Hey folks! An update on this one! We removed the lime leaves after about 3 days. We found the flavor might take over. Oh, and... it's ALIVE! Yep, it's fermenting already. To see the next video in this series go here: Pomegranate Wild Yeast Mead Update - How You Doin?: th-cam.com/video/DOcsy7Ixhoo/w-d-xo.html
Woohoo!!! First!!! Love the show guys and I appreciate all y'all do for the mead and homebrew community! If you ever make it out of Florida after quarantine, y'all got a friend in Central Texas!
You guys have inspired me again!! I'm thinking this spring when the trees start to come back alive, we have a couple of sugar maple trees that we can get some leaves and twigs from. Super excited about that! Would be very cool to learn how to brew without buying any yeast at all! You know... with the coming zombie apocalypse and all... LOL!!
I'm thinking the same. Just waiting for them darn leaves to pop out. Buds have been forming for the past week. We shall see. Please share your experience!
Hello Brian & Derica! Love your videos and your ethos. An elderly neighbor of mine recently had an unfortunate accident that broke her hip and put her in rehab to mend. She has a beautiful pomegranate tree in her front yard and encouraged us to harvest the fresh pomegranates while she is recovering. This presents an unexpected opportunity to try out the recipe you present in your "Wild Fermentation Pomegranate Mead" series, but modify it to use the fresh fruit rather than bottles of juice. Also, I am an admitted novice to mead making so I'm going to weenie out and just use Lalvin 71B to reduce the number of variables (unless you have a better recommendation for a commercial yeast given the properties of pomegranate juice to arrive at a mildly sweet finish with or without back sweetening, as necessary). I'm scaling ingredient quantities up appropriately for a 1.4 gallon Little Wide Mouth Bubbler Fermenter. So I have two questions: (1) When working with fresh pomegranate fruit, can one just do a rough crush of the fruit's grains and throw them and the resulting juice into the fermenter, or would you have concern about the seeds imparting bitterness (or some other funky taste) if not separated out? (2) Do you see any need to freeze the fruit grains to help break down cell walls in the pulpy flesh part of the grains and kill off any unwanted microbes prior to adding to the fermenter? Ultimate goal is to share some of the resulting brew with our neighbor in gratitude for her kindness and generosity. Thank you in advance for any sage guidance and advice you may provide!
No idea what Brian and Derica would do, but my gut feeling would make me break out the food mill and crush the fresh (peeled) fruit after separating out the individual kernels. Then I’d strain out any solids. The membranes and seeds are pretty bitter so I’d want them out. Mind you, this is only a shot in the dark as I’ve never made pomegranate wine or pomegranate mead. I’m just going off the taste of the fresh fruit. I’ve got absolutely no idea if my gut feeling is correct or not. To put it bluntly, I’m kinda talking out of my a**. More politely put: it’s an educated guess. Did you make that mead? How did it turn out?
@@eddavanleemputten9232 Thank you so much for your input. I ended up using organic pomegranate juice. I found a source for the juice that has just one ingredient: "100% organic pomegranate juice." So it's not from concentrate and doesn't have any "-ites" or "-ates" in it. I was concerned about crushing or processing the kernels since the seeds are pretty bitter, as you mentioned. After a vigorous fermentation with 1/2 packet of Lalvin-71B and O.G=1.152 in 1.4 gallon Little Big Mouth Bubbler for about five weeks, I racked to secondary in a glass one gallon jug with S.G.=1.053 with an approx. ABV=13.0-13.5%. Despite the high ending gravity, the pomegranate juice's natural tartness keeps it from tasting sicky sweet. I did a second racking into bottles for final conditioning. I have already started brewing a second batch in which I have modified the recipe by adding 1 cup black tea, 1 cinnamon stick, 10 black peppercorns crushed, 12 cardamom seeds, and the the zest of 1 orange to create a more complex and spicy version. I highly recommend giving pomegranate mead a try if you are thinking about doing it. Cheers!
@@scottcarpenter5364 - Thanks for the feedback! If I ever get my hands on pomegranate juice that’s simply pure juice I’m definitely giving this a go! Right now I’ve got a cherry-berry cyser going. Just a small batch in a 4-litre fermenter, but it looks like it’s going to be a success. The recipe I came up with was: 1 kg of tart cherries, frozen and slashed 1 litre of mixed ‘summer berry juice’, ingredients are apple juice and various berries. It’s cloudy and cale from the refrigerated section of the supermarket 2 litres of clear 100% apple juice (only added ingredient was ascorbic acid) Lalvin 71B yeast Wildflower honey 200 grams extra frozen tart cherries for secondary fermentation (I thought) Initial gravity was 1.090 and the fermentation was WILDLY ACTIVE. When it was done I racked it and added the second batch of cherries, hoping to impart more cherry flavour. Fermentation kicked off again but has slowed to next to nothing now and it.s starting to clear. The cherry scent definitely is stronger and more fruity despite fermentation kicking back up after the addition. The idea is to bottle-condition it for a sparkly cyser. If it’s too tart I’m either going to back sweeten a bit with lactose as that’s an unfermentable sugar, or I’m backsweetening with honey and sterilising the bottles. Not sure which. Lactose kind does give a smooth feel to a drink... but honey keeps it a pure cyser. I’m hoping for a refreshing, sparkly summer drink!
@@eddavanleemputten9232 One point of clarification: for my second batch (with virtually all of the same ingredients as the first) OG = 1.108. This draws into question the accuracy of the OG of my first batch of 1.152. Since this is rapidly become a favorite mead for me and my wife, I will undoubtedly do this again soon and will confirm which SG is more accurate.
