# WTB Spring Season Honey



## Jimyson (Feb 8, 2015)

Who can help me obtain a 10-15 lb batch of a spring honey? Something from the black locust blossom or even the sage blossom would be preference. This may be hard to get this late in the season but figured I would see who knows some beekeepers. A bottle of agave mead is your reward.


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## seth8530 (Feb 8, 2015)

Have you tried the bee folks? They are a good group and their honey is good.


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## Jimyson (Feb 8, 2015)

I did and wasn't interested in what they had to offer for this particular batch.


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## Deezil (Feb 8, 2015)

Try these guys for black locust

http://www.honey.com/honey-locator/profile/mohawk-valley-trading-company-honey-raw-honey


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## seth8530 (Feb 8, 2015)

If you called them you might end up pleasantly surprised. They have a selection quite a bit larger than what is on the website.. Flying Bee ranch also has great honey, but I think they are a bit pricier.


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## Jimyson (Feb 11, 2015)

I ended up finding a local source in Ohio, Honeyrun Farm. They are working with me to provide a 15 gallons batch of their spring honey which is an early early spring harvest to take advantage of some of the blossoms that give the characteristics that I am searching for.

Even better that they will be at a Winter farmers market about 10 minutes from where I live so I can just pick it up there!


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## seth8530 (Feb 12, 2015)

Sounds like a good option to me. What kind of honey is it?


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## Jimyson (Feb 12, 2015)

So it's wildflower but they claim that it is light and delicate as they harvest early in the season to minimize clover. I really enjoyed their Summer harvest and they seem like they are honest and straight-forward with the discussions that I've had with them. So I figure I will give it a shot. It's my first mead so what the heck.

I will be using 12 lbs of the honey and 12 lbs of an agave nectar that I got for free from the home-brew club. Ferment with some Cotes de Blanc yeast and see what I get. Batch size will be 6 gallons.

Essentially I am taking this recipe and changing out the sage for the wildflower. http://www.maltosefalcons.com/recipes/agave-mead


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## seth8530 (Feb 12, 2015)

I would skip their recipe if I was you. Acid blend up front is usually not the best thing in the world for honey must. Plus, heating to 180 is not good for the aromatics. Also, you might want to look into following a scheduled nutrient plan instead of simply adding a lump of generic nutrient all up front.

That being said, good honey and agave should be interesting to see how they turn out. I would just modify the approach is all.


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## Bergmann (Feb 12, 2015)

For what it is worth, If you plan on heating to 180F you may as well go to Walmart and buy best yet honey. because heating any honey to that temperature will dramatically change it's characteristics. The aroma and subtitle distinctions of a varietal honey will be lost. 

Kmet sterilize, and slow ferment.


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## Jimyson (Feb 12, 2015)

So I picked up a book the other night that talked about keeping the temp low and doing a schedule of nutrients. I think I will go that route for sure. Thanks for the tips. Any others?


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## Jimyson (Feb 12, 2015)

So this book doesn't heat the honey up. He says to pour it in the fermenter and add the water. Then stir until mixed. Also here is his nutrient schedule. The mix is Fermaid K and DAP. I also plan to do a starter with Go Ferm. 

“For the typical 5-gallon batch of mead, use 4 grams Fermaid K (approximately 1/2 teaspoon plus 1/3 teaspoon, 0.14 ounce by weight) and 8 grams DAP (approximately 1 teaspoon plus 2/3 teaspoons, 0.28 ounce by weight) mixed together.”

Excerpt From: Piatz, Steve. “The Complete Guide to Making Mead.” Voyageur Press, 2014.


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## Jimyson (Feb 12, 2015)

Found this article interesting and informative. 

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html


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## seth8530 (Feb 13, 2015)

On the last page of the attached thread I have a relation that I came up with that helps you figure out how much nutrient you should use.

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f86/got-off-phone-fermaid-people-38704/

I would recommend a combo of fermaid K and O ideally. Fermaid K up front, then move on to O.


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## Jimyson (Feb 13, 2015)

Fantastic thread! I need to read through that a few more times to grasp it enough to feel comfortable with knowing that I understand it. Boy, I am really feeling like all-grain beer is so much easier!


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## seth8530 (Feb 13, 2015)

It takes a few times to get your head around it, but once you got it, it i really is much easier than an all grain brew. I assure you lol.


