) and citric acid. Both chemicals are available in any drugstore (for example Matas here in Denmark)

Generation of 5 L of CO2

Equipment:
- A flask that can contain 250 ml
- A stopper for the flask with a tube that can be used as a transfer line to the fermenter
- A decent scale
- A beaker that can contain a bit more than 100 ml

Procedure:
1) Add 20 g of sodium bicarbonate to the 250 ml flask
2) Add 30 g of citric acid to the beaker and dissolve in 100 ml of water. It dissolves slowly but surely with a gentle agitation
3) Add the citric acid solution in small steps to the 250 ml flask (I usually add in 5 steps with the smallest volume added first)
4) After each addition close the flask with the stopper and attach the other end of the tube to the airlock of the fermenter. Ensure that the lid is partially opened so that excess air can escape. (I just inserted a spoon in a small opening)
5) When all the sodium bicarbonate has dissolved fully and the solution is no longer fizzing the reaction is over.
6) Remove the CO2 generator, close the lid firmly and attach the airlock.

Very simple :o). With whatever losses of CO2 in this set-up you should at least get 2 L into the fermenter which is plenty to cover the surface. The reaction endothermic so you can feel a slight cooling effect in the reaction flask. Also pH of the solution after reaction is about 5 so it can poured in the sink when cleaning up.
___________

If you find it interesting to see why I ended up the 20 g citric acid and 30 g sodium bicarbonate then read on :o). 

Using the ideal gas equation I can find that at 22oC I need 0.23 mol CO2 to generate 5.5 L of gas - ~5 L for use and ~0.5 L to fill the flask and tube.

Sodium bicarbonate and acid generates CO2 and water as shown below
NaHCO3 + H+ --> CO2 + H2O + Na+
... so 1 mol of sodium bicarbonate becomes 1 mol of CO2.

So 0.23 mol of NaHCO3 equals 19 g since the molecular weight is 84 g/mol. Assuming a purity of 95% then 20 g is needed.

Citric acid is used because it is easily available and non-volatile and non-toxic. Citric acid actually contains 3 acid groups, so 1 mol of citric acid is equivalent with 3 mol H+. But when the reaction has ended pH of the solution is about 5 which is in the range of pKa(2) of 4.75, hence 1 mol of citric acid only releases about 1.5 mol H+.

If 1 mol citric acid releases about 1.5 mol of H+ then only 0.15 mol of citric acid is required. The molecular weight of anhydrous citric acid is 192,1 g/mol which means that 29 g of citric acid is needed. Again, assuming a purity of 95%. the actual amount becomes 30 g.

QED   :o)

Recipe 1: Cyser with rosehip (continued 2) - Racking 2nd time

Ingredients:
Kieselsol 15 ml
Chitosan 50 ml

It has now been 3 weeks and 5 days since I prepared the batch. For the past week there has not been any bubbling from the airlock, so I am assuming that the fermentation has stopped. I had hoped that the mead would sort of clear but it is not even close.

When I opened the fermenter a very pleasant smell filled the kitchen - so far so good. But the solution was very murky and was about as clear as orange juice. I am wondering if I will have any change of fully clearing it.

Anyway, to start with I measured the relative density to 1.066 - still higher that I was aiming for so perhaps the port yeast from Kitzinger is not able to push more about 10-12% ABV under the given conditions (Depending on which calculation method is used). Also pH was measured again and as before pH was somewhere between 3 and 4. I am somewhat disappointed, that the fermentation has stopped so soon.

After the measurements, the mead was transferred again to a third container which had again been cleaned well and disinfected with iodine. Care was taken not to transfer the yeast sediment on the bottom. The sediment was very easily stirred into the solution, so it was not possible to avoid that some sediment was transferred too.

I used this clearing agent which is a standard package consisting of two solutions which have to be added in separate steps - first the Kieselsol then the Chitosan. The order of addition is apparently important.

So, first the 15 ml of kieselsol was added. It is basically a slurry of silicon dioxide particles. The particles are negatively charged and should precipitate yeast and proteins efficiently. I have not been able to find out the mass per volume of particles but apparently this is a standard mixture. After the addition the solution was stirred rapidly to ensure a good mixing.

Then the 50 ml of Chitosan was added. Chitosan is linear polysaccharides which is derived from the exoskeleton of crustaceans. These particles are positivly charged in acidic solution and causes particles to flocculate, i.e. stick together to form larger particles which will in the end drop out of solution. Again the solution was stirred well before the lid was sealed. The airlock was attached and filled with water, and now it is just time to wait (and hope) that the mead clears.

