Weighing the hive - food status

In the past months I have weighed my bee hive 3 times after I did the final feeding. Last time I weighed the hive was the 26th of December. I am just using my suit case weight which makes it quite easy to do the weighing.

It is actually quite interesting to see how much food the bees uses during the winter time. So far it look like this

I am assuming that the initial weight loss is from the fact that the bees were still leaving the hive but coming back with only little pollen or nectar. Hence, they use much more food than they can collect. Then the bees get ready for winter and fill themselves with honey before the form a cluster for winter.

From the second to the third point the bees are dormant and do not take up any nutrients since they are still full from the initial feast :). Then from the third to the forth point the weight loss could represent the average of what the bees will use throughout the winter. I will be interesting to see if the slope if the curve will stay pretty much constant from now on. The slope between the last two points is 56 g/day.

Now one thing that I would expect to have an influence on the food consumption is temperature. The points have been measured from end October to end December so far and the average temperature of November was 5.9 C on the region where I live, and in December (so far) it was 4.3 C. So pretty much constantly 5 C with some fluctuation of cause. This is why I assume that the changes in weight loss is due to changes in the activity of the bees.

I hope the we will get some cold weather in January just to see the effect of temperature. Also, I can use the mass of the hive as a check up on the bees during the winter. I am already out of honey, so next year I want to harvest twice (at least), so I have to be sure that my little busy workers are doing fine :)

Mead characterization - by the numbers

I found a guideline for how to judge fermented beverages callled the Beer Judge Certification Program or BJCP. This "BJCP Style Guideline" (rev 2008) states the following limits for characterization of mead:

For FG
  0.990 - 1.010 "dry mead"
  1.010 - 1.025 "semisweet mead"
  1.025 - 1.050 "sweet mead"

For OG and ABV
  Hydromel:
  1.035 - 1.080
  3.5% - 7.5%
  Standard mead:
  1.080 - 1.120
  7.5% - 14%
  Sack mead:
  1.120 - 1.170
  14% - 18%

Just for fun, Ken Schramm has the following definitions for sweetness in his book (2003):
  0.990 - 1.006 "dry mead"
  1.006 - 1.015 "medium mead"
  1.012 - 1.020 "sweet mead"
  1.020 - N.A.  "dessert mead"

Notice how BJCP has a mead at for example 1.023 to be considered as semisweet, whereas the same mead would be considered a dessert mead by Ken Schramm :o).

Just remenber, that these are just numbers to describe some basic characteristics of mead. Whether you enjoy the smell, taste, and mouth feel will always be an individual experience.

Recipe 3: Melomel of elderberries with star anise (continued 3) - first racking

Sunday I decided to rack my most recent mead for the first time. The mead had been fermenting for 2 weeks, and already it had almost stopped bubbling. This is by far the quickest fermentation I have done so far. So I can only say that addition of nutrition in a staggered is HIGHLY recommended.

The fermentation started to slow down in the beginning of the first week, and I think that if I had added some more MAP/MAC it would have continued fermenting at a higher rate and then stopped more abruptly. Next time :o)

Opening the fermenter the surface was now almost clear - no foam at all left. Though much was still sticking to the sides. I could not smell the star anise to any significant extent anymore, so I tried to taste. It was dry, alcoholic and without much taste at all (?) besides the taste of yeast. I will look forward to taste it again when the yeast has settled.

It was now much easier to test the pH with the stips so I assume that the color had lost some of the intensity. pH was now about 4.

Then I measured the density, and to my surprise it went straight to the bottom of the fermenter - it is only a 10 L. So I had to improvise a measuring cylinder...... as illustrated by the picture below

The density was now 1.008 which is much lower than I expected. Now, if the density started at 1.130 to 1.135, this means that the it had dropped by 0.122 to 0.127 units

Using the standard formula (OG-FG)/0.0075 you get an ABV of about 16.5%. Using the high gravity determination you get up to 19% which is a joke. I have to check this by an alternative method.

Anyway the FG is so low that it is too dry for my taste. I will add some honey to it to get some sweetness and honey flavor back. Next time I will either use a different yeast, with lower alcohol tolerance, or use more honey. My target FG should be a bit higher than I initially set out for, so 1.015 to 1.020 from now on :o).

Recipe 1: Cyser with rosehip (continued 7) - Final racking before bottling

Just did the final racking of the cyser today. It is still very acidic with an aftertaste of sweet honey. I am still worrying if acetic acid is present, but it does not really taste like that. I even diluted a balsamico just to be sure. I will have to rely on my wife's taste buds tomorrow. Her skill in detailed tasting is incredible.

The color of the mead is beautiful - deep brown - and it is crystal clear. I ended up with about 17 L of a 20 L batch which is not bad considering how many times it has been racked.

The picture does not really do the mead justice when it comes to clarity. The light behind is just a flashlight for "special effects"

Finally I topped up the glass bottle with CO2 in the same manner as earlier and covered it up. I plan to leave it like this for at least 2 months.

More good reading.....

There is so much info on the web, but here are the 11 best web pages that have really caught my attention. It is here I have found the most useful ideas and best explanations.

