I’m an avid homebrewer and usually have a batch of cyser going at all times.
- As mentioned above, Covid virus doesn’t seem to live on surfaces for long. In fact, in the US it seems like there are few to no credible examples of covid being passed through surface contact.
(In fact, except for the Chinese conspiracy theory that covid was actually transmitted from abroad through frozen seafood, notwithstanding that none of the seafood preparers seem to have had an outbreak, it doesn’t appear that covid is easily transmitted on surfaces) - Covid does not seem to be able to live for the extended time it takes to bottle or keg
- PH levels of beer might kill off covid
Tell hubby after he’s recovered that he can do mead experiments with Costco 5# mead at about $10/bottle. It’s pure honey and good for experimenting. Frankly, if you’re gonna add coffee, it will overpower and be a waste of the expensive as silver craft honey. he can prolly do a couple of gallons of coffee mead for $20 once he gets the hang of it.
My standard cyser is 5# costco honey, 2 gallons Costco apple juice, 2 gallons water and some yeast. Makes a 8% alcohol drink. I usually start drinking a glass or three from the fermenter when it’s 80% fermented, so still pretty sweet. Drink a bit as it dries out. Apple jack a gallon or two that I usually give away. Hubby can play with how to do the coffee, and there ya go!
I would also recommend hubby check out Ask the Meadmaker (groennfell.com). Ricky the Meadmaker has a ton of open source recipes, videos, and will answer emails about meadmaking. Ricky isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I find him pretty amusing. He’s also a really nice guy at least from my emails and the two times I’ve actually ordered mead from Groenfell.
@thelurkinghorror I have typically used Nottingham yeast for my cysers. [/cue stealth brag] A couple weeks ago I visited the White Labs tasting room in San Diego. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any of the vault strains of yeast available, but I did pick up their seasonal release of WLP775 English Cider. [/uncue stealth brag] You can still probably find it as should be available thru the end of June. I’ve done my first cyser with it. The first time I’ve done a cyser/mead that’s had a good 1/2" of foam at the start of fermentation (usually a few bubbles at best). It’s fermented quickly (~2 weeks from OG1065, added a can of blackberry concentrate after the initial fermentation, and now at FG1000) and pretty good residual sweetness/mouthfeel. You might want to check it out. (I’ve tried quite a few different yeasties for the cysers, and I think moving forward it will be WLP775 as my go to cyser yeast)
Edited to add. Any yeast is going to take the FG down to 1.000 or even 0.098. The only sweetness left will the residual…aka imaginary as all the sugar is fermented out. But some yeasts have a lot more imaginary sweetness than others.