@@scottcarpenter5364 - An OG of 1.152 is indeed very high: my own hydrometer only goes to 1.150 which would account for a POSSIBLE alcohol content of more than 20% and that either leans a lot of residual sweetness, or a yeast with a very high tolerance to alcohol... which most yeasts don’t have (Lalvin 71B can go up to 18% in the right conditions). Normally this causes the yeast to be overwhelmed and you stated it fermented vigorously. Then again: as Brian andd Derica so aptly put it: “yeast can’t read!” That, and your maths do add up so it didn’t get overwhelmed. 😊 Do keep an eye on your bottled product though, just in case fermentation kicks back in again... or store the bottles somewhere safe just in case one decides to give you fireworks. The chance is next to none but you never know... right? My own fruity brew has slowed down and is starting to clear. It’s a gorgeous red, the colour of cherry juice. I’ll be racking it off the lees soon for the first time and having a taste and taking a reading. Just to keep busy I’ve mixed up a batch of ginger ale, bottle carbonated it and sterilised it. It was a Valentine’s gift and much appreciated! There’s some traditional mead bottle ageing as well. It’s awesome your wife liked the first batch! I hope the second one is equally successful and that you both keep enjoying the process and the finished product. Brewing is so much fun and so rewarding. I’ll be looking forward to learning how your second batch goes if you feel like sharing!
Oh what timing! I just started a wild fermented strawberry wine yesterday. I got my yeast from plumb flowers off the tree outside and made a starter a few days prior. I would imagine my yeast fermenting out to about 6%, but you never know! At that point I'll add some white wine yeast and finish it off. Great video as always!
Was so happy to find this. I love pomegranate! While I can imagine it with lemon or orange, I'm having a hard time with the lime. I'll have to think on it a bit more. But I will definitely be trying a pomegranate mead. On a tangent, knowing you cook, pomegranate makes the most beautiful red jelly. I made pomegranate jelly long before you could buy the juice. I used it for making thumbprint cookies at Christmas time. Yum! And so pretty!
Great show guys I’m vary interested to see how this comes out. I agree with you about the air lock and now days I use them. Although when I was first starting I bid not. Back then I would mix hard candy and water in a washed out milk jug, dump in some bread yeast and put the top on tight. Then once a day loosen the top to let out pressure, then tighten the cap, shake and repeat tell no pressure builds up when I shook the jug. Thanks for showing me the right way to brew. PS: if you think the way I started brewing was ruff you should see what guys do it at my work.
A side note on the preservatives, most of them work by coating the yeast to keep them from reproducing. If you pitch yeast and leave it long enough, it will ferment. I learned this the hard way when I forgot to read labels and then put stuff back in the gallon jugs(cheap autumn cider here in Michigan) I had a massive mess and no idea about it
@@CitySteadingBrews exactly, it was more of a warning to anyone who thinks that it's safe to repackage it. My whole basement ended up covered in residue
I was reading about the Israeli company that brew a commercial pomegranate wine. They said that a normal pomegranate is too low in sugars to make a good wine, so they breed a whole new kind of pomegranate with higher sugar content.
One of my favourite leaves to use is oak leaves (round edges, not pointy as I’ve heard the pointy ones are poisonous). I can get them freely, no pesticides or other unwanted chemicals. I’ve also dried them and put them aside for in the winter. It works wonderfully.
Can't wait to see how this turns out, I have pomegranate trees that I'm trying to get to fruit and am tempted to try home brewing with them when the time comes
All of my ferments so far have been from wild yeast and I’ve had great success! I make a fermentation starter with organic apples, de chlorinated water and sugar. After a week, it gets all bubbly, and then I add that to the juice I want to ferment.
Interesting note: the tradition here in Scandinavia is to collect meadowsweet for yeast in wild fermentation, with wild fermentation generally being the only kind. People did not add any selected yeast, and actually they still don't in rural areas when they brew mead. Meadowsweet is known in danish and norwegian as mead plant, so the folk gather it, often dry it to have supplies and put it in basically all meads, along with whatever else they're using for the particular mead. Then I guess they pray to Odinn or Freyr to help them along! :)
I've never tried this method before. While I absolutely handing hate to hand someone a grape wine, since they all turn into what I call "hand wavers" or self inflated wine snobs, I only use one method of wild fermentation for the one grape wine that I will make. I pulverize my grapes (I prefer to use the crudest methods for this brew, to emulate the methods of antiquity). and place them in a wok or other wide bowl and cover it with a cheesecloth, leaving it on the kitchen counter for as much as a week. Then I empty the bowl into a carboy, (lacking any goat skins to add tannin), squeezing the pulp through the cloth to remove some of the larger remnants and pop on a bubbler. For this method, I don't use a hydrometer, pouring in as much as 5 lbs of Turbinado sugar. I've never been disappointed, so far, and my friends know better than to express an opinion.
So a new development just came to my attention in my house. 2 weeks ago we bought a 2 liter mango oross still sealed. 3 or 4 days ago the lid popped off and my wife found it like that and just popped the lid back on. Well the lid just popped off again so I guess I am making a wild ferment with you I will be adding sugar to mine
I'm planning this to be my next brew, I will b using Lalvin 71b tho and my question is I want to use a pound of blueberries and a pound of cherries as well during primary, knowing that would you still use 1 pound of honey or 2 pounds of hunny. I'm also going to use the big mouth bubbler you used in another video the 1.4 gallon one
For a tip on food grade plastics. Go to your local walmart bakery or local bakery and ask for a bucket that their icing comes in. From walmart their white and square (good for stacking) I got one so I could brine my Turkey for Thanksgiving. They should be around the 5 gallon range. And may be changed a buck for one. And I think there's a spot marked out that could be used to drill a hole for a airlock. Just some food for thoughts.
