Commercial trees may be grafted, not All citrus trees are grafted

Sounds great!

When you add water, you're diluting the alcohol content and sugar content, making it easier for yeast to start up again sure, but you're also lowering the potential ABV. Decisions decisions!

Our pleasure!

Just a thought for you... when it's stuck, don't rack. That takes away half your yeast colony and now they have to build back up again, which can create off flavors. If, in fact the colony is dead, they would serve as nutrients for the new yeast you added. Just a heads up for next time!

The reason why I did rack this time is because I tried a number of ways to unstick the fermentation, including adding new yeast directly, and it only worked for a couple days. It was like adding good to bad, by the way it seemed, and the results were pretty disappointing. Now that I've racked and added new yeast, the new yeast is snacking on the remaining old dead yeast, fermentation is going like a rocket, and there's a 3/4 inch foamy head on top.

I know you've been waiting for this one!

Starting mine today! Very excited!

Yeah, the mic is just out of frame above us so it picks up any little noise in that whole area, lol.

What would you have done to to start your yeast back up to raise your alcohol content

I have made 4 batches of mojito mead since early summer. It is consistently the best young mead I make. You can drink it right after bottling. I get requests for it from the friends I’ve shared it with.

Good to know. I would think it won't be that different to the kilju version really, since mint and lime are the main components for flavor anyway.

@@CitySteadingBrews Agreed. I even use turbanido sugar for 1/3 of the fermentable sugar in my mojito mead recipe.

I'm confused... if you're making your own mead, make it however you like. Also, 13% is not a hydromel, that's approaching sack mead territory. :) EC-1118 is one of the worst yeasts for mead imo, especially if you want to keep the ABV low. It doesn't produce bad tasting mead, it just makes making a sweeter mead nearly impossible, like you said. I'd honestly use bread yeast before using EC-118.

@@CitySteadingBrews I'm planning on starting with 1.5lbs - 2lbs of honey. Problem is that its a lower expected abv than the tolerance of bread yeast or ec-1118. Is restarting the primary fermentation by back sweetening a realistic issue in the end? After racking and letting it sit for a couple weeks or is pasteurization the only option?

I've made water Kefier with coconut water and it fermented VERY well. It made a really delicious ginger-lime soda, but the coconut flavor didn't really come through for me. I imagine if it worked well for water kefier it would work as a liquid base for beer or mead too. For the coconut milk, I think it would depend on the fat% as to weather or not it would work, since i think higher fat% can inhibit the yeast. It's probably worth trying a small batch to see how it turns out.

I'm sure you could. Not a LOT of sugars, but you can use it in place of water in a brew. I'm not sure it will give a lot of flavor though.

Having a spout doesn't 'stop' fermentation. That's just a way to test it along the way!

@@CitySteadingBrews your right but it does give the brewer the chance to stop fermentation early or let it finish and back sweeten thanks for the reply

That's relly good idea I love experimenting

Ours took a while to ferment too.

Thanks for the reply just finished woching the 2nd video you put out on mojito (for the 3rd time lol) . I forget that inpatients isn't part of this hobby. Just started brewing 12 weeks ago so ive my 1st apple cider bottle. Stuffed that up to much yeast and to little sugar was done in a week got about 2%abv think didn't take a reading at the start. We tryed a bottle last week pretty good

No idea.

Yup, mint totally does. Lime wasn't added until after fermentation though.

We left the mint for over a month.

We're thinking it might be Rangpur at this point.

Yes, we use yeast hulls for that... same thing.

We do one gallon for ease of making a video. It's exactly the same process, just scale by how many gallons. For us, with making as many brews as we do, we'd just have a LOT more brews lying around.

@@CitySteadingBrews makes sense, thanks for the reply. Would love to see beneath the desk of fermentation and see the scale of which you guys brew. You guys kill it, thank you again for your channel!

Just showed the 'shelf of fermentation' in a YT story the other day! We upgraded from the desk, lol.

The one that went live 3 minutes ago?

@@CitySteadingBrews oh great! Thank you

How did it go?

Some people sanitize it. We just wash them under the tap.

@@CitySteadingBrews Thank you for your very fast reply. I am looking forward to tasting the tea wine.

Exactly.

It’s just turbo yeast. I get it though!

We think they are rangpur limes, at least that is today’s theory!

