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OneCerebralSamurai · 05-23-2011, 01:17 AM

OK - after 1 day, there was still honey in the bottom of the carboy so I decided to give it a stir and take a small taste to see how the habaneros were doing. It still tastes great, but the pepper hottness is coming on very strong. So strong that I decided to pull the peppers out after only 1 day. I still think the peppers were a great idea, but if I were to do it again, I might add only 2 peppers and leave them in a month.

Now to age another 2 months...

**oldmate** · 05-23-2011, 09:43 AM

Hopefully the chilli mellows with age, and becomes well rounded with the cocao!

OneCerebralSamurai · 06-22-2011, 02:25 PM

OK, I had a great deal of sediment in the carboy, so I decided to rack (plus I wanted to see how the habaneros are aging in). SG = 1.022, and still has pronounced habanero heat up front. It tasted kind of “interesting” (funky), and it seems quite bitter. After racking, I topped up with 0.5 cups of Reallemon juice (acid to balance the bitterness) and ~1 lb of honey. The most common chocolate mead recipe I've seen floating around the net (liquid sex) indicates an FG target of 1.030. My experience so far indicates that this is reasonable.

If I were to do this again, I'd add much more lemon juice up front (I have a second batch going where I added 1 cup of Reallemon in the primary), and I'd probably start with an OG ~ 1.160.

**biochemedic** · 06-22-2011, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OneCerebralSamurai

OK, I had a great deal of sediment in the carboy, so I decided to rack (plus I wanted to see how the habaneros are aging in). SG = 1.022, and still has pronounced habanero heat up front. It tasted kind of “interesting” (funky), and it seems quite bitter. After racking, I topped up with 0.5 cups of Reallemon juice (acid to balance the bitterness) and ~1 lb of honey. The most common chocolate mead recipe I've seen floating around the net (liquid sex) indicates an FG target of 1.030. My experience so far indicates that this is reasonable.

If I were to do this again, I'd add much more lemon juice up front (I have a second batch going where I added 1 cup of Reallemon in the primary), and I'd probably start with an OG ~ 1.160.

I think you're always still better off adding acid later on to taste rather than up front. The lower pH can sometimes negatively affect your fermentation.

Regarding the Liquid Sex chocolate mead recipe, I personally have made it and I kind think 1.030 would be way to sweet (at least for my tastes). I let mine go dry, then backsweetened...I went back up to lightly semi-sweet (~1.012), which was just enough sweetness to temper the cocoa bitterness.

huesmann · 07-29-2011, 05:33 PM

Any of you tried to make Xtabentun?

OneCerebralSamurai · 08-07-2011, 11:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by huesmann

Any of you tried to make Xtabentun?

Not I.

Karmawar · 08-25-2011, 01:25 PM

I always thought that the Mayans saved space in there use of memory by only using 12 instead of 2012, 12/21/12 might be like the 9/9/99 bug in our ye olde software programming. Thats why the world will end, just ike it did with Y2K!

**oldmate** · 09-24-2011, 05:17 AM

Getting ready to rack mine. Have had some vanilla in vodka for a few weeks which I'll be adding to it as well. From the looks of it there is a whole heap of lees, but it hasn't cleared at all.

DeusInnomen · 11-08-2011, 12:50 PM

Wanted to say thank you for this recipe, I included a batch of this in my brewing weekend this past Saturday. The tempered yeast starter worked brilliantly and the yeast has been very happy from the start. I'm tempted to split it into two 3-gallon carboys during the secondary stage and add peppers to one of them while leaving the other unheated.

Ended up with an OG of right about 1.150. I was only able to take an updated reading 13.5 hours later (1.144) because the krausen (I don't know the mead's equivalent name, I'm normally just a beer brewer

) is so thick and foamy that I can't actually dig my way to the surface of the mead now. I also learned just how much CO2 ends up in this thing when I went to degas it the next evening and it erupted like a delicious chocolate volcano. Hooboy!

Can't wait for this to finish late next year!

OneCerebralSamurai · 02-20-2012, 06:24 PM

Fyi – I hit my batch with some bentonite a couple months ago, and then just hit it with some SuperKleer-KC this morning (I need the carboy). It's looking pretty clear.

This ended up being a habanero mead with a tiny bit of chocolate. The 6 habaneroes that I put in for only one day completely overwhelmed the other flavors. It's not too spicy to drink – and is actually pretty interesting and good... but definitely has very little detectible chocolate.

I will continue to tweak this recipe – next time I'm going to up the chocolate (powder and nibs) and vanilla (powder and/or beans), and use only one habanero.