Thank you for the tip! I've been wanting a 3 or 5 gallon brew bucket and didn't want (not in my budget rtm) to spend $30 for one! Also, stacking is nice, I have a small house.
When I make this I might use lemon grass or lemon balm instead of lime leaves. I have a herb garden and the lemon balm always goes beserk (so do the mint and tarragon; I have to keep hacking at them). Might not use a wild fermentation though. Perhaps bread yeast...
Hi I am a novice brewer that loves pomegranates and would like to just stick to a non wild pomegranate brew with comercial yeast. How would you change this recipe if you added normal yeast and did mot add the leaves?
I find that fresh pomegranate taste similar to cranberries but still a little different, also for my first brew I did a bad first I put it to about to 1.185~ gravity using mostly honey plus a little bit of sugar because I ran out of honey (it's still going, started it on Sept. 28th last year before you did your step feed brew). I used EC 1118 because I bought it before knowing how high it went. So the brew was at 1.162 on Feb. 19th and it still bubbling away really slowly (will update this weekend when I checked it again). Now my second brew is a cranapple wine using 3/5~ pink cranberry juice to 2/5~ apple juice and about 1kg (2.2 lbs) of sugar and I'm using Fleischmann traditional for my yeast (All made in Canada). Starting gravity was 1.105 and when I checked it after 2 weeks it was at 1.065 so it's going better then my last one. This Saturday will be 3 weeks and I'm going to check it again to see where it's at. From what you guys say it should be around 12% ABV but yeast don't know when to stop like what you guys always say.
I have a couple of lilac bushes. They are completely nontoxic. Should I be concerned about a floral taste, as opposed to a fruity taste being introduced into the brew? Also, this video was a mead making recipe. Can this type of wild yeast harvesting apply to wine fermentation? Your videos are so much fun to watch, I find myself wanting to experiment with all kinds of things I've never even considered before. LOL 🙃
Question on yeast in the air. Your cranberry wild ferment would have gotten yeast from the air. I have also had a bottle of apple juice that started to ferment (it got puffy i did not let it go i just drank it sooner). in both these cases we were making a brew. Is it more likely to start a wild ferment while doing that because there is commercial yeast in the air from the brew making process?
It did not get yeast from the air.... it was opened for 30 seconds, one time. Pretty much not possible at that point. The yeast was in the juice already.
Would be cool if you did a control without the leaves. I assume that the juice is pasteurized, but maybe the raw honey or raisins (assuming they are not sulfited) will bring their own yeast to the party?
I assumed you were using an open air fermentation process? Watched a couple of videos online of people doing that, appealed to me as it’s obviously what they’d have done all those years ago on the early Middle Ages. Have you tried it at all, or know if any reason why it wouldn’t be successful?
The trees on my property are mountain ash, and box elder. I'm going to do my research, and hope that I can just go out in my yard to get my leaves. Can twigs and bark come from any type of trees? I can't see myself doing a midnight raid to steal leaves and twigs from my neighbors trees. 🙃
The nice thing about doing this with pomegranate is if it does turn to vinegar, then you have pomegranate & honey vinegar, some of the best type. It would have been good to do a second batch alongside with commercial yeast for taste and development comparisons.
Here's a question. Have you ever done a wild fermentation from goji leaves? I'm considering trying it but am a little concerned. They say the leaves are bitter, with some sources claiming there may be toxins. So I figured I'd ask experts.
So, I pay in Thailand. 24 baht for 1 kg Natural Unbleached Cane Sugar. 350 baht for 1 kg Raw Homey. Would you think that using honey would produce a wine/mead that is almost 15 times better than using sugar?
I am nowhere near as good as math on the spot as you guys are.. But if I (meaning google math) am correct, 1lb. Honey is 367grams of sugar. and three of those juices are 396grams. So.. technically NOT a mead, right? ;P Ah, but I'm just messing with you. I am a long time brewer, and do not generally comment but you guys are honestly my goto resource for ideas and general knowledge. Keep on brewing! and keep up the great content!
I am going to comment on the videos as much as I can, because it is the only way I can hope to pay back for all the knowledge in which you are imparting. I am getting a little bit less ignorant every one I watch. My original concoctions for which I had suddenly started to try to make vinegar out of started bubbling with just a little bit of sugar, 1/4 cup for a gallon of juice and must and spring water. Smh, I know, everything about this concoction was wrong. The next day I started to wonder what the difference exactly was in the processing for wine. I ordered airlock the 3 rd day of fermentation.
I've always had good luck with wild fermentation using black berry brambles even if i didn't use the black berries don't use the ones growing along the road the county may spray them with who knows what
I really wish you would have started with the fruit. I have a pomegranate tree in my back yard that is a heavy producer. I eat, maybe, 3 pomegranates per year. I'd love to ferment the rest.
re airlocks: i once made a liqueur that needing aging, so my bright idea was, (it isn't fermenting) to use my wonderful pressure cooker with the steam valve in place! did it work? no lol. why? we underestimate just how teeny tiny and persistent the little buggers are (fruit flies), not many got in but enough for a bugger me comment from moi.
I can’t help but cringe just a tad at the prospect of adding leaves and twigs. I’m assuming they were cleaned before adding? I’m sure It’s perfectly safe, but my anxiety probably would keep me from doing it. With that said, love the video! Keep them coming!
