Learning How to Pasteurise a Homebrew

Before undertaking this exercise, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos, and tried a sample run on one gallon carboy of water, to ensure my temperatures and timing was accurate. This was all done in an Instapot.

The process

1. Add the rack to the bottom of the pot, put the carboy on top, in my case it was mead. You really don’t want the carboy sitting on top of the element.
2. Add room temperature water to the max fill line of the pot. Do not use hot water, it may shock the carboy, and cause it to crack, or worse.
3. Set the sous vide mode on the Intapot to 165F. Once the Instapot has the water up to temperature, it will beep. This took about 2o minutes.
4. Add your brewing thermometer into the carboy, to measure the internal temperature of the mead. Monitor the temperature until it reaches 140F. This is a sufficient temperature to neutralise any yeast that may still be active. This took approximately 40 minutes.
5. Set your timer for 20 minutes while you maintain this temperature. I found it slowly crept up to about 143F during this time.
6. Remove the carboy from the Instapot, put a loose fitting cover, like tinfoil over the opening, and allow the mead to come down to room temperature before doing anything else.
7. If you are racking for a future date, put an airlock on after it has returned to room temperature.