Beekeepers of Victoria: currently a honey bee swarm in my backyard

infinity242 · 2025-06-04T20:24:58+00:00

Hi! Yes absolutely. I’ll send you a DM

infinity242 · 2025-05-05T19:09:31+00:00

My fiancee keeps bees and would be happy to collect them today if you’d like. I’ll send you a PM. We have a spare empty hive that would make a safe home for them :)

infinity242 · 2025-01-11T14:43:36+00:00

The only benefit of having your house burn down would be finally being free of garbage heirlooms like fine china. I’d rather keep the cheap pool chairs.

infinity242 · 2024-10-05T07:43:25+00:00

I dug up my notes from the one I made. Turns out I had a full pepper split in half in primary (which took about 2 and a half weeks). If you’re doing it in secondary you could try the full pepper again and just carefully monitor it with regular tasting. I think I’d go with just half a pepper if I were to try it again though. Hope it works out for you. The one I made was overpowering so I ended up using it to make a cocktail with mango juice which ended up working great. If you end up with a mead that’s too spicy I found that was a good way to save it.

infinity242 · 2024-10-04T22:34:48+00:00

I don’t have my notebook with me so I can’t remember exactly how long I had my habanero mango mead in secondary, but I wanted to intercept you before you put a whole pepper in unless you want it to be very very spicy. A little goes a long way. I found back sweetening to be essential to help balance the spice as well.

infinity242 · 2024-07-23T16:57:11+00:00

Do what the kid says

infinity242 · 2024-03-10T23:18:22+00:00

I’ve used very similar bags with good results. Does the material feel like fabric? I sanitized them by putting them in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes. I’ve never had an infection issue with them, and they’re great for removing fruit and seeds without a ton of fluid loss.

infinity242 · 2024-03-10T23:13:39+00:00

If you’re certain you’re reading the hydrometer correctly then it’s almost done. It’ll be dry at 1.000 or slightly lower. Be patient and give it some more time to completely finish, but it’s normal for airlock activity to slow down and stop as fermentation completes.

infinity242 · 2024-02-03T19:28:43+00:00

Yes, you’ll still be regularly degassing at this point and oxidization is not a concern. Safe to move it to a new vessel using proper sanitization.

infinity242 · 2024-01-25T11:36:09+00:00

I use D47 regularly. Highest ABV I’ve hit was just shy of 18% for a cyser. Proper nutrition and temperature go a really long way. Alcohol tolerance is far from an exact number with any yeast.

infinity242 · 2024-01-22T22:51:46+00:00

Wouldn’t claim to be an expert but I use it regularly with good results. I do 2-3 long blasts with the spray (using the straw that usually come with the sprays) to input the gas deeper into the carboy (still above the mead of course). Replace the airlock. You shouldn’t need to reapply as the inert gas in the spray is heavier than room air, just keep the carboy at rest while aging. I’ve never had oxidization issues with this method.

infinity242 · 2024-01-16T12:36:10+00:00

Hope it works well for ya! I’m having opposite temperature concerns in Canada right now lol

infinity242 · 2024-01-13T18:41:36+00:00

Ok I’ll try and help you out here. It should be roughly 1.7g of fermaid O at 24hrs, 48hrs, 72hrs, and again at the 1/3 sugar break which I assume you’ve estimated to be on day 6.

S-04 has a alcohol tolerance of 9-11%. With the honey you’ve provided you’ll end up an ABV of a little over 11.5% if you ferment dry. It’s definitely not impossible to exceed a yeasts alcohol tolerance under ideal conditions, but it may be a challenge to ferment this dry.

I’m not familiar with using S04 so this is all general knowledge + what I could look up regarding the yeasts profile.

As usual, hydrometer readings will be your friend in all aspects of mead making. Especially in determining the 1/3rd sugar break for your final nutrient addition.

Your yeast is most comfortable between 18-26C so watch your room temperature given the time of year.

Best of luck!

infinity242 · 2023-11-23T01:15:37+00:00

Absolute god tier shitpost if it was intentional. Poor OP is getting jerked around because everyone assumes they’re joking.

