Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

Began a batch of a mead consisting of
1.5 Gallons Wildflower Honey
1.25 Gallons Black Cherry Juice
1.25 Gallons Black Currant Juice
1.0 Gallon Blueberry Juice

Pitched two packages of re-hydrated 71B and some nutrients.

The hardest part.....pouring 1.5 gallons of honey from a 60# five gallon bucket.

Let the de-gassing begin!

daryl wrote:Began a batch of a mead consisting of

The hardest part.....pouring 1.5 gallons of honey from a 60# five gallon bucket.

Let the de-gassing begin!

When I work from a bulk container, I go by weight assuming 12 lbs per gallon (it's wee a bit more than a gallon, but not enough to be an issue).

I put my primary on a scale and zero it out. Then I pour in the honey till I hit the desired weight.

And I use a lid with a spout.

https://www.uline.com/Product/ProductDe ... ber=S-9943

Used that technique and a spout....still poured slow - the honey has been sitting a while and, while not hard, crystals are beginning to form.

Next time, I will place the bucket of honey on a warming map to thin it out a bit.

The next time 42 pounds will be better than 60 pounds!

Thanks Pat.

Haven't worked with that much honey in a single container yet. The half gallon containers fit nicely in a 5 gal bucket of hot water to improve the flow.

Finally got around to adding the strawberries to my mead. 4# of frozen strawberries (2 Qts puree) in 1.5 gallons of mead. Checked the final gravity on the mead before adding the strawberries - ABV = 13.8% and bone dry (0.998). A booze bomb at this point. Hope it calms down by the competition!

daryl wrote:Began a batch of a mead consisting of
The hardest part.....pouring 1.5 gallons of honey from a 60# five gallon bucket.

I ordered a case of 1/2Gal mason jars from Walmart, and put the whole bucket into them at once, only one big messy thing one time then! and much easier to un-crystalize a half gallon glass jar then a 6gal bucket.

I also noticed that all but the last jar seem to have not crystalized (this was a strained-not-filtered, raw local honey) presumably because most of the crystalization-causing debris would have slowly settled to the bottom before I split it up.

daryl wrote: Next time, I will place the bucket of honey on a warming map to thin it out a bit.

Big cardboard box. Trouble light with a 60 watt bulb. Leave in the box with the light on for a couple of days. It will pour just fine.