Hey Brian and Derika! Been watching a while, heavily interested in mead, started brewing because of you guys! So I have a question I'm sure you've been asked but I haven't found the answer! Watermelon mead? Yes, no, why, why not? Please message me back, I'm stoked for summertime melon season and feel like watermelon mead could be a great experience if it works.
@@CitySteadingBrews as have I, however I have seen many videos on a plain ol' watermelon sugar wine. But I thought if the watermelon juice itself is what's in question, why not pasturize and filter the juice before assembling must? You'd most likely change the flavor some, definitely increase the Og just by loss of liquid through steam, but could potentially kill and remove the yuckies that may spoil the brew.
Wild fermentation, huh. Now i'm wondering about lentils and split pea's. Because I've never had a pot of split-pea soup(which is mostly almost entirely just boiled split peas that go to starch) go sour within a day or two - which is fermentation.
Laid off , self isolating . Nothing better to do than watch U Tube and bother you . Hope this works . Won't the leaves turn the wine bitter . ? I mean cranberries are pretty tart on their own .
I just bought 4 S type airlocks for $12. Come on, people. Be smart. Don't be cheap. I'll use them forever or until either they or I die, whichever comes first.
It absolutely kills me that you still have to justify why you use an airlock to people. I want to hear the rant where you tell them this is your channel and you will tell people how you brew and they can start a channel telling people how they make fermentation bombs or gnat catchers.
Hey folks! An update on this one! We removed the lime leaves after about 3 days. We found the flavor might take over. Oh, and... it's ALIVE! Yep, it's fermenting already. To see the next video in this series go here: Pomegranate Wild Yeast Mead Update - How You Doin?: th-cam.com/video/DOcsy7Ixhoo/w-d-xo.html
What about now? howditgo?
That last comment would've made my grandfather smile. "We dont throw things away, they just become something else." Bravo, sir! 👏👏
No CS video is complete without a Brian rant.
I could hear the cats in the background. And I loved it lol. I have 3 Cats and I just thought the meowing was so adorable
Loved the video btw!
Woohoo!!! First!!!
Love the show guys and I appreciate all y'all do for the mead and homebrew community!
If you ever make it out of Florida after quarantine, y'all got a friend in Central Texas!
You guys have inspired me again!! I'm thinking this spring when the trees start to come back alive, we have a couple of sugar maple trees that we can get some leaves and twigs from. Super excited about that! Would be very cool to learn how to brew without buying any yeast at all! You know... with the coming zombie apocalypse and all... LOL!!
I'm thinking the same. Just waiting for them darn leaves to pop out. Buds have been forming for the past week. We shall see. Please share your experience!
With everything going on you guys have inspired me and my brother to start our own mead journey! Love the videos stay safe out there.
Hello Brian & Derica! Love your videos and your ethos. An elderly neighbor of mine recently had an unfortunate accident that broke her hip and put her in rehab to mend. She has a beautiful pomegranate tree in her front yard and encouraged us to harvest the fresh pomegranates while she is recovering. This presents an unexpected opportunity to try out the recipe you present in your "Wild Fermentation Pomegranate Mead" series, but modify it to use the fresh fruit rather than bottles of juice. Also, I am an admitted novice to mead making so I'm going to weenie out and just use Lalvin 71B to reduce the number of variables (unless you have a better recommendation for a commercial yeast given the properties of pomegranate juice to arrive at a mildly sweet finish with or without back sweetening, as necessary). I'm scaling ingredient quantities up appropriately for a 1.4 gallon Little Wide Mouth Bubbler Fermenter. So I have two questions: (1) When working with fresh pomegranate fruit, can one just do a rough crush of the fruit's grains and throw them and the resulting juice into the fermenter, or would you have concern about the seeds imparting bitterness (or some other funky taste) if not separated out? (2) Do you see any need to freeze the fruit grains to help break down cell walls in the pulpy flesh part of the grains and kill off any unwanted microbes prior to adding to the fermenter? Ultimate goal is to share some of the resulting brew with our neighbor in gratitude for her kindness and generosity. Thank you in advance for any sage guidance and advice you may provide!
No idea what Brian and Derica would do, but my gut feeling would make me break out the food mill and crush the fresh (peeled) fruit after separating out the individual kernels. Then I’d strain out any solids. The membranes and seeds are pretty bitter so I’d want them out.
Mind you, this is only a shot in the dark as I’ve never made pomegranate wine or pomegranate mead. I’m just going off the taste of the fresh fruit. I’ve got absolutely no idea if my gut feeling is correct or not. To put it bluntly, I’m kinda talking out of my a**. More politely put: it’s an educated guess.
Did you make that mead? How did it turn out?
@@eddavanleemputten9232 Thank you so much for your input. I ended up using organic pomegranate juice. I found a source for the juice that has just one ingredient: "100% organic pomegranate juice." So it's not from concentrate and doesn't have any "-ites" or "-ates" in it. I was concerned about crushing or processing the kernels since the seeds are pretty bitter, as you mentioned. After a vigorous fermentation with 1/2 packet of Lalvin-71B and O.G=1.152 in 1.4 gallon Little Big Mouth Bubbler for about five weeks, I racked to secondary in a glass one gallon jug with S.G.=1.053 with an approx. ABV=13.0-13.5%. Despite the high ending gravity, the pomegranate juice's natural tartness keeps it from tasting sicky sweet. I did a second racking into bottles for final conditioning. I have already started brewing a second batch in which I have modified the recipe by adding 1 cup black tea, 1 cinnamon stick, 10 black peppercorns crushed, 12 cardamom seeds, and the the zest of 1 orange to create a more complex and spicy version. I highly recommend giving pomegranate mead a try if you are thinking about doing it. Cheers!
