Yep. One of them glass gallons of mead exploded in my coat closet. Guess it was time to clean the closet. Is anyone missing a black leather women's jacket from maybe last winter when we had the bowling tournament? We can't figure out where it came from. On the bright side it happened now and not when we are off on break. I'd rather stay up late on a work night cleaning than put it off all break.
At least you wern't in the line of fire when it happened. Before the last mead run, I had an unopened two liter bottle of raspberry mead explode on ME...right in my face, a whole two liter raspberry mead shower. I never was able to clean all of it off the walls and ceiling in the kitchen. Will just have to paint over it eventually.... ::)
It was Egyptian!!!!!!!!!!! >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(
I heard about this and have been replacing some friends' orders as well. Quite the pressure build up, eh?
What happenned:
The wine/mead is now flash pasturized. This means they bring it up to ~140 degrees for about 30 seconds and let it cool normally. Last October, they set up the equipment and it was working perfectly. That was when the shop was 70 degrees inside and the floor was 60 degrees. Well, the temperature dropped since. The shop is 40 degrees and the floor is about 45 degrees. The system was not recalibrated to adjust for this. I don't think the mead reached a stable 140 for long enough.
What we discusses last weekend:
They will be building a larger unit in the near future. For now, they are setting the barrels on plywood and wrapping a heat blanket around them to get the product to ~80 degrees. Then they are running the product thru the pasturizer at a much slower rate, aiming for a stable 140-150 degrees. They also have a microscope on the way so they can inspect the yeast cultures to assure proper death. I suggested they use the chemicals as well, though half the normal ammount, until the new unit is built. They are trying to avoid this.
I will be taking my holiday weekend at the farm to replace the bad product.
I hope it wasn't a glass bottle that explodd on you Jamie. That could of been rather bad.
The bottle did not exploded on him. When he opened the pop top on the bottle it came all out the open top. Almost happened to me the other day, but I opened it slowly and keep my hand on top of the topper, only lost a little of it. ;D
this was an explosion. Shards of glass every where.
Quote from: Ren Jen on December 24, 2008, 02:46:10 PM
this was an explosion. Shards of glass every where.
WOW! I thought you meant the top just exploded off. I wonder if you had a cracked bottle and the pressure eventually shattered it.
One of our jugs did the same thing. Luckily it was inside another container, so we can just pour it into something else. Nothing lost, thank the Mead gods for that. Otherwise I would have cried, and that ain't pretty.
i use my canning jars and put em in fridge. Never had any explosions altho my bro wonders why I got so many jars of piss in my fridge.
William: Are you saying I get my gallon replaced???
I will be going to the brew shop to see if they have something with a relief valve or something so this doesnt happen again. For now our jugs are sitting on the floor and Jenn released pressure out of another one that was bad as well. I cant beleive those black caps held all that pressure in I would have thought it would have burst, not the whole glass jug. There was literally nothing left of the glass jug it was like a pipe bomb went off or sumthin. I guess Im just gonna have to drink this stuff fast ::)
Fearing my older bottles would 'plode I decided to remove them from my wine cabinet and dump them (I had several turn "fizzy" in the past). Well I popped the cork on the first bottle of Egyptian, no fizz. Well I could not just leave it there so I poured it down the drain (read: my own throat). Left the others where they were...feeling remarkably chipper this morning! I may have to prevent further explosions tonight!
Quote from: Lord Fondlebottom on December 24, 2008, 08:22:03 PM
William: Are you saying I get my gallon replaced???
I will be going to the brew shop to see if they have something with a relief valve or something so this doesnt happen again. For now our jugs are sitting on the floor and Jenn released pressure out of another one that was bad as well. I cant beleive those black caps held all that pressure in I would have thought it would have burst, not the whole glass jug. There was literally nothing left of the glass jug it was like a pipe bomb went off or sumthin. I guess Im just gonna have to drink this stuff fast ::)
I would suspect they'll allow you to swap out product, but you'll have to contact them to be sure. I cannot speak for them. The caveat is that the farm 'officially' closed Saturday.
Options:
Sodium Metabisulphate and Potassium Sorbate will respectively 'kill' and 'prevent' fermentation. Get the mead somewhere cold ASAP and get the chemicals from Northern Brewer, Brew 'n Grow, or any other wine shop. It's cheap. The cold will slow it down. These chemicals (commonly used in wineries) will stop the problem.
Remember:
When you run out, Keegan's has it for sale @ ~$6.50/glass.
One of mine turn fizzy on me too. Seriously bumming, it just don't taste right.
Well, concern lead me to open another bottle last night and again the result was the same, no fizz. Again I was forced to consume it lest it go to waste. One important point, all mine came from a stash I had from last year that I forgot about, stored in a cool and dark location.
The only 'bad' batch was from mid November thru mid December purchases.
The 'taste' can be corrected by killing the ferment, filtering thru a coffee filter, and adding some sugar to taste. Otherwise, contact the farm and try to arrange a day to swap product.
Oh Oh I've got about 2 cases from October 2007 left........some with the 'hard' bottle from over fermenting. What to do what to do (besides drink it all at once!)....... :-[
Sorry to hear about the messes from exploding mead. I drank all mine too fast to have it explode.