A little care of one self....

Getting a second child and carrying fermenting buckets takes its toll on dad :o). I had a voucher for Chinese therapy/massage something that I got long time ago and I figured I could use it now that I was on leave from work. 

I enter a small, and very Chinese looking clinic. Is was asked to lie down and the Chinese doctor started working. Now, my voucher just said massage, but he started using these cups. Fair enough, I have seen the latest Karate Kid with Jackie Chan, so I figured that it would do no harm. 

Afterwards I was really tired and really felt loosened up - but damn, I was not told about this......

Recipe 2: Sack mead

This is a basic mead recipe that I found in the book "The complete mead maker" by Ken Schramm. It is slightly modified due to the yeast that I used, so here we go

Ingredients:

7.20 kg of my own garden honey

about 15 L of tap water

Wyeast "yeast nutrition" 2 g / 10 L

Vinoferm - Bioferm Killer (up to 16%, low residual sugar) 

All equipment was first washed thoroughly and then sterilized with an iodine solution.

I started by adding 7 L of water to my 15 L pot and began bringing it to a boil. 

The original recipe use 6.8 kg  (15 lps) of honey to about 19 L (5 gallons). Since I will end up in 20 L then the mass of honey need to be scaled up to 7.2 kg. The honey was weighed out in two bowls.

My yeast, Bioferm killer, goes up to 16% ABV whereas the original recipe used Lalvin 71b-1122 which goes to 14%, so I would expect my mead to be a bit more dry even though I also expect my honey to be quite low on water. I still need to get this measured, but so far I estimate 15% water.

Once the water was boiling I tool the pot off the heat and placed it in the kitchen sink. Now it was time to add the honey. Best as I am holding the larger bowl over the pot the !"¤#"#"¤ thing breaks in half and falls into the pot with a great splash. So I got some kitchen cleaning to do tonight...

Anyway, both pots was finally added and I started to stir to get it dissolved. As with the last mead (recipe 1)  I checked the temperature and it had dropped to 60oC. I heated the pot a bit and when the temperature was 66oC I turned off the heat. Shortly after the temperature was 69oC which was high enough (as long as it is above 65oC). After 10 min the temperature had dropped to 66oC and it was time to transfer the solution to the fermenter.

I placed the pot on a stool and the fermentor on the floor and just poured the solution into the fermenter with as much splashing as possible to oxygenate the solution - and yes, the floor and cupboards need a wet cloth for a quick clean-up afterwards. The volume of the must added up to almost 12 L and I topped up the fermenter to 20 L with cold tap water. 

The temperature was now 40oC so I had to place the fermenter on the balcony to cool off with the lid put on loosely and a long thermometer in the hole for the airlock. Even though it is end of October it is quite warm (14oC) outside, so it would still take a while for the mead to cool off. When it was time to call it the day I took the mead inside, and planned yeast spiking the following morning.

Next morning the temperature was only 23oC so it was time to spike yeast and nutrients. 4.2g of Wyeast "yeast nutrition" was mixed with about 0.5 dl of 32oC warm water. Afterwards the 7g of yeast was hydrated also in about 0.5 dl of 32oC water. Both solutions were added to the must after 15 min.

While the solutions were left to hydrate, the density was measured to 1.120 with hydrometer (this was the max of the scale of the one I have). pH was also measured with strips to about 6. The optimal pH for wine yeasts should be around 4 so 35 g of citric acid was added which lowered the pH to somewhere between 3 and 4.

Actually I initially added 25 g and measured pH to around 5 after stirring. So I added another 10 g. Then it dawned upon me that it takes some time for the citric acid crystals to dissolve so I stopped any further additions. After the yeast and nutrition was added I waited about one hour and measured pH again and got the result above. I was aiming at pH 4 which I think would have been just perfect with addition of the initial 25 g - shit happens and yet another lesson learned.

Now all was ready and the lid was sealed. The airlock was filled with a bit of water and the entire fermenter covered in a black plastic bag. Now it is time to wait for the happy bubbling to begin - again :o)

Estimating %alcohol

I have found 3 ways of estimating the final alcohol percentage in alcoholic beverages. 

I:
The first is just based on the concentration of sugar added to the must. I have used the calculations for recipe 1. The calculations can be seen below.