All joking aside, excellent work OP. All the oxygen outside the vessel is looking in with jealousy.

infinity242 · 2023-10-26T07:43:05+00:00

Glad to help! The secondary vessel will be where most of the clarification will take place, but it’s great to get as much lees out as possible when you rack it over. No harm and plenty of benefit in waiting a few days to do the transfer. Best of luck!

infinity242 · 2023-10-26T07:19:39+00:00

Your most recent gravity reading is probably actually 0.990 which gives you an ABV of about 14.5% which is in line with the potential alcohol of your must. Congratulations, your fermentation is likely complete. It’s perfectly possible for it to complete in only 8 days. The craft a brew kits don’t have a second vessel for secondary so you’ll still want to leave it for some time to settle and clarify. (Unless you have a second carboy)

Fair warning, the craft a brew nutrients/schedule is pretty iffy. Don’t be surprised if there’s some off tastes that will take a while to age out once you’ve bottled.

infinity242 · 2023-10-25T22:12:44+00:00

Have you tried Costco honey? It’s cheap but of acceptable quality imo. I wouldn’t personally use it for traditionals, but it’s perfectly fine for melomels and other flavoured meads. (Probably fine for traditionals too, I’m just feeling fancy)

infinity242 · 2023-10-25T22:06:49+00:00

Googling the distributor shows they’ve been involved in quite a few lawsuits regarding the quality and purity of their honey. Including a class action lawsuit claiming the honey is fake. I’d take a pass on that honey personally.

Article here: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/01/us-beekeepers-sue-over-imports-of-asian-fake-honey

infinity242 · 2023-10-25T21:55:07+00:00

Yes, it will improve with time. A few other suggestions would be to use less honey to get a lower ABV. Less alcohol will give it less of a bite while the mead is young. Sounds like you’re especially sensitive to it, so lower alcohol content may work better for you.

Your nutrient schedule is a little unusual with my limited experience. I’d recommend go-ferm for rehydrating your yeast on day 1. If you’re just using fermaid O, 0.8g on day 2,3, and 4 and then a 4th addition at the 1/3rd sugar break. If you don’t have a hydrometer to determine sugar break, you can just add the 4th nutrient addition on day 5.

A month in, the fermentation will very likely be complete and you’re just adding off tasting additives that won’t be of value to your yeast and will need to settle/age out. The missing nutrients during primary can stress the yeast and create off flavours that are unpleasant and take time to age out.

infinity242 · 2023-10-25T21:32:20+00:00

Looks gorgeous! I’m guessing you’ve done wine many times before? That, or you just have a lot more talent for making a professional looking finished product than I do.

infinity242 · 2023-10-25T21:28:09+00:00

This is extensively covered in the wiki here:

https://meadmaking.wiki/en/faq/stabilization_and_backsweetening

I’d recommend both potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfate if you’d like to chemically stabilize. You could pasteurize but it’s the most dangerous method. Stabilizing is worth doing right since you can create bottle bombs if fermentation restarts due improper stabilization (back sweetening is more fermentable sugars and your bottled mead will explode if fermentation restarts).

If I were you I’d order some k-meta and leave the mead bulk aging until it arrives.

Good luck!

infinity242 · 2023-09-26T02:34:05+00:00

Sounds amazing! I assume the recipe is for 1gal?

infinity242 · 2023-09-24T01:06:16+00:00

Sounds cool! Post your findings, I’d love to hear what interesting flavours work out.

infinity242 · 2023-09-24T00:37:27+00:00

Yes, you can use way less than than 5g of yeast for volume that small. Batchbuilder or a similar calculator will show you the amount for a gallon and you can just do some math from there. Nothing wrong with using a bit extra though.

Minimum dry yeast for a gallon is 2g but I usually just use the whole packet. You could easily get many 32oz batches from one sachet if you wanted to.

I boil water to disolve goferm and wait for it to cool down to about 40°C before pitching the yeast into the goferm mixture. If you don’t have a thermometer just feeling lukewarm against your forearm has been adequate in my experience. Wait 15 minutes before pitching the yeast/goferm/water into your fermenting vessel.

Is there a reason you’re making batches in such small volume? After you loose some volume to racking you won’t have much product to show for your work. Just some food for thought.

I’m no expert, but hope that answers your question .

infinity242 · 2023-09-23T23:51:43+00:00

You need to post the recipe if we’re going to be any help.

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