@@CitySteadingBrews cool, I love all this stuff, and I appreciate how active and responsive you two are

Wine and mead both have such varying flavors, I'm sure you can find a mead you like.

I look up amount of sugar in any given fruit per pound and calculate from there.

We've learned ours are NOT kaffir limes, probably rangpur.

Several directions you can go. Diluting as you said, more yeast as you said. Fortifying with distilled spirits can help. Oaking can take down a sweet brew somewhat. Without knowing what 'homemade wine' you made, it's hard to offer more suggestions.

@@CitySteadingBrews the recipe i used was very similar to the wine for beginners recipe you posted a video on. i used a juice containing white grape, cranberry, and apple juice. all without preservatives. some sugar and some honey. since it was a different juice than what you used and i mixed honey and sugar it's not surprising i went to heavy on the sugars. i wish i had that initial reading but alas i do not.

Mint does have antimocrobial properties but I would think it wouldn't be that pronounced.

Refractometers aren't accurate once fermentation starts. Use a hydrometer. There's no way you got 31%.

The fermentation process creates gasses which will cause solids, like raisins, to "dance." :)

Could be yeast.

@@CitySteadingBrews Well my Franklin is another week old (3weeks). I took a reading today and it is 0.990. Completely dry. It tastes like a dry mint wine. So I'm going to rack it today and add the lime and zest. I want to back sweeten it. Should I just mix in some more sugar or make a sugar wash with some warm water and pour it in? Not really sure just adding sugar and agitating it is the right thing to do.

@@jbafternoonpiper404 It's possible you could get a referment if you backsweeten, but just let it ride and sweeten again if needed.

To make a larger batch, you just scale everything up except yeast.

I have no idea what could come of this and I'm reluctant to give opinions since it could be hazardous to your health. Also, I don't think fermentations will give enough consistent CO2 production to make this worthwhile at all.

LOL, yep!

Sure. I might actually try that.

@@CitySteadingBrews oh! Basil with honey makes a great cough syrup. This is a wonderful herbal medicine in India. We just need to see if mead can be made out of it.👍

@@Dave_en I don't see why not.

It depends on the glue used for the labels. Sometimes they simply need a good soak in hot water. Sometimes soaking in Sanitizer liquid helps. Sometimes a little Goo-be-gone does the trick though it can leave a greasy residue. Often I do the soak then scrape with a blade method, but be careful!

74-78 f

Try raising the temperature? Yeast slow down when cold.

@@CitySteadingBrews thanks for help 😁👍

We use filtered water actually.

But for sanitation? Sure!

Too late now really. Don't worry, it's fine :)

They are rangpur limes.

​@@CitySteadingBrewsThe makrut or Thai lime* is among the most distinctive citruses I've ever grown or known. The leaf is unmistakable: it looks like someone took a standard three- to four-inch citrus leaf, folded it along the stem like a taco, made a decoratively curved V-shaped cut about an inch up from the base of the leaf, then unfurled it. The scent of a makrut leaf is likewise unmistakable: comparing it to a cross between lime zest and lime flower understates the perfume. When I owned a makrut tree, I used to make a lowish-alcohol potation that I called "margarita mead" with dark agave syrup plus piloncillo (Mexican very dark brown sugar in cone shape), fermented with lemongrass (I think) and extract of dried orange and bitter orange peel plus saison yeast, and at bottling I'd tuck a lightly torn whole makrut leaf in each bottle. It wasn't very margarita-like, but it was pretty yummy. Makrut fruits are zestable, but the surface of the fruit - my makrut's fruit had the squat yurt-shaped profile of an especially wide-for-length satsuma tangerine - is knobbled in a pattern unsettlingly like the gyres of a human brain. The pith is easily the bitterest of any citrus in my experience; producing palatable zest and juice was generally too daunting to bother. I miss my little makrut tree! But it pleased me greatly, just last week, to discover that the "That's Tasty" brand of refrigerated fresh herbs has added "lime leaves" - makrut leaves - to the lineup! *The scientific name of makrut or Thai lime is Citrus hystrix. The common name "kaffir lime" is increasingly disfavored; the least objectionable translation of the Arabic word "kaffir" is 'infidel', and as with most words that refer to Them Who Are Not Us, the connotations only get ruder from there.

These are rangpur, as I said above.

Happened to us too, it's the wild yeast colonies.

@@CitySteadingBrews Oh ok! Thank you! Glad I didn't pitch it.