Honey	7.50	kg
Sugar content	85%
Sugar	6.38	kg
Convesion factor	17.0	g/L/%
Total volume	20.0	L
Theoretical ABV	18.8	%
Actual ABV	15.5	%
Residual sugar	1.11	kg
Concentration of residual sugar	55.3	g/L

The sugar content of the honey is estimated so far since I do not have a refractometer. When I get hold of one I will be able to measure the water content in % by mass. The sugar content will then be calculated at 100%-%water.

All the parameters can easily be measured or calculated except one - the conversion factor. This is an experimental factor that can only be set from experience. The number 17 g/L/% has been found by searching the internet. It means that for 1 % of alcohol by volume (ABV) to be produced on 1 L of must, then 17 g of sugar is needed. 

There are some reasoning behind this figure, though. The classical equation for conversion of sugar to alcohol is

C6H12O6     ->    2 CH3CH2OH   +   2 CO2

  Glucose                     Ethanol            Carbondioxide

  (sugar)                      (alcohol)     

i.e. 1 mol of sugar becomes 2 mols of ethanol. The molar mass of glucose is 180 g/mol and the molar mass of ethanol is 46 g/mol. Hence for every 180 g of glucose, 2*46=92 g of ethanol is produced. Put in another ways the mass yield is 92g/180g*100% = 51% 

Now, 1% of ethanol by volume can be converted to mass by multiplying with the density 0.79 g/ml which becomes 7.9g ethanol / L of must. If the conversion yield was 51% then the sugar needed would be 7,9g/0.51 = 15.5 g sugar / L of must. 

Well, yeast also need energy for multiplying and life processes to perform the conversion, so the use of sugar needed will be higher. The literature that I have found so far states figures from 17 g sugar/L up to 19 g sugar/L. I have chosen to start with 17 g/L and adjust later when I have measured the ethanol content.

ABV after ended fermentation depends on the alcohol tolerance of yeast or the time when the fermentation is stopped by for example addition of sulfite. I selected the port yeast because of the higher tolerance and I have no intentions of stopping the fermentation :o)

I also calculate the residual sugar. Wines have somewhere between 1-3% sugar left (10-30 g/L). I want my mead to be a bit sweet, so I figured about 50 g sugar / L would suffice. 

II:

Once you get started preparing the mead the density can be measured with a hydrometer. The density (or gravity) is measured relatively to water and is therefore without unit. The typical scales are Oechsle, Baume, or Brix. I prefer hydrometers where the density is measured in Oechsle since it is pretty much the same as relative density.

When the must is ready for yeast addition, the density is measured with a hydrometer. The relative density is typically defined at 20C but the yeast is added at 25C, so the density is typicaly a bit higher than what is actually measured initially. SG is the term used for the density or "Specific Gravity" at any time point. The initial measurement before the yeast is added is called Original Gravity or OG. Afterwards SG can be measured at any time to follow the fermentation. When fermentation stops, either naturally as when the alcohol tolerance of the yeast is reached or when sulfite is added the measured gravity is called Final Gravity or FG. The difference between the starting point and the ending point (OG-FG) is a measure of how much sugar have been converted.

To estimate the ABV I use the simplest estimate where ABV and (OG-FG) behave linearly, i.e. one can be converted to the other my multiplying a constant. The constant that I have found is based on beer so it might not be quite adequate, but it is a best estimate so far. The constant I use is 1/0.0075 so the calculation becomes

ABV = (OG-FG) / 0.0075

If I can get access to measure the alcohol content very precisely for example by gas chromatography, I will adjust the constant to match the OG-FG measurement.In that manner I can estimate ABV more precisely though only for a narrow range of high OG musts.

III:
I found a so called advanced calculation to calculate ABV. It looks like this

ABV =(76.08 * (og-fg) / (1.775-og)) * (fg / 0.794)

The relation between (OG-FG) and ABV is no longer linear, and ABV depends on both OG and (OG-FG).
If OG is fixed at various levels, ABV can be plotted against (OG-FG)

All lines goes through (0.0) and they are all ALMOST linear, so the difference between each line can be estimated by the slope. This is the exact same slope that is used in the constant of the simplified expression above (which is actually 1/slope).

