I think part of the ripening (on the plant) does lose water. I can't remember if any of my peppers ever (of hot I have only done jalapenos and hot banana peppers. Pretty sure the banana got way hotter than they are supposed to be.) Those I think the red did have less water than the normal yellow. Also I don't think they ripen anymore once picked. I could be wrong. Maybe ripened in the sun?
Plants continue doing their thing until the cells begin to die, this is why some grocery stores are selling tomatoes still attached to the vine, the vine is no longer receiving nutrients, but will continue supplying nutrients within it until there is nothing left to supply, fruits and most vegetables will continue to ripen as long as the cells are alive, and afterwards they will begin to decay, which is also part of the process, just not desirable for consumption, usually. I'm not sure if jalepenos are plucked green however in the intent that they'll ripen, or simply because that's when people want them, because unlike most fruits/vegetables, it's not the sugar content we're after in their case.
Fairly certain they are picked green to serve/sell them green (not certain but I think they get hotter as they ripen due to less water.) I have seen red jalapenos in store but never in a restaurant (despite them being used on restaurant logos and menus. I'm looking at you Chilies).
Took a sample of the jalapeno mead and wow. Sweet initially, then you get the tingle of a weak jalapeno popper, and it fades back into that velvety mead feel. The "heat" doesn't last long, but it's not bad. I think I'll definitely be moving up to habanero to crank up the heat a little more and get that much better flavor.
Also, mango passion fruit juice? Way too low of a pH to ferment properly. Used half a gallon with half a gallon of mead to make a melomel and it finished already. The straight gallon of juice I was trying to turn into a cider though is stuck. I have a gallon of apple juice, so I think I'll combine the two and see if that raises the pH enough to make the yeast happy.
Jalepeno's yes, other plants not so much XD I have seen jalepeno's turning color in the store though ^.^
I’m finally looking at being somewhere long enough to make and enjoy my own mead. That said I have a few issues, it may or may not be a country that prohibits fermented drinks and tasty pink 4 legged animals. While I’m allowed to import two bottles for personal consumption each trip in I’d rather expand my options. First big issue is that I’m stuck with scrounging for what ever yeast might happen to have been imported, so I’m expecting only to find bread yeasts and not any of the fancy things. The things that are imported are likely to be a mixed bag of stuff. Second issue is the temperature, the buildings cold soak in the winter and heat soak in the summer. My pantry stays at about 43-48 deg this time of year, might get as much as 52 in the basement. Summer time it will be in the 80’s in the pantry, the basement should stay in the 70’s and be better. Are there any tricks to keep the yeast happy in a colder than ideal climate? Outside of sticking to recipes that call for baking yeast, are there other things I should consider for my mixtures? Also I’m at high altitude here just under 6,000 ft. Finally due to the frowned upon consumption of great drinks, I will be doing this in the best shoestring fashion just as my moonshiner relatives in the hills of KY.
You can use bread yeast in any brews. It doesn't have the alcohol tolerance of brewing yeasts, but it is absolutely fine to swap in for whatever the recommended yeast is. I think it tops out between 10-11%, so you'll just have to adjust your sugar/honey additions to compensate, or have super sweet wine/mead.
For temperature grab a couple cheap styrofoam coolers you can stuff one inside the other, make yourself a little insulated brewing box. Fill the space between the inner one and the outer with water during the summer and you should be able to maintain a very regular temperature inside the inner cooler. Of course this limits how much you can brew at a time, unless you want to set up multiple coolers, but you should be able to regulate your temperature a bit easier with little more than some water and maybe a space heater for winter.
Wouldn't you need a way to bleed off the CO2 produced? From the cooler. Though I supposed you could put another airlock on the cooler itself (not so much to keep oxygen out but to keep the temperature where you want while letting CO2 out). Unless mead you don't need to do that. I haven't made mead yet. Just ciders.
might be a concern but I don't think so, not unless you're stuffing your cooler to the brim. The cheap ones don't really get an airtight seal, and if it did end up being a problem you could just as easily drill yourself a little relief hole without costing yourself too much in the way of temperature change. If you wanted to keep it cold you could simply keep the bottles in a bucket of water, it won't be freezing but since water changes temperatures so much slower than air and then having to transfer through 3 media it'd keep it pretty stable for quite some time. Using two coolers simply creates additional media transitions instead of having to change the temperature of the air and then the water, and then the bottle it has to change each individual cooler and then the air/water inside it. It won't work forever, but it should give you plenty of time to react if the temperature starts to exceed or drop below your ideal thresholds.