Easy is relative! Before bottling, add some priming sugar and a bit of champagne yeast. Then bottle and it will carb. An ounce of sugar per gallon should do.

Maybe. Might help some.

Not really. To carbonate properly, you degas it first, then create a small controlled fermentation in the bottle. The 'old' gasses will not taste so good, but the young gas is just enough to fizz.

What are you making and how much are you making?

@@CitySteadingBrews one gallon of Kilju

One or two should be enough.

100 ml

I also don’t have an airlock because i really wanted to try before going out to buy a bunch of stuff. So now i’ve just rubberbanded a thin cloth over the top

I wouldnt worry about stuff floating at the top. As long as everything was cleaned prior and you have a sealed airlock on it, you should be ok. Its been 5 months, how did it turn out?

@@user-kb1hw2yq2f it was amazing

@@jumboolifant876 Anything you'd do different? I'm about to make the mint one today for the first time.

@@user-kb1hw2yq2f i used the recipe as a pretty loose guide because this was my first time making booze and didn’t want to spend a lot of money. I only bought ingredients but no special equipment. I’d say if you use regular bakers yeast to be really carful moving the brew to rack it or maybe even put it in the racking location, let it sit for a few hours and carefully rack it. I got a lot of yeast in my final bottle and it tasted kind like licorice when it mixed in with the brew

Well.... you say that but many others who have made Kilju are saying higher gravity ones NEVER ferment in less than a month. Sure, this isn't 'traditional' kilju. Then again... kilju is just sugar water and bread yeast.... the other things are added to make it palatable.

@@CitySteadingBrews It depends often traditional kilju has target abv 13%vol if higher then many people use turbo yeast that haves nutrients

@@CitySteadingBrews I cant seem to find the email address i have found a good Rooibos tea beer receipe for you to try

We don't. It settles naturally.

I've tried finding historical references to it and never come up with anything substantial. Not sure I've seen the honey reference though! I mean, it was made in the home, so it's essentially cheap fermented sugar, so that could mean almost anything really.

@@CitySteadingBrews I didn’t see anything substantial either about it. I was just curious.

@@jakematthews6982 Yup, I don't think it's all that old, probably 100 years or less, and today's version might be quite different than 100 years ago too.

@@CitySteadingBrews I’ve read more info saying that kilju was first popularized during their own prohibition era. So mead, in my opinion, is it’s own thing. And better tasting too.

Sure if you want a nice cold beverage.

I knew someone would say it! :)

Pretty much what we did here. That’s kilju. We added mint and lime to make it mojito flavored.

@@CitySteadingBrews wow i just commented on your most recent video I had no idea if I actually watched the video I would have found my answer

Safe is such a relative term. All the methanol, ethanol, and everything stays in freeze distillation, whereas with regular distillation, you only keep the alcohol.

@@CitySteadingBrews thank you for all your responses, im still learning, im going to do a little more research before I start my first brew.

@@CitySteadingBrews from what you've said in your past videos, as long as i dont drink more than 1 gallon worth (you said 2 gallons+) the methanol level shouldnt be dangerous. Im not drinking a gallons worth, 😂 then id have another problem (like you said)

Well... yes and no. Technically speaking, ethanol is the cure for methanol poisoning so you really can't have a problem, but... alcohol is complex, and there are a lot of things in there already. Concentrating them seems like a bad idea, though it was done for centuries, and there's almost no records of harm. I don't promote it due to legalilty.

Depends on gravity, temp and yeast used :)

Why test wine yeast vs champagne yeast? I don't understand.

@@CitySteadingBrews what I mean wine yeast and champagne yeast tend to different in final product. my question is what if have a gallon of water and honey(batch) and we put 2.5 g of wine yeast and 2.5 champagne yeast (total of 5 g for a gallon) hope that makes sense

Generally when you mix yeast one colony will kill off the other by starving them out. You won't get a mix of properties. Whichever colony gets a head start in building itself up will starve the other. Wine yeast and champagne yeast are the same thing, in reality. There are a huge number of types of wine yeast and champagne yeast, so a comparison would be VERY complicated to do properly. Most wine yeasts are 12-15%, most champagne yeasts top out around 18% for alcohol tolerance, if that's what you mean by the differences, well... using the same recipe one will be sweeter so long as you surpass it's tolerance.

1.124 is a bit higher than we like to start but it’s not that high really.