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## Deezil (Feb 13, 2015)

Here's a post/thread that is basically a summary of that first thread that Seth linked. May help, may not.. Different wording, between the two threads I'm sure it'll 'click'

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f86/yeast-nutrients-39655/


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## Jimyson (Feb 13, 2015)

Thanks guys. I took some time to read through the one Seth posted and will check the new one. 

I think I'm just so used to my beer brewing process that when you throw a whole bunch more options/processes for Mead and Wine, the brain starts to hurt. 

All the help and tips is greatly appreciated.


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## seth8530 (Feb 14, 2015)

It will take a bit to soak in, but if you can handle all grain you can handle this. Feel free to try and post an example to test your understanding.


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## Jimyson (Feb 14, 2015)

I will. I currently have and am working out a plan for my first kit of Argentine Malbec that I will split into 4 batches. 2 batches will use WLP750 and 2 batches will use RP15. Then for each of the two sets of yeast, I will switch between FT Rouge and FT Rouge Soft. 

Then I have 18 lbs of the Agave nectar and just picked up 15 lbs of honey. Once I figure out what I want to do here (also never done this before and still deciding what to do) I will split this into a number of batches and maybe do some blends, some straight, and maybe look to add some fruits or spices. Who knows what the future holds yet. Also still need to look at the various yeasts to use. 

When I get all of the final batches sorted, I will calculate out the amount and schedule for the various additions that I'm soaking in and post to one or both of the threads. Especially since some is wine and the other is mead. 

I have my second child due any day (2 days late so far) so hopefully sometime in the next few weeks I will have a better idea of where things are going. 

Oh, and I need to get a couple batches of beer going to. I have a IIPA that's absolutely killer, and maybe going to do an RIS aged with vanilla beans, cacao nibs, ancho chile peppers, and espresso beans that I have been planning to do for the last 6 to 12 months. 

Doubt I will have time for it but if planned well, I can get by with 2 brew days doing a double batch on each day.


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## seth8530 (Feb 15, 2015)

For the scale that you are working on, I think I would recomend that you stick to a single batch instead of splitting it into a bunch of small batch. It can be quite chaotic trying to keep track of all those different nutrient schedules all at once... Plus, the yield from those small carboys will be hit pretty bad by racking losses.


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## Jimyson (Feb 15, 2015)

Not sure I'm sold on that idea with the wine. Maybe the mead will be (2) three gallon batches but I am so interested in using the honey alone, some with agave, etc. 

The tracking doesn't concern me. I'm a project manager by trade and documentation, process (once I sort and understand it), isn't an issue. 

Now, the racking losses, yeah, I can see that as being a bit of an issue. But when the purpose of all this is to see the results of various steps/ingredients changes, would it be that much of a concern? The sum of all losses by means of a large batch wouldn't be that much different from the individual losses by individual batches. Sure it may be a bit more but I am more of the all in experimental type of personality. Plus, my time of aging for this will be filled with many batches of beer and likely some full batches with a basic process once I see some of the initial results from the experiments. 

Come on. Sell me more. It's fantastic to see all viewpoints.


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## seth8530 (Feb 15, 2015)

Perhaps splitting batches may not be such a bad idea if what you are really wanting to do is just to figure out how all these guys turn out differently. However, if you are trying to get a good understanding of how everything fundementally works and how certain changes create different outcomes I might advice that you make you ( at least first) limit your changes to ones that are linked to the fundamental relationship between the yeast and the honey.

Ie, try warm vs cold ferment,

Nutrient schedule vs no nutrient schedule

yeast strain vs yeast strain.

honey strain vs honey strain

I feel like these kind of experiments are more likely to better inform you and give you a better understanding of what the mead is actually doing than say comparing mead with spice vs mead with no spice..

However, these are my personal opinions ( being a cross between a scientist and an engineer.... gotta love grad school) and I tend to like to do the best I can to have a fundamental understanding of what is going on.


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## Deezil (Feb 15, 2015)

You'll also want to realize that smaller batches are actually more difficult to ferment cleanly. There's less room for error, and it's harder to cover up flaws.

And unless you've got racking down, and are putting that sediment to the side to recover that lost mead, you can have substantially larger losses racking multiple smaller batches than racking one larger batch. The racking cane leaves behind a certain amount of wine when you rack, just because of the design, so even though the vessels are smaller, the losses can still be greater.