If we put OG in a table against the respective slope and convert it into constant used above, we get the following

OG	1.14	1.12	1.1	1.08	1.06
slope	157.40	149.66	144.53	139.71	135.16
Constant	0.00635	0.00668	0.00692	0.00716	0.00740
Selected	0.0065

As it can be seen from the table above the lower OG (starting density) is, the closer the constant get to 0.0075 as used above. Since most meads that I will produce are probably in the OG range of 1.12 to 1.14, a constant of 0.0065 is more adequate to use as a general constant. 

Hmm, if this is so, the alcohol tolerance level will be reached much earlier than expected and I will end up with a very sweet mead. I am quite curious to know how different the constant will be compared to one used so far (0.0075). More on that later if I get to measure the actual alcohol content. 

Recipe 1: Cyser with rosehip (continued) - Racking 1st time

Ingredients:
Wyeast "yeast nutrition" 2 g / 10 L

Today was the second week after the preparation of the my first batch of mead and it is now time to rack it it to a second fermenter. This was quite easily done by placing the initial fermenter on the kitchen table and put two plates underneath to tilt it. Take the fermentation lock out first before moving the fermenter, so that the old water in the lock is not pulled into the fermenter by accident. It can be infected. With a siphon the liquid content was moved to the second fermenter, a process that takes about 15 min. This has to be done with care so the air is not mixed into the must. Hence, take your time to do this.

The must was now quite murky and not even remotely clear. The yeast that have fallen out of solution so far was laying like a layer of mud on the bottom of the fermenter. The rosehip pieces were floating covered with yeast also. I transferred as much of the liquid as I could untill the I could see the siphon filled with the muddy layer of yeast. I could transfer about 19.5 L.

The mead smelled very much like white wine, with a very sharp acidic tone. I hope this will become more moderate after some storage time.

I then measured the gravity, SG to 1.069, so ABV = (OG-SG) / 0.007.5 = (1.140-1.069) / 0.0075 = ~9.5%. There is still some way to go. The yeast (Kitzinger port) should be able to go to 15-16%, so I will check again in another two weeks. For the yeast to be able to continue to its max ABV the conditions have to be optimal. pH was still somewhere between 3 and 4, measured with pH strips. Finally I added some nutrients (Wyeast "yeast nutrition") corresponding to 10 L assuming that there is still some nutrition available in the solution from the initial addition. A quick stir to make a vortex - NO splashing - and then the lid was tightened and the fermentation lock was attached - now with fresh water . The fermenter was wrapped in a black plastic bag to limit sun-light.

Hopefully the fermentation has ended within the next two weeks and then it will be time to clear the mead

And so I became a farther again

Great things have happened these past few days. I became a farther once again. My wife gave birth to a baby boy the 15th of October , 52 cm long and weighing 3450 g.  He will be named Alexander. He is so cute and his brother Julius is so happy that "his" baby finally was born. Both mother and baby are doing great.

Alexander was born within 4 hours after the water broke, which is a lot faster then with Julius, whose birth took 18 hours. He has an excellent appetite and is generally eating and sleeping, and in the evening, he is looking around "checking out" our flat for a few hours before he sleeps again. There is something different getting your second child. Everything is so much more relaxed, and you have so much more time to enjoy the kid rather than worrying all the time. So to all you parents with one kid, who, like I, have been wondering if there is room and time for a second child - trust me - there is :o)

Good stuff to read

I figured it would be advantageous to study a bit before preparing my first mead. There are quite a lot of recipes on the internet but most leave out what I think is significant details of the brew such as honey types, OG, fermentation temperatures, yeast selections, etc. Basically all the information needed to repeat the mead.

I also found that danish mead recipes are often based on old recipes and are often spiked with alcohol. In my opinion an old recipe does not necessarily live up the expectations to an alcoholic beverage today. Honey would have been more difficult to obtain, and what was available perhaps not as clean of wax and bee parts as every hobby bee-keeper today are able to produce. Secondly, mead was also often prepared from leftovers in honey boards or even old (wet) honey in which microorganisms was growing. Hence, according to these recipes, one typically boil the crap out of the honey and add spices which have a strong taste. To top it off wild yeast was used, which would add a certain randomness to the taste

Fortunately, the purity and freshness of the starting materials today can be easily controlled. So why not produce mead with minimal boiling and try to balance tastes between a few ingredients.