1) www.schrammsmead.com

Ken Schramm has started his own meadery and since he is author of the great book "the compleat Meadmaker" it is just fun to follow him.

2) beerandwinejournal.com 

Under the mead section you will find good articles on for example "Staggered Nutrition Addition" (see HERE) and "Potassium and pH" (see HERE ). Looking for the name Chris Colby in future texts will probably pay off.

3) nanaimowinemakers.org 

Follow the link "winemaking information" and there is a good work through of YAN, FAN and the calculations involved under (see HERE).

4) morewinemaking.com 

Looks like you standard web store but at the bottom of the page under How-to, there is a section called "MoreManuals!" (see HERE) Here you find lots of gread PDF's on various topics of wine making and even on mead HERE.

5) www.grapestompers.com
Here is a winery with links to tutorials HERE and articles HERE. Especially the article about stuck fermentations HERE caught my attention due to my recipe no. 1 which stopped prematurely.

6) electromeadsmith.blogspot.dk 

Cool collection of an endless row of mead recipes, tests and trials. There is also a collections of links in one of his older articles HERE. Especially the link to "Making Mead by the BJCP numbers".

7) thedriftingwinemaker.com
Yet another blogging wine spirit. There is a good reviev on YAN with links to other topics HERE.

8) gotmead.com

If you have a problem/question there are probably others who were asking about the same. This forum contains all the Q and A you can think of.

9) homebrewtalk.com

Also a brewing forum, but this one has its own phone app :o)

10) brewboard.com

Just recently found this page, and I have not had time to really check it out, but I hit the page due to this link HERE

11) If you really want to go into the depth of the world of yeasts HERE is a good place to start. Its a an webpage from the biochemical department of the University of Munich called "Yeast Molecular Biology - A short compendium on basic features and novel aspects" and it is pretty much like a text book of PDF files on yeast. In regards to SNA, YAN and Potassium I found chapter 3 quite interesting (see HERE)

Happy reading..........

Recipe 3: Melomel of elderberries with star anise (continued 2) -addition of yeast nutrients

It is day 3 since I started recipe 3 and it is time to do the third addition of yeast nutrition.

I have tried to get DAP (di-ammonium hydrogen phosphate) but no luck. So I came up with an alternative which in effect results in exactly the same addition. 

I did get my hands on MAP (mono-ammonium di-hydrogen phosphate) and I could of cause spike with twice as much (on mole basis) to add the same amount of ammonium ions. But that would also mean adding a large amount of phosphate which I am not so keen on. So as an alternative, I figured I would mix MAP with ammonium bicarbonate ("MAC") in the ratio 3:2 (by mass) and I would have added the same. Here is why

(NH4)HPO4 + (NH4)HCO3 -> 2 NH4+ + HPO4- + HCO3-

Since the must is about pH 4, HCO3- becomes H2CO3 = H2O + CO2 so in effect the addition is equivalent to the addition of DAP

And I learned something new. Ammonium bicarbonate is just a basic baking additive called "hjortetaksalt" here in Denmark - as you might have guessed I am not exactly the baking expert in the family :o)

On the web I can find several sites stating that for a high gravity must you need about 300 ppm of YAN (yeast assimilated nitrogen). You will also find the term FAN (free amino nitrogen) which is a constituent of YAN. DAP, MAP and MAC are all FAN components

To calculate how much to use you need to know the percentage by mass of nitrogen in each component of the addition. These are: 

Ferment K: 13% N (from table)

MAP: 12% N (calculated)

MAC: 18% N (calculated)

The reason why DAP is the preferred additive is that it contains 21% nitrogen by mass, so you have to add less to get the same FAN content.

Now since the molecular weight of MAP is 115 g/mol and MAC is 79 g/mol, these should be added in a ratio of about 3:2 to have the same composition as that of DAP. So if you add 3.0 g of MAP and 2.0 g of MAC it corresponds to adding about 3.5 g of DAP. The mass difference between adding DAP or MAP/MAC [(3.0+2.0) - 3.5 = 1.5 g] is in effect just CO2 and water.

So today I added:

3.0 g of MAP x 12% = 0.37 g YAN

2.0 g of MAC x 18% = 0.35 g YAN

2.0 g of Ferment K x 13% = 0.26 g YAN

In total: about 0.98 g YAN to 8.5 L = 115 ppm

Initially I added 2.0 g Ferment K just after boiling and the following day another 3.0 g of Ferment K

5.0 g of Ferment K x 13% = 0.65 g YAN

to 8.5 L = 76 ppm

So all in all I have added a bit short of 200 ppm YAN. 

I also found that it is recommended not to added any nutrition once 1/3 of the sugar have been consumed. I measured the density initially to about 1.135 and today it is 1.088. I expect the fermentation to stop at 1.025, i.e. 1/3 of the fermentable suger should be at 1.098 which was probably yesterday.....hmm. This is why I do not want to add all 300 ppm. But I must say that the fermentation has been sped up a lot by these nutrition additions and I will definitely be doing this from now on

As a final remark I measured pH with strips before and after the additions. The pH was unchanged at around 4. At least that was as well as it could be determined in the highly colored must :o)

Recipe 3: Melomel of elderberries with star anise (continued) -Happybubbling, but...

