Update - Pumpkin

Look out its gonna blow! Just kidding! All kidding aside we did come close to that. The fermentation on day two of this mead was fast and furious. So much so that pumpkin pulp started to get pushed out of the air lock, which is no good. Cap management seems to be a big "to do" with this mead. The fermentation process with most meads that have fruit in them (this pumpkin also has spice so it's not a melomel but rather a metheglin) is that the CO2 pushed the fruit to the top causing it to float on the mead (also most fruits happen to be quite buoyant). This creates a "cap" on the mead, which somewhat protects the mead from nasties getting in it. However, it is also bad. First those "nasties" settle on the fruit which can (and sometimes does) cause the fruit to spoil. A spoiled cap means yucky mead. A cap also prevents the expulsion of CO2 in a timely fashion, which creates a greenhouse effect. Here is proof that CO2 makes global warming to you doubters. So in long, if you don't properly manage your cap CO2 can build up and either do one of two things, heat up the mead to a temperature that can kill yeast rather than let them grow (Greenhouse effect), or prevent the expulsion of the CO2 and blow up your fermenter leaving a wicked mess. If the CO2 doesn't get you then the spoiled fruit definitely will. How does one prevent this? Easy, simply push the fruit into the mead a couple of times a day (or more!).

But now I hear you saying...but then the "nasties" that the fruit saves me from get in! The answer to that is, no they don't. As long as you do this often enough the Alcohol in the fermenting mead and the CO2 exposure will kill off any "nasties" that would be on your fruit.

As a side note different fruits require different schedules for cap management. In the Cyser which I will have to update on, I only needed to do this about once every couple of days. With the pumpkin I have to do this twice a day. Also to note, at a certain point this becomes a bad thing to do as well. Every time you push the fruit down into the mead you aerate it. This can have bad effects when the mead is near finished. That is why when the mead is nearing finished fermentation (by about the 1st or 2nd sugar break) I would recommend racking off the fruit entirely, if needed.

We are at 1 blip per 10 seconds on the pumpkin and it happens to be quite clear as well. Good things!

I'll keep you posted!