As always a quick search in Wikipedia will quickly give you the basics. The list of mead categories was an excellent input when deciding what kind of mead to make and also great search words when looking for various recipes of a certain kind of mead. I decided that my first mead should be a cyser, but bochet and capsicumel are curiosities I just have to try later :o)

The cyser that I made is based on the recipe by Snoremark (Snoremarks Mjød) which won a price in 2011 at the danish honey festival. I figured there would be a fair chance to get decent mead on the first try. Again, lots of the specific details are missing from the recipe and the mead that I prepared will only conceptually the same. Fingers crossed that it will still be good.

I recently got hold of a book called "The complete Meadmaker" by Ken Schramm. It is highly recommendable reading. It is clear that the book is from US where field are so huge that you can claim something like "Star Thistle Honey". Recipes where you are mixing two kinds of honey 1:3 seems like a joke considering how expensive specialized honey is. Also, you have to have a huge field for it to be large enough to claim a pure flower type of the honey - No problem in US but in a small country like Denmark you will have to settle for season variations of honey :o)

Recipe I: Cyser with rosehip (Æblemjød med hyben)

Ingredients:

10 L of apple juice from "Inger Marie" apples (English name unknown)

5 L of apple juice from Cox Orange apples

385 g of fresh yet frozen rosehip where all seeds have been removed. 

7.50 kg of my own garden honey
Zymex Pectinase enzyme + maltodextrine (10g)

"A fruit wine package" with yeast (unknown) pre mixed with nutrients

Kitzinger Port yeast (5g)

Now that all the ingredients were in place it was time to prepare my first mead. As always, all equipment was first washed thoroughly and then sterilized with an iodine solution.

Then it was time to boil the apple juice. I only have one 15L pot so the boiling was done in two steps.

1) Shake the containers with juice from Inger marie apples (2x5L) to stir up the sediment and pour it all into the pot. Add the rosehip. Once defrosted the last rosehip seeds are floating and can be collected. Bring the solution to a boil and let it boil for 60 min. It will have stopped foaming and the rosehip have become softer Pour the solution from the pot into the fermenter and cover with the lid. 

2) After rinsing the pot, the 5L of Cox Orange apple juice was added and boiled for 30 min. The pot was taken off the heat and the honey was added - all the honey. The bowl was rinsed with the hot apple juice to get it all out. The honey was dissolved in the apple juice by stirring. Then the temperature was measured to 54oC which was a bit too low. The pot was put on the heat again and the temperature was raised to 74oC. Then left for 10 min. Temperature dropped to 69oC. Then the solution was poured into the fermenter together with the rest of the apple juice. 

Why this circus with the temperature. The typical internet recipe tells you to boil the crap out the honey while skimming it thoroughly for wax and bee parts. But seriously - My honey was sieved twice, and the surface of the honey was cleaned twice. It is very low in wax and are are absolutely no bee parts left. Furthermore honey has antiseptic properties so the only thing to worry about is  wild yeast which (as far as I know) can be inactivated at a temperature above 65oC. The bonus is that the main part of all the great flavors in the honey can be preserved. 

I topped of the mead to 20L with cold tab water. So now, the solution just need to cool down. I do not have a cooler, so I had to leave it until the temperature had dropped to 35oC. The batch was placed indoor at 22oC so the cooling took a loooong time. I put a large thermometer through the how for the airlock to monitor the temperature and finally, after 20 hours, it was time to pitch the yeast.

With a hydrometer, I had used to measure the gravity of beer, I tried to measure the gravity of the mead. It was way out of scale. The scale maximum was 0.120 so I had to estimate OG to 0.140. Hmm, somewhat higher that anticipated. 

pH was measured with pH strips and it was somewhere between 3 and 4 so that was just great - no need to pitch any acids to the mead - that was the goal of using acidic apples :o)

Then the pectinase enzyme was added (10g). I was wondering if I should have added more since the apple juice was not sieved so there was plenty of  apple pulp present. I hope that it will be enough to clear the most after fermentation. I have clearing agents available too if necessary (I will find out in two weeks time.....)

I had purchased a "fruit wine yeast package" where the yeast and nutrients were mixed. To the best of my knowledge there is no chance that the yeast could ferment the sugar content, and residual sugar would be way to high for my taste after fermentation. Fortunately I had a package of Kitzinger Port yeast, saved for another purpose, which I pitched to the mead too. I guess the port yeast will take over when the other yeast gives up. I did not prepare a yeast starter. which I should probably have done, at least for the port yeast to let it get the best start. Therefore it took another 2 days before the fermentation was up and running. 

Now, the joyful bubbling from the airlock now fills the living room 24/7.