I've been watching a YouTube channel where they try to do brews and cooking as simple as they can. Apparently they have quite a few fans from areas like you're in where yeast and brewing chemicals are difficult to come by.
Holy shit. $55 for 3 pounds of avocado honey. https://www.rawhoneyjar.com/products/avocado-raw-honey?variant=7754055024682 Also I am thinking of attempting making my 1st batch of mead this weekend. Probably going to use lalvin 71B-1122. And have 2.5 pounds of clover honey. I don't know about buying honey from them for making mead (because that would be expensive) but the epic honey bee actually helps save bees. Every jar of Epic Honey is the result of rescued bees, who were up for extermination, but nobly saved in their final moments and relocated to a safe haven, where they could continue serving the population at large. Proceeds from your purchase, today, go directly towards the efforts of saving hundreds of thousands of bees every month. Every $20 you spend with Epic Honey Co. saves right around 5,000 bees through our partnership with the American Honey Bee Protection Agency. Yes instead of calling an exterminator you can call the protection agency who will come and move the bee hive. https://epichoney.com (No I'm not getting any money from them. But growing my own blackberries I prefer buying honey if at least some of the money goes towards saving bees. I know some of the harris teeter stuff does).
Yeah, certain honeys are stupid expensive. Your mead may go dry at 2.5lbs with 71B, but it should still taste sweet. Honey does weird stuff like that.
I did a raw honey sampler. I could always throw 1 of those jars in. Probably won't they are only 2 ounces. I think. I need to find a raw honey place near me (there probably is one.) I probably wouldn't do raw honey often. I have been seeing different ferment times when looking it up. Some things say it takes 3 months and others say 1. Is 1 the minimum? And it just gets better as it goes longer?
wait. It's 40 fluid ounces so I think it is actually a little under 4 pounds of honey. because reasons.
Wow, I have never even heard of avocado honey - sounds really specialized. I wonder how it tastes. I do wish I had an occasion to go back down to the Tallahassee, FL area again. I had a friend down there for a time when she was in grad school, and they had tupelo honey down there that could be bought local for good prices. There was this one country road we could drive down and a farmer would put out jars of it on a shelf with prices and a can to put the cash... honor system. Could buy a huge jar of it for a super good price.
Times are dependent on so many variables. Temperature, yeast, water, etc. If you have a hydrometer, that's the best way to know if it's done. Otherwise I'd just keep an eye on it. When the airlock stops bubbling, wait another couple weeks. Rack it, degas it, then leave it to sit another couple weeks and keep an eye on the airlock. If it doesn't bubble anymore, it's probably done. Rack it one more time, degas it again, then bottle it. The higher your alcohol content, the longer it'll take to mellow and stop tasting like rocket fuel. The degassing helps, but time is the best thing for mead. If you have a kitchen scale, use that. If it's 2.5lbs, I wouldn't add anything and just see how it turns out. Like I said, honey does weird things. I've had meads and cysers go bone dry according to the hydrometer, yet they still taste semi-sweet. If you end up adding too much you can stall the yeast or make it ferment extremely slowly.
Huh. I'll know for certain later (did buy a kitchen scale) but I wonder if the bottles of honey I have are listing the fluid ounces. While I think most honey farms sell by weight ounces (1 ounce in weight is not necessarily 1 fluid ounce. With water it is the same. But I think honey is heavier than water).
Calculating Honey Weight Containers on our website are listed with a capacity in fluid ounces. This can be confusing when it comes to honey containers, which are typically labeled and sold based on net weight ounces, sometimes called “honey weight.” So what is the difference between fluid ounces and net weight ounces? And how can you determine how much honey our honey jars will hold? Fluid Ounces vs. Net Weight Ounces Fluid ounces (FL. OZ) is a measure of volume or how much space something takes up. Net weight ounces (NET WT. OZ) is a measure of mass or how heavy something is. Usually liquids are measured in fluid ounces and dry goods are measured in net weight ounces. Calculating the Net Weight of Honey For water, the ratio of fluid ounces to net weight ounces is 1:1. In other words, one fluid ounce of water equals one net weight ounce. This is very handy when you are measuring water. But honey is heavier than water. So one fluid ounce of honey weighs more than one net weight ounce. Specifically, one fluid ounce of honey equals approximately 1.5 net weight ounces. https://www.berlinpackaging.com/toolbox/calculating-honey-weight/
