Starter powers activate

Sitting on my dining table right now just spinning it's heart out is my first ever starter. Used 2 2/3 cup bottled water and 2 oz of extra light DME. Found out about a few interesting problems that I'd not have known about had I not actually done this whole process. Namely, the flask I'm using isn't completely flat on the bottom. This becomes a problem because as that water boils, it forces the flask up. This happens over and over, causing the flask to vibrate inside the pot of boiling water. My solution was to use a slightly bigger pot and a bit more water so that the flask _just slightly_ is floating in the pot. That allows the steam to escape and prevents the vibration.

That all being said, though, after 15-20 minutes I wasn't able to get the flask to boil. So I dumped the starter into a smaller pot and boiled the starter directly. Way easier. Cooled it down over 10 or 15 minutes in an ice bath (it does cool very quickly), added my (mostly) decanted mead yeast cake, and added the sanitized stir stick. Around 10:30 last night I set the stir plate to on and by this morning the bubbling had all but stopped. Which is fine, though I did remember that I forgot (ha) the yeast nutrient. The starter is ~600ml, so I threw in 1/4 tsp of nutrient, and the bubbling spiked for a few minutes, but subsided.

If the bubbling doesn't increase tonight or by tomorrow evening, I'll be cold crashing the starter and leaving it be until early March, when I'll be bottling the vanilla and brewing the pomegranate. All in all the making of a starter was an interesting experience and I look forward to seeing the krausen-explosion from my porter brew in mid January.

Mead step 2

Just finished racking my mead to secondary, and made sure that I remembered to add the 6 vanilla beans. Tasting it, I found it interesting that it was actually slightly fizzy. I wonder if this is something that is dealt with with making wine, or because by using an airlock, it creates a pressure problem that keeps the CO2 in suspension. No matter, when I go to bottle I'll give it a hearty shake before I siphon into the bottling bucket, then another couple shakes after it's in the bucket. Then again, in three months, the CO2 might end up dissipating anyway. We'll see.

The taste was as expected, as it's fresh out of the fermenter it's still got a raw taste. In three months it should take on the flavor of the vanilla beans and be a bit more refined. Two months after bottling it'll be drinkable.

In addition to racking the mead, I took a sample of the yeast and put it in a sanitized flask, and sealed it as best I could with tinfoil. Hopefully the gross smell of the fridge doesn't get in over the next couple days. On Tuesday or around there I'll be purchasing a stopper for the flask and some DME so to make a stable starter for the next batch of mead, which is going to be pomegranate mead. I'll post again then for I'll be excited at making my first starter and getting to use the stir plate that I made.