It all begins with bees...

Last winter I participated in a bee course just to get an idea of the basics of how to keep bees. I had absolutely no prior experiences and my general impression was that bees took care of them self. Ah, not quite but ignorance is bliss.

Another "surprise" was the amount of equipment needed. I went shopping with my family and found that I could hardly have the beginners package in the car. In Denmark the typical size of a stacking box is 12"x10". I decided to use Hoffmann frames instead of frames with corner blocks and so far I think it works well for me - (but I do not have much knowledge for comparison....)

After a few evenings of collecting, gluing,  and generally getting familiar with the equipment it was time to pick up my first family. It was a small family of Buckfast bees bread in Denmark by Svend Sejr about 1500 individuals. The queen was new with a yellow mark.  Unfortunately I was on holiday the weekend it arrived, but fortunately I got my family to pick up the bees. With a little help from a bee keeper from the bee course, the bee family got safely positioned in our garden.

Throughout the summer I participated in the practical part of the bee course in the school bee farm and used the experience on my own hive shortly after. It was a great way to be sure that I did not do anything too foolish to my bees at home. From time to time my family also came but I must admit that they did not find the same enthusiasm in bee-keeping that I did, but the bees have at least been accepted as part of the garden.

So far it has been quite easy to deal with the bees. They have behaved like a text-book example. The few mishaps (which will be posted later) are solely due to my own screw-ups. Hopefully I have learned the lesson for next year......time will tell...

Starting from about 1500 bees the family grew quite large quick and since they have been placed in a garden area, there is always pollen and nectar available in abundance. Soon I could add both the second box for extending the family and the third box for honey collection. I did try the forth box also for honey, but it was a bit late in the summer, so it did not really pay off. In the end I had one full box (10 frames) almost fully covered with honey cells, and a few that I could "steal" from the second box which had not been used for breeding but just for storing honey.

Then it was time to extract the honey. A fellow beekeeper and I decided to do it the same day because you do need lots of equipment and plenty of water to clean it all afterwards. Being two just makes things easier.

First, each frame needs to be peeled.

Fill the loop and spin the frames carefully so that the honey comes off from both sides with breaking the wax

And collect the beautiful and very fragrant raw honey! :o)

All in all I ended up with about 25 kg of honey from the first year - enough for several batches of mead! And still there is all the honey we can eat, honey for presents and some that we can sell.

I am already thinking that perhaps we should have 2 hives........

Apples

To start simple I wanted to make a Cyser, so besides honey I need apples - plenty of apples. I have 3 apple trees in the garden but still it is late in the season, and the majority apples were overripe or down right bad. The appletrees I have are "Inger Marie" which I have no clue to what are called in English, sorry.

It is relatively small apples with high acidity and a lot of taste. I could only collect about 20 kg, so I had to supply with Cox Orange from a neighboring garden. Using apples with high acidity I was hoping to be able to avoid having to add citric acid for pH control.

The local library had an event where everyone could get about 40 kg of apples juiced for free, which I happily took advantage of with the help of my son Julius

I ended up with 10L of juice from "Inger Marie" apples and 5L of Cox Orange juice which were a bit sweeter. To top it off I had a tray of mixed apples which were juiced just for us to enjoy pure and fresh. All in all we got about 25L out of 40kg of apples. Not bad!

Mead of life!

About a year ago I decided that I would try to produce mead. Why mead you might ask? Well, I have always been interested in the process of brewing and I have made several batches of beer. Even though most have been great I always felt that I did not have control of the ingredients. I could purchase what I wanted to use but "just" doing the work of preparing the beer just felt like something was missing. I want to have more control of the ingredients.

Throughout the years my attention have been directed toward mead. In the beginning of this year I required my first bee hive for the sole purpose of producing my own honey for mead. Selling a bit of honey on the side is just a bonus :o)

I live in apartment together with my wife and child but we have a garden house not far from where we live where I keep the bees. In the garden we also have apple trees, several bushes with berries, and beds with spices

Honey, fruit, berries, spices..........All I need to prepare my mead. 

I call this blog "Mead of life" since I will not only post logs of the mead I make but also describe the work put into getting the ingredients.

I will pick up on the events this year that have lead up the the mead that I have/will prepare this fall, and eventually post updates on new ideas and taste that I will prepare.

All for now. I will relax with a glass of mead (commercial) and listen to the joyful bubbling of my current batch.