I would ferment the honey as one batch, 15lbs should get you 5 gallons; and the agave for another batch. I'd pick the same yeast for both batches the first time, if you're more interested in fruits and spices. You don't want to change too many variables at once if you're looking to compare them. Ferment them down as bigger batches, then split and add the fruits and spices in secondary fermentation. Then age them out, before you worry about blending anything, age them out for 12-18 months.

You can still end up with a large variety of different final products, but without all the risks.


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## Jimyson (Feb 16, 2015)

seth8530 said:


> Perhaps splitting batches may not be such a bad idea if what you are really wanting to do is just to figure out how all these guys turn out differently. However, if you are trying to get a good understanding of how everything fundementally works and how certain changes create different outcomes I might advice that you make you ( at least first) limit your changes to ones that are linked to the fundamental relationship between the yeast and the honey.





Deezil said:


> I would ferment the honey as one batch, 15lbs should get you 5 gallons; and the agave for another batch. I'd pick the same yeast for both batches the first time, if you're more interested in fruits and spices. You don't want to change too many variables at once if you're looking to compare them.



Ok so I guess I do have 2 different motives here and need to separate. Let's talk about the wine first. I really want to try between 2 different strains of yeast. I am always doing that with beer and would love to see what each one comes out with so I can understand which one I would like to move forward with on a consistent basis for common batches. I have the RP15 and the WLP750. I don't see a whole lot of reviews on the WLP750 so I am extremely interested to see the result. I'm pretty set on dong at least one split for the yeasties.

Now, the splitting of each yeast batch so I can use different tannins, that is merely the lack of experience and afraid to commit a whole batch to one versus the other. The two as mentioned are FT Rouge and FT Rouge Soft. I can't seem to find enough detail/reviews to understand what the difference may be. Am I wasting my time doing that split?

On to the mead and/or Agave. My main goal was to do the Agave Mead. Half and Half. Again, the lack of experience is making me concerned about putting 12 lbs of each in a batch and have it taste like ****. I also would like to see what the Agave on it's own would turn out to and the same goes for the honey. Do a simple batch of each. So, what I gather from Deezil is that I may be best off to do separate batches and just combine once bulk aged. 



seth8530 said:


> I feel like these kind of experiments are more likely to better inform you and give you a better understanding of what the mead is actually doing than say comparing mead with spice vs mead with no spice..





Deezil said:


> Ferment them down as bigger batches, then split and add the fruits and spices in secondary fermentation. Then age them out, before you worry about blending anything, age them out for 12-18 months.



Ok, now this makes sense. My inexperience is leading me down the patch of wanting to see what things do. I think you guys are successfully steering me away from splitting too much.




Deezil said:


> You'll also want to realize that smaller batches are actually more difficult to ferment cleanly. There's less room for error, and it's harder to cover up flaws.



Please explain. I understand there is less room for error as you are working with smaller units and by adjusting levels of things at that small a quantity can make a larger impact on the percentage of additions. But that's what calibrated digital scales and measurements are for. What else is prohibiting from fermenting cleanly?



Deezil said:


> And unless you've got racking down, and are putting that sediment to the side to recover that lost mead, you can have substantially larger losses racking multiple smaller batches than racking one larger batch. The racking cane leaves behind a certain amount of wine when you rack, just because of the design, so even though the vessels are smaller, the losses can still be greater.



Ok, so yes, an auto siphon will likely leave more volume of liquid behind because of design. But on transfer from my keg fermented and 5/6 gallon carboys, I use a standard racking cane through a carboy cap (carboy) or spending valve assembly (for the keg) and have CO2 attached so I essentially push the liquid up the cane via forced pressure around 3-5 psi. Creating something similar with a bung, then taking it slow and tilting the small vessel to gather some of the liquid wouldn't loose all that much. 

I also purge everything with CO2 one each side during racking so that I minimize oxygen exposure. This along with some sanitization care, and TIME, should make for easy clearing via primary to secondary to bulk.

I get it though, yes, more of a PITA.

With all of this said, once I hear back on the tannins from the wine portion, I am pretty well set on splitting at least 2 ways for the wine kit.

The mead and agave, I think you guys have me convinced to do their own single batch and think a lot harder about if anything should change in secondary or just wait until after bulk for blending of simple batches.