@@scottcarpenter5364 - Thanks for the feedback! If I ever get my hands on pomegranate juice that’s simply pure juice I’m definitely giving this a go! Right now I’ve got a cherry-berry cyser going. Just a small batch in a 4-litre fermenter, but it looks like it’s going to be a success. The recipe I came up with was:
1 kg of tart cherries, frozen and slashed
1 litre of mixed ‘summer berry juice’, ingredients are apple juice and various berries. It’s cloudy and cale from the refrigerated section of the supermarket
2 litres of clear 100% apple juice (only added ingredient was ascorbic acid)
Lalvin 71B yeast
Wildflower honey
200 grams extra frozen tart cherries for secondary fermentation (I thought)
Initial gravity was 1.090 and the fermentation was WILDLY ACTIVE. When it was done I racked it and added the second batch of cherries, hoping to impart more cherry flavour. Fermentation kicked off again but has slowed to next to nothing now and it.s starting to clear. The cherry scent definitely is stronger and more fruity despite fermentation kicking back up after the addition.
The idea is to bottle-condition it for a sparkly cyser. If it’s too tart I’m either going to back sweeten a bit with lactose as that’s an unfermentable sugar, or I’m backsweetening with honey and sterilising the bottles. Not sure which. Lactose kind does give a smooth feel to a drink... but honey keeps it a pure cyser.
I’m hoping for a refreshing, sparkly summer drink!
@@eddavanleemputten9232 One point of clarification: for my second batch (with virtually all of the same ingredients as the first) OG = 1.108. This draws into question the accuracy of the OG of my first batch of 1.152. Since this is rapidly become a favorite mead for me and my wife, I will undoubtedly do this again soon and will confirm which SG is more accurate.
@@scottcarpenter5364 - An OG of 1.152 is indeed very high: my own hydrometer only goes to 1.150 which would account for a POSSIBLE alcohol content of more than 20% and that either leans a lot of residual sweetness, or a yeast with a very high tolerance to alcohol... which most yeasts don’t have (Lalvin 71B can go up to 18% in the right conditions). Normally this causes the yeast to be overwhelmed and you stated it fermented vigorously. Then again: as Brian andd Derica so aptly put it: “yeast can’t read!” That, and your maths do add up so it didn’t get overwhelmed. 😊
Do keep an eye on your bottled product though, just in case fermentation kicks back in again... or store the bottles somewhere safe just in case one decides to give you fireworks. The chance is next to none but you never know... right?
My own fruity brew has slowed down and is starting to clear. It’s a gorgeous red, the colour of cherry juice. I’ll be racking it off the lees soon for the first time and having a taste and taking a reading. Just to keep busy I’ve mixed up a batch of ginger ale, bottle carbonated it and sterilised it. It was a Valentine’s gift and much appreciated! There’s some traditional mead bottle ageing as well.
It’s awesome your wife liked the first batch! I hope the second one is equally successful and that you both keep enjoying the process and the finished product. Brewing is so much fun and so rewarding.
I’ll be looking forward to learning how your second batch goes if you feel like sharing!
Oh what timing! I just started a wild fermented strawberry wine yesterday. I got my yeast from plumb flowers off the tree outside and made a starter a few days prior. I would imagine my yeast fermenting out to about 6%, but you never know! At that point I'll add some white wine yeast and finish it off. Great video as always!
Followed you recipe and I am re-watching this with a nice buzz from a pomegranate wine after I did a wine version along with the mead version.
Was so happy to find this. I love pomegranate! While I can imagine it with lemon or orange, I'm having a hard time with the lime. I'll have to think on it a bit more. But I will definitely be trying a pomegranate mead.
On a tangent, knowing you cook, pomegranate makes the most beautiful red jelly. I made pomegranate jelly long before you could buy the juice. I used it for making thumbprint cookies at Christmas time. Yum! And so pretty!
Hello from sunny Cambridgeshire UK. I can’t wait for the follow up video and taste test on this.
Great show guys I’m vary interested to see how this comes out. I agree with you about the air lock and now days I use them. Although when I was first starting I bid not. Back then I would mix hard candy and water in a washed out milk jug, dump in some bread yeast and put the top on tight. Then once a day loosen the top to let out pressure, then tighten the cap, shake and repeat tell no pressure builds up when I shook the jug. Thanks for showing me the right way to brew.
PS: if you think the way I started brewing was ruff you should see what guys do it at my work.
Very nice brew, my girl and I will be doing this for ourselves as well, hello from Maine Brian and Dericka.
A side note on the preservatives, most of them work by coating the yeast to keep them from reproducing. If you pitch yeast and leave it long enough, it will ferment. I learned this the hard way when I forgot to read labels and then put stuff back in the gallon jugs(cheap autumn cider here in Michigan) I had a massive mess and no idea about it
True, but... why take that chance? I just avoid those juices if possible.
@@CitySteadingBrews exactly, it was more of a warning to anyone who thinks that it's safe to repackage it. My whole basement ended up covered in residue
I was reading about the Israeli company that brew a commercial pomegranate wine. They said that a normal pomegranate is too low in sugars to make a good wine, so they breed a whole new kind of pomegranate with higher sugar content.
Interesting.
Sounds good. Y'all are very inspirational!
WOW!!! That Looks good. Good Idea here. Thank you for giving me a reason to try this. I love the icdea of a wild fermentation.
One of my favourite leaves to use is oak leaves (round edges, not pointy as I’ve heard the pointy ones are poisonous). I can get them freely, no pesticides or other unwanted chemicals. I’ve also dried them and put them aside for in the winter. It works wonderfully.
