Heartbound

Recipe

This was based on the original Heartbound recipe by /u/balathustrius. Other than referring you to the original, I'm actually going to skip too many details on what I did, cause I messed it up pretty badly. Hah!

In short - I skimmed over "potassium carbonate" thinking it was a nutrient I was just going to replace with FermO. However, it's actually a pH adjustment, because hibiscus is too acidic for yeast to thrive in.

By skipping over potassium carbonate, I created a brew that stalled out.

And then, when I tried to add potassium carbonate to fix my mistake, I misread the instructions, and added enough for 5 gallons... instead of 1 gallon.

So I ended up having to mix up another ~4 gallons of must to scale my batch up to 5 gallons, essentially starting it about a month after I originally pitched my yeast.

Not only would it take me a while to explain what I added and when I added it to this brew, but it's so entirely wrong, I don't think it's really worth the effort to try - you'd be better off following the original recipe than my mess of an attempt to use it.

In addition to the important lesson about potassium carbonate, I would also like to note that I racked a little too early and had some diacetyl flavors. Apparently diacetyl is usually cleaned up by yeast, but racking too soon can separate your yeast from the bulk of their colony in the lees, and prevent them from finishing their cleanup.

I was lucky to figure this out before stabilizing, as it allowed me to put the carboy into my warm garage. The extra warmth helped to more or less wake up the yeast still in suspension, and they cleaned up the brew pretty well for me.

As of last update in early November 2020, the brew is tasting pretty good, and has wonderful color and clarity.

Mead is quite forgiving!

Timeline - Pitch to Bottle

Pitched on 07/04/2020
Re-pitched as a 5 gallon batch 08/16/2020
Racked 08/29/2020
Re-racked and stabilized 09/12/2020
Sparkolloid added 09/25/2020
Lab Measurements 11/09/2020
- ABV: 11.26%
- SG: 1.02196
Filtered and bottled (or blended) 11/16/2020
That's a wrap on this one!

Process

Water to 160F then turn heat to minimum and steep for 1 hour
On low, my water stayed close to 165F
Turned heat off completely for last 10-15 minutes to cool down
Ran tea through loose non-woven coffee filters
Spilled too much and added 1/2 cup water to get back to 1 gal
Added honey first, then sugar to OG
Ginger and cinnamon should go in during the tail end of primary rather than proper secondary

Retrospective

Process Improvement

The biggest lesson here is to pay attention to when potassium carbonate is used in a recipe because it's probably important
The next biggest lesson is to make sure you know if the package instructions are per gallon or per 5 gallons

Recipe Improvements

All the cinnamon I used hardly imparted any noticeable cinnamon flavors. I ended up deciding I was OK with that because I'll be donating a case of this to my brother's wedding and he's historically not been a cinnamon guy, but I may need to get different stick (or add more) next time if noticeable cinnamon flavors are desired.
The ginger is probably stronger than originally intended, and it's become the primary flavor here rather than the supplement to the hibiscus. I'm kind of OK with that too, though.
At the end of the day, the brew actually came out great in spite of the mistakes I made early on!

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