Ricky's Mead Brewing Journal - Week of 10/31 - Brewing Again

A week in which Ricky cleans every single tank, brews two different base meads, some of the mead gets into bottles, and hints at a new product.

10/31
Happy Halloween! Boy am I glad that we didn't all decide to wear our costumes to the meadery. While I look absolutely fabulous as the dad from Calvin and Hobbes, it definitely wouldn't have survived the start of the big tank clean. Also, there's no need for me to go around in bike shorts at work all day. 



11/1
Got another seven books converted for the online store! I wonder if anyone knows about our book distributing company yet. Probably not because I think this is the first time I've mentioned it. While I love working with Chelsea Green, getting to control the printing process and having access to so many cool Anglo-Saxon texts is really exciting. Just noticed that it's Tuesday and I haven't really talked about mead yet.

Hmmmm.... good gods I hope my honey finally gets here this week.

11/2
The honey shipped! It should be here by Friday! Thank goodness! Got another round of books online and successfully made it to all my meetings. Oh, and I got the honey posting up as well!

11/3
Time to clean every single tank in anticipation of that honey getting here! I thought it would be a great idea to save up all the tanks and clean them in one big day. I am questioning not only that, but many of my other life decisions today.

11/4
Honey got here, but it's about 65 degrees so no brewing today! Luckily, I have five more tanks to clean. I figured out the problem from yesterday! Jake only set the water to 120F instead of 140F which throws off all of the flow rates, thus all of the volume! Problem solved. Running beautifully today.

11/5
BREWING! I totally don't mind being in on a Saturday if it means starting six batches of mead. Running a new experiment with doing smaller batches at a faster rate with designated final tanks. We'll see how it goes.

Oh, and I also started the mushroom farm officially today!


These are all of Ricky’s actual notes on our meadery operation and the mead we make. There might be profanity, usually of the late 19th Century variety. The only redactions are to remove the names of people and businesses when deemed appropriate. Footnotes provided by Jess and Kelly.