Can't wait to see how this turns out, I have pomegranate trees that I'm trying to get to fruit and am tempted to try home brewing with them when the time comes
All of my ferments so far have been from wild yeast and I’ve had great success! I make a fermentation starter with organic apples, de chlorinated water and sugar. After a week, it gets all bubbly, and then I add that to the juice I want to ferment.
Very intrigued for this one. I have some muscadine vines and honeysuckle I thought I’d try for some wild fermenting.
Oooh that sounds like it would be good! I'm going to try honeysuckle too!!
Interesting note: the tradition here in Scandinavia is to collect meadowsweet for yeast in wild fermentation, with wild fermentation generally being the only kind. People did not add any selected yeast, and actually they still don't in rural areas when they brew mead. Meadowsweet is known in danish and norwegian as mead plant, so the folk gather it, often dry it to have supplies and put it in basically all meads, along with whatever else they're using for the particular mead. Then I guess they pray to Odinn or Freyr to help them along! :)
I have tried all kinds of fruit juice fermentation. I will have to say pomegranate is my favorite. Looking forward to your impressions.
I've never tried this method before. While I absolutely handing hate to hand someone a grape wine, since they all turn into what I call "hand wavers" or self inflated wine snobs, I only use one method of wild fermentation for the one grape wine that I will make. I pulverize my grapes (I prefer to use the crudest methods for this brew, to emulate the methods of antiquity). and place them in a wok or other wide bowl and cover it with a cheesecloth, leaving it on the kitchen counter for as much as a week. Then I empty the bowl into a carboy, (lacking any goat skins to add tannin), squeezing the pulp through the cloth to remove some of the larger remnants and pop on a bubbler. For this method, I don't use a hydrometer, pouring in as much as 5 lbs of Turbinado sugar. I've never been disappointed, so far, and my friends know better than to express an opinion.
Thats gottta be a new tshirt slogan. If its worth doing, its worth over doing
Derica, you listening? :)
So a new development just came to my attention in my house. 2 weeks ago we bought a 2 liter mango oross still sealed. 3 or 4 days ago the lid popped off and my wife found it like that and just popped the lid back on. Well the lid just popped off again so I guess I am making a wild ferment with you I will be adding sugar to mine
Well the packaging says it has all the ates and ites and it is already down to 1.030 spgr
This is happening on day 1 of our south Africa lock down
I'm planning this to be my next brew, I will b using Lalvin 71b tho and my question is I want to use a pound of blueberries and a pound of cherries as well during primary, knowing that would you still use 1 pound of honey or 2 pounds of hunny. I'm also going to use the big mouth bubbler you used in another video the 1.4 gallon one
Fruit doesn’t add as much sugar as we think. Still use 2 lbs of honey.
@@CitySteadingBrews Ok awesome thank you
For a tip on food grade plastics. Go to your local walmart bakery or local bakery and ask for a bucket that their icing comes in. From walmart their white and square (good for stacking)
I got one so I could brine my Turkey for Thanksgiving.
They should be around the 5 gallon range. And may be changed a buck for one. And I think there's a spot marked out that could be used to drill a hole for a airlock.
Just some food for thoughts.
Thank you for the tip! I've been wanting a 3 or 5 gallon brew bucket and didn't want (not in my budget rtm) to spend $30 for one! Also, stacking is nice, I have a small house.
When I make this I might use lemon grass or lemon balm instead of lime leaves. I have a herb garden and the lemon balm always goes beserk (so do the mint and tarragon; I have to keep hacking at them). Might not use a wild fermentation though. Perhaps bread yeast...
Yes! I know which Mead I want for my wedding!
Hi I am a novice brewer that loves pomegranates and would like to just stick to a non wild pomegranate brew with comercial yeast. How would you change this recipe if you added normal yeast and did mot add the leaves?
I just started getting into mead and was talking about possible flavors and he brought up pomegranate! I’m copying this over right meow (cat pun)!
"use the freshest greenest leaves you can" Looks outside, late March in Michigan, ahhh leaves on trees, what a nice thought" #CaptainLitteral
In a few weeks, that will be different, I'm sure.
@@CitySteadingBrews April 21st, no leaves, and it snowed in Detroit. #puremichigan
“Highdropiter” that shit got me ☠️ 🤣🤦♂️
Would flowers (whole or petals) work in place of the leaves and sticks? Only thing growing in my neighborhood is rosemary and flowering bushes.
Yup.
Could add a nice hit of flavor. Someone mentioned honeysuckle (I know it's a little early for them) that would be a nice flavor.
Awwww yissss a hefty brian airlock rant! Thank ya dad lol
I find that fresh pomegranate taste similar to cranberries but still a little different, also for my first brew I did a bad first I put it to about to 1.185~ gravity using mostly honey plus a little bit of sugar because I ran out of honey (it's still going, started it on Sept. 28th last year before you did your step feed brew). I used EC 1118 because I bought it before knowing how high it went. So the brew was at 1.162 on Feb. 19th and it still bubbling away really slowly (will update this weekend when I checked it again). Now my second brew is a cranapple wine using 3/5~ pink cranberry juice to 2/5~ apple juice and about 1kg (2.2 lbs) of sugar and I'm using Fleischmann traditional for my yeast (All made in Canada). Starting gravity was 1.105 and when I checked it after 2 weeks it was at 1.065 so it's going better then my last one. This Saturday will be 3 weeks and I'm going to check it again to see where it's at. From what you guys say it should be around 12% ABV but yeast don't know when to stop like what you guys always say.
I have a couple of lilac bushes. They are completely nontoxic. Should I be concerned about a floral taste, as opposed to a fruity taste being introduced into the brew? Also, this video was a mead making recipe. Can this type of wild yeast harvesting apply to wine fermentation?