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## Deezil (Feb 16, 2015)

Jimyson said:


> Ok so I guess I do have 2 different motives here and need to separate. Let's talk about the wine first. I really want to try between 2 different strains of yeast. I am always doing that with beer and would love to see what each one comes out with so I can understand which one I would like to move forward with on a consistent basis for common batches. I have the RP15 and the WLP750. I don't see a whole lot of reviews on the WLP750 so I am extremely interested to see the result. I'm pretty set on dong at least one split for the yeasties.
> 
> Now, the splitting of each yeast batch so I can use different tannins, that is merely the lack of experience and afraid to commit a whole batch to one versus the other. The two as mentioned are FT Rouge and FT Rouge Soft. I can't seem to find enough detail/reviews to understand what the difference may be. Am I wasting my time doing that split?



So if I'm reading this right, you want to split the wine kit into 4:

RP15 + FT Rouge
RP15 + FT Rouge Soft
WLP750 + FT Rouge
WLP750 + FT Rouge Soft

That doesnt sound impossible, but if it's a 6-gallon kit, just understand that that means it's going to be ~1.5 gallons of 'must', which is gonna probably leave you with just over a gallon each, by the time its all said and done.. 6-7 bottles, per. 

The difficulty with this comes with trying to bulk age these small oddball sized batches long enough to get them cleared, so you can bottle them.

The information I have on the FT Rouge and FT Rouge Soft products isn't much more detailed than what you've probably already read. My approach was to use the FT Rouge Soft for a few seasons, making everything I normally make, and then I'll be switching to FT Rouge, to make my own comparison. I'll be able to offer insight eventually, but the best way to find out is to do something similar to what you're planning (I just usually work on a larger scale, lol; but thats just me)




Jimyson said:


> On to the mead and/or Agave. My main goal was to do the Agave Mead. Half and Half. Again, the lack of experience is making me concerned about putting 12 lbs of each in a batch and have it taste like ****. I also would like to see what the Agave on it's own would turn out to and the same goes for the honey. Do a simple batch of each. So, what I gather from Deezil is that I may be best off to do separate batches and just combine once bulk aged.



I'd recommend doing it how I mentioned, simply because there's no way to know if 50-50 mead to agave is going to be the best flavor profile; but if you ferment them separately, you can do some bench trials to figure out the best ratio of mead : agave for your tastes. 

You may very well like 25% agave to 75% mead, for example (or any other ratio), but if you combine on the front-end there's little you can do to change those ratios later. You'll also be able to set some of each the agave and mead ferments aside to see how they age alongside the blended version. This will teach you more than front-loading it. 

After you've gone through the process of making this agave-mead, then you can later on, blend the two together on the front-end, based on your favored blend and make a second batch with the insight you've gained from this experiment. That way, the 2nd batch will only require minor tweaks to get it where you want it instead of having multiple gallons of a 50-50 batch, that you don't really care for. 




Jimyson said:


> Please explain. I understand there is less room for error as you are working with smaller units and by adjusting levels of things at that small a quantity can make a larger impact on the percentage of additions. But that's what calibrated digital scales and measurements are for. What else is prohibiting from fermenting cleanly?



Mostly, it's the fermentation time. If you have a smaller-than 5-gallon batch, and you pitch a whole packet of yeast, it's going to ferment faster than a larger batch would with that same yeast packet. This can catch people off guard, and you can very easily miss the nutrient additions involved with a staggered nutrient protocol. If you're doing this with yeasts you aren't familiar with, or if they're heavy feeders, you raise the potential of missing those nutrient benchmarks, and that yeast is going to create H2S at the very least. It may get stuck, it may create other off odors and flavors that you cant really fix easily. 

Then you're stuck with one of the experimental variables full of flaws, and it would skew the whole experience. 




Jimyson said:


> Ok, so yes, an auto siphon will likely leave more volume of liquid behind because of design. But on transfer from my keg fermented and 5/6 gallon carboys, I use a standard racking cane through a carboy cap (carboy) or spending valve assembly (for the keg) and have CO2 attached so I essentially push the liquid up the cane via forced pressure around 3-5 psi. Creating something similar with a bung, then taking it slow and tilting the small vessel to gather some of the liquid wouldn't loose all that much.
> 
> I also purge everything with CO2 one each side during racking so that I minimize oxygen exposure. This along with some sanitization care, and TIME, should make for easy clearing via primary to secondary to bulk.
> 
> I get it though, yes, more of a PITA.



The racking losses really occur when folks try to separate the sediment out. Most, when going for that really clear finished product, end up stopping the siphon before even the slightest traces go up the racking can. Usually closer to the bulk aging than the fermentation end of things.