Day two and now must is happily bubbling. But as I removed the bag covering it fermenter to protect it from light I found that the airlock was flooded. This is one of these things I could probably have predicted.... The surface of the must is about 4 cm from the lid but the rubber plug that is used for the airlock sticks about 2.5 cm into the fermeneter and this is apparently too close to the surface.

Well off with the lid and another 3.0 g of Fermaid K was added - that is now 5.0 g in total. I stirred the must and hoped that I could stir plenty of air into it. But it started foaming so much that I was afraid the it would overflow the fermenter. Instead of stirrring, I left it and let the foam level drop before I re-attached the lid and airlock.

It did not take more than a few hours before the lid was covered with foam that had moved up and out of the airlock. Cleaned it again and attached the airlock. 10 min later the airlock was full of foam again.

I spend most of the afternoon cleaning the lid and flushing the airlock untill I go so tired of it, that I had to re-think the set-up. And with a "pretty please with sugar on top", I borrowed my sons slush ice bottle :o). Now at least I can wait some hours before cleaning.

Few minutes later ...... hmm

Recipe 3: Melomel of elderberries with star anise

The very last honey of my first season as bee keeper has been used for this recipe. This is a bit of an experiment, so I reduced the volume to 8.5 L - just in case :o)

I will try the two concepts that I recently read about on the Beer and Wine Journal (www.beerandwinejournal.com and search "mead"). These were staggered nutrition addition and potassium addition. The article is written by Chris Colby with input from Ken Schramm so it should definitely be worth a try. So here we go........

Ingredients

2.2 L of home made elderberry juice
1.7 g of star anise
Water to 8.5 L
7.0 g of Fermaid K yeast nutrition
(2.5 g of DAP or di-ammoniumphosphate [(NH3)2PO4] ) If I can buy this !!
4.25 g of pot-ash or potassium carbonate [K2CO3]
7g Vinoferm, Bioferm Killer yeast

The elderberry juice was prepared this summer when the berries of my tree were ripe and black. The berries were picked so that no leaves or twigs were present. Then the berries were extracted on a fruit boiler where the berries are actually steamed. It takes about 1.4 kg of berries to make 1L of elderberry juice, So the juice that I am using comes from about 3 kg of berries.

When I had just made the juice I tried to make a tea of diluted juice and honey. Just small cups to adjust the taste. I came up with a 1:3 dilution and with a good bit of honey.

But there is a catch. Elderberries contains cyanogenic glycosides which releases prussic acid (HCN). The prussic acid can be removed by boiling for an extended time. Now I did not know this, so after my dilution tasting, I got really sick even though the berries had been steamed. I tried again, this time boiling the tea for 15 min and I was OK. Felt a bit like a guinea pig in my own food lab :o)

Secondly, I had rinsed the flasks for the juice with Atamon which is a solution of sodium benzoate. As stated on the bottle, Atamon looses it "power" when boiled (?). Benzoic acid is quite stable but perhaps it is removed by being dissolved in droplets of the water vapor.

So when preparing the mead I wanted to make absolutely sure that HCN and Atamon was boiled off. The 2.2 L of Elderberry juice was mixed with 2.5 L of water and boiled for 45min.

I was aiming at 1.7 g of star anise and I was just lucky to find one with that mass :o).The star anise was crushed to to increase the surface area and added during the last 15 min of the boiling. I added what corresponds to 0.2 g/L as I know it is a quite powerful taste. (1.7g / 8.5 L = 0.20 g/L)

Then the honey was added. Since it was quite solid (not stirred enough) I tried to heat the container in the kitchen sink but it was only enough to liquefy the surface of the honey but enough for the lump of honey to drop into the pot. The container was rinsed with the warm juice and then the pot was stirred till the honey was dissolved. I re-heated the pot to 72C removed the heat and left it for 10 min .

Then the must was poured into a 10 L fermenter and filled it up to 8.5L with cold tap water. Made my own markings just to make it easy for myself. Then I added the Potassium Carbonate and there was no foaming or bubbles which I expected since the must should be acidic enough turn the carbonate to CO2. The fermenter was left to cool on the balcony throughout the evening but I took it inside later so that the temperature would not drop below 20C.

What a great tool this IR thermometer with laser aim. The actual measurement has to be taken a bit closer to the fermenter.

Next morning the temperature was 23C, so just perfect. I prepared a yeast starter by just adding the yeast to 50 ml of tap water heated to 26C. When the yeast was hydrating the temperature was increasing which could be felt on the glass I used. The yeast was left like this for 12min

While the yeast was hydrating I added the first portion of Ferment K -> 2.0 g corresponding to 31 ppm YAN in the must. Addition is a bit lower than I wanted but I was simply not able to buy DAP (?!?#¤) in either of the two brew stores that I frequently visit.

The density was significantly above 1.120 (the max of my hydrometer) but I estimate it to be about 1.135.

pH was measured with strips but since the the must is quite colored it is really difficult to read the strip :o). Best guess is about 4-5.

Again it is now just time to wait for the bubbling.....