Your videos are so much fun to watch, I find myself wanting to experiment with all kinds of things I've never even considered before. LOL 🙃
Hey guys! Love your brew! I'm making some in Tehran, so I'm breaking the law as well :))
We aren’t breaking any laws... and please be careful.
How would sassafras leaves work?
Can you use starter for hombrewing?
Hi guys, I always love your videos. But I really doubt those leaves are kaffir lime leaves. KL leaves have a vey distinct look like the digit 8
They are rangpur. We had it wrong.
Question on yeast in the air. Your cranberry wild ferment would have gotten yeast from the air. I have also had a bottle of apple juice that started to ferment (it got puffy i did not let it go i just drank it sooner). in both these cases we were making a brew. Is it more likely to start a wild ferment while doing that because there is commercial yeast in the air from the brew making process?
It did not get yeast from the air.... it was opened for 30 seconds, one time. Pretty much not possible at that point. The yeast was in the juice already.
Out here in Utah we still have snow. Leaves are not a common thing at this time of year yet.
Well, small twigs and clippings can work too.
Did the wild yeast kick in?
If you added yeast instead of a wild ferment, would you still add the lime branches? (I understand this would be adifferent mead at that point)
I wouldn't use the lime branches ever again tbh!
@@CitySteadingBrews Fair enough. I have mulberry, do you think that would work or would you just leave out if using yeast?
@Hammer_OJustice mulberry is fine. Our particular lime just doesn't taste great.
@@CitySteadingBrews Thank you
Would lilac leafs/flowers work
i blended fresh pomegranates and made a wine...one of the best ive ever made
Would be cool if you did a control without the leaves. I assume that the juice is pasteurized, but maybe the raw honey or raisins (assuming they are not sulfited) will bring their own yeast to the party?
Problem with that is... you risk spoilage without yeast, so... But, as said in the pinned comment and description, we removed the leaves already.
I assumed you were using an open air fermentation process?
Watched a couple of videos online of people doing that, appealed to me as it’s obviously what they’d have done all those years ago on the early Middle Ages.
Have you tried it at all, or know if any reason why it wouldn’t be successful?
We have cats.
The inly reason I feel it was done is they didn’t know any better.
winco has orange blossom honey in their bulk bin for cheap(ish)
I wonder how a mead would taste with grape juice? Have you tried yet? I started your easy (Savi's favorite) grape wine.
Pyment video...
@@CitySteadingBrews how's it taste? I'm sure you have a tasting video
Coming soon actually.
The trees on my property are mountain ash, and box elder. I'm going to do my research, and hope that I can just go out in my yard to get my leaves.
Can twigs and bark come from any type of trees?
I can't see myself doing a midnight raid to steal leaves and twigs from my neighbors trees. 🙃
I would really check for toxicity.
@@CitySteadingBrews
Although some consider mountain ash in box elder medicinal, I am not comfortable that.
The nice thing about doing this with pomegranate is if it does turn to vinegar, then you have pomegranate & honey vinegar, some of the best type. It would have been good to do a second batch alongside with commercial yeast for taste and development comparisons.
It'd be nice if we had unlimited space and ingredients, yes!
@@CitySteadingBrews I hear that.
Hey!, I've been hesitating to start fermenting lately and I'm wondering, is fermenting something likely to preserve viruses in the brew as well??!
I am not a medical expert. Good question though.
Generally speaking, viruses don't survive in alcohol.
I have pomegranate mead fermenting right now.
Hi Brian and Derica,
What yeast would you pitch in if you weren’t going for a wild fermentation?
Here's a question. Have you ever done a wild fermentation from goji leaves? I'm considering trying it but am a little concerned. They say the leaves are bitter, with some sources claiming there may be toxins. So I figured I'd ask experts.
Sorry, never tried them.
Hi guys, this pomegranate juice has more than 1 pound of fermentables sugars on it i guess, could still be a mead?
1 lb is .046 gravity in a gallon. If you use just 2 lbs of honey, it's mead.
Recently started following - thanks for all of the tips! Are you guys on Untappd or any other related groups on the soash meads?
Not really... most kick me out for being a heretic!
Hey if I used dry yeast what type would you guys recommend and how much for a gallon?
Honestly that changes the entire recipe, but 71B is good, D47, there's lots to choose from.
Did you try it with sugar without mead?
We have not made it as a wine, no.
Adds a pound of honey and juice to the jar and at 10:50 drops the bomb:
> This could be well over 1.00 at this point
I cried.
Everyone makes mistakes, jeez. There’s no script and we do these in real time.
@@CitySteadingBrews That's why I love yous.
So, I pay in Thailand.
24 baht for 1 kg Natural Unbleached Cane Sugar.
350 baht for 1 kg Raw Homey.
Would you think that using honey would produce a wine/mead that is almost 15 times better than using sugar?
It's about the same price difference for us really. But, I can't tell you if you will like it better, only that we like it better.
Have you ever done a hot cinnamon mead? Like red hots or fireball whiskey. Also I'd like to know more about a good short mead recipe.
Nope. I wouldn't use things like that, I'd go with real cinnamon. We have made MANY mead videos... have a look around our channel?
I am nowhere near as good as math on the spot as you guys are.. But if I (meaning google math) am correct, 1lb. Honey is 367grams of sugar. and three of those juices are 396grams. So.. technically NOT a mead, right? ;P Ah, but I'm just messing with you. I am a long time brewer, and do not generally comment but you guys are honestly my goto resource for ideas and general knowledge. Keep on brewing! and keep up the great content!