Due to the design of the racking cane, with the tip on the end, this can leave anything from a pint to a quart behind. If folks do this a few times, because they thought the wine/mead was clear but it dropped more sediment again, the losses add up. 

The fix to this, is to still rack in that fashion, but take what's left in the bottom of the carboy, and isolate it into a quart jar or wine bottle and let the sediment settle all over again. From there you can pour off the wine when it clears, either into another catch jar or into the wine/mead it came from, depending both on where you're at in the process (if you see another sediment racking coming or not) and how clear that isolated tidbit is itself.


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## Jimyson (Feb 18, 2015)

Deezil said:


> So if I'm reading this right, you want to split the wine kit into 4:
> 
> RP15 + FT Rouge
> RP15 + FT Rouge Soft
> ...



Exactly what I want to do. Talk to me about clearing issues in small quantities. I'm so used to the yeast being fairly good at flocculating over time and clearing beer on its own and then a cold crash prior to bottling. Obviously I need to read up a bit more on this topic. 

I'm not worried about the output on this batch as much as I am about getting a reasonable yield and learning more in the short term about the yeast and tannins.







Deezil said:


> I'd recommend doing it how I mentioned, simply because there's no way to know if 50-50 mead to agave is going to be the best flavor profile; but if you ferment them separately, you can do some bench trials to figure out the best ratio of mead : agave for your tastes.



Done!




Deezil said:


> Mostly, it's the fermentation time. If you have a smaller-than 5-gallon batch, and you pitch a whole packet of yeast, it's going to ferment faster than a larger batch would with that same yeast packet. This can catch people off guard, and you can very easily miss the nutrient additions involved with a staggered nutrient protocol. If you're doing this with yeasts you aren't familiar with, or if they're heavy feeders, you raise the potential of missing those nutrient benchmarks, and that yeast is going to create H2S at the very least. It may get stuck, it may create other off odors and flavors that you cant really fix easily.



Luckily, I work from home and my brew area is about 30' from my desk. I can easily keep an eye on it and monitor. For the wine, I need to open and mix often during fermentation so it's really easy to pull a drop and pop it on the refractometer. 

I was also thinking about the yeast and splitting. For the mead/agave, not a topic of discussion anymore but I get it. For the wine, I will be splitting each yeast so my plan was to make a starter in a beaker, mix well prior to pitch to get all the yeast in suspension, and put half in one bucket and so on.






Deezil said:


> The fix to this, is to still rack in that fashion, but take what's left in the bottom of the carboy, and isolate it into a quart jar or wine bottle and let the sediment settle all over again. From there you can pour off the wine when it clears, either into another catch jar or into the wine/mead it came from, depending both on where you're at in the process (if you see another sediment racking coming or not) and how clear that isolated tidbit is itself.



Yeah, I need to put some thought into this. 

Have my hands full now. Newest brewmaster born yesterday afternoon! Back to the fam.


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## Deezil (Feb 19, 2015)

Your yeast distribution idea sounds like it'll do the trick.

But refractometers become inaccurate in the presence of alcohol, so once fermentation starts you'll have to use a hydrometer to gauge the progress. Not much harder than a refractometer though.


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## Jimyson (Feb 19, 2015)

That's what they make refractometer calculators for! I use BrixCalc on my iOS devices or Brewers Friend calculator if on my laptop. Seems to be accurate enough for my needs. Have you done side by side comparisons that provide more concrete results of inaccuracies if using a refractometer calculator vs hydrometer?


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## Deezil (Feb 19, 2015)

Yeah there's a scale of adjustments out there, I just don't have it handy. But it does require adjusting to remaining accurate due to the presence of alcohol


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## Jimyson (Feb 19, 2015)

Yep, this is what I use. They seem to be the most accurate for my needs. Plus I love only using a few drops vs a tube full, especially with multiple small batches.


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## seth8530 (Feb 19, 2015)

Looks like we are having fun here....


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## Jimyson (Feb 20, 2015)

Interesting evolution of the original topic, yes?


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## RegarRenill (Feb 20, 2015)

Congrats on your new family member


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## Jimyson (Feb 21, 2015)

RegarRenill said:


> Congrats on your new family member




Thanks RR! He's been great!


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## Jimyson (Mar 13, 2015)

On its way. 1.092 with D47. 6 gallon batch.


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## Jimyson (Mar 21, 2015)

Moved it into secondary last night. It's starting to clear as of this morning.


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