Nerro's Ancient Orange Mead
 

Recipe Type: Dry mead
Yeast: Kitzinger Reinhefe "Sherry"
Yeast Starter: no
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: no
Batch Size (liters): 4 (