But... when I feed it more honey....
@@CitySteadingBrews very true. I guess i missed the part where you said you would add more. Either way, i was just pulling your leg.
any update on the pomegranate mead?
All things in time. It's still bubbling away though.
I am going to comment on the videos as much as I can, because it is the only way I can hope to pay back for all the knowledge in which you are imparting. I am getting a little bit less ignorant every one I watch. My original concoctions for which I had suddenly started to try to make vinegar out of started bubbling with just a little bit of sugar, 1/4 cup for a gallon of juice and must and spring water. Smh, I know, everything about this concoction was wrong. The next day I started to wonder what the difference exactly was in the processing for wine. I ordered airlock the 3 rd day of fermentation.
Word of the day: hydropitter. Love it.
I thought about it now i wanna try it.
I've always had good luck with wild fermentation using black berry brambles even if i didn't use the black berries don't use the ones growing along the road the county may spray them with who knows what
I really wish you would have started with the fruit. I have a pomegranate tree in my back yard that is a heavy producer. I eat, maybe, 3 pomegranates per year. I'd love to ferment the rest.
Juice them. Then you have the same as we did.
re airlocks: i once made a liqueur that needing aging, so my bright idea was, (it isn't fermenting) to use my wonderful pressure cooker with the steam valve in place! did it work? no lol. why? we underestimate just how teeny tiny and persistent the little buggers are (fruit flies), not many got in but enough for a bugger me comment from moi.
I can’t help but cringe just a tad at the prospect of adding leaves and twigs. I’m assuming they were cleaned before adding? I’m sure It’s perfectly safe, but my anxiety probably would keep me from doing it. With that said, love the video! Keep them coming!
Mentioned in the video.
CS Brews Ah, I must’ve missed it. 😬 I’m interested in how vigorous the ferment is?
Hey Brian and Derika! Been watching a while, heavily interested in mead, started brewing because of you guys! So I have a question I'm sure you've been asked but I haven't found the answer! Watermelon mead? Yes, no, why, why not? Please message me back, I'm stoked for summertime melon season and feel like watermelon mead could be a great experience if it works.
I have heard stories of troubles with watermelon juice meads.
@@CitySteadingBrews as have I, however I have seen many videos on a plain ol' watermelon sugar wine. But I thought if the watermelon juice itself is what's in question, why not pasturize and filter the juice before assembling must? You'd most likely change the flavor some, definitely increase the Og just by loss of liquid through steam, but could potentially kill and remove the yuckies that may spoil the brew.
I think SG of juice is higher, so final gravity went up on adding it.
Could be. We're literally talking like 12 points though, so.... I also believe having less than a gallon of brew is the reason.
I doubt it. SG of juice is probably not over 1.1, meaning adding juice *should have* lowered it.
You can shake a wide mouth fermenter. I shook my brew in a two gallon bucket (one gallon brew). You just put your thumb over the grommet.
This so cool
Mew! Meow! MEW! The internets demand more mascot videos! Haha
You mention oxygenation a lot. Isn’t fermentation anaerobic so isn’t oxygenating bad?
Oxygen is needed for the first phase when the colony builds up, then, once alcohol is present, you want to NOT add more.
I'm surprised you didn't do sima, kvass, or tepache. All are tried and true wild fermented drinks.
Tepache one day. Kvass, I have made and wasn't a fan.
Wild fermentation, huh. Now i'm wondering about lentils and split pea's. Because I've never had a pot of split-pea soup(which is mostly almost entirely just boiled split peas that go to starch) go sour within a day or two - which is fermentation.
We did a video on split pea soup... it's not fermented. th-cam.com/video/v1SnctITFGI/w-d-xo.html
It does if you try to keep leftovers for more than a day or so. That 'zingy' afterbite of old pea soup.
We refrigerate it.
Fun fact. Granate means grenade in german. I thought you guys were making fermented grenades of some sort.
132g of sugar is about 4 oz by weight
times 4, or in this case... 3. Very close to a pound.
The 132 is per quart, and I used 3 quarts.
if you use non pasteurized honey it will ferment without adding plants
Ours is as far as we know.
Shoulda used da majik ster stik.
Sweet #2 closest ive been
Aeration might be a bit easier to say than oxygenation. 😉
I like saying ogygenenet.
@@CitySteadingBrews 😂😂😂😂
The 10 downvotes must be from commercial yeast salesmen.
Lol
one of my best flavors is blueberry/pomegranate mead ........ everyone asks for this one
Laid off , self isolating . Nothing better to do than watch U Tube and bother you . Hope this works . Won't the leaves turn the wine bitter . ? I mean cranberries are pretty tart on their own .
Update: I removed the leaves this morning. The flavors are strong as we found out in another upcoming video. So... they're out!
@@CitySteadingBrews How far in advance do you make these ?
🤔 mulberry leaves.
Yep. We plan to.
NOOOOOO NOT THE KEFER LIME LEAVES!
I just bought 4 S type airlocks for $12. Come on, people. Be smart. Don't be cheap. I'll use them forever or until either they or I die, whichever comes first.
"Just use glass." Now you tell me this! [Facepalm]
Talking about plastic, investigate about BPA and don't use them anymore please...
Root Beer?.......maybe?
Maybe... the ingredients are not easy to get, especially right now.
It absolutely kills me that you still have to justify why you use an airlock to people. I want to hear the rant where you tell them this is your channel and you will tell people how you brew and they can start a channel telling people how they make fermentation bombs or gnat catchers.
You don't know what pomegranate tastes like? That's it, I'm out of here....
Not really.
I have had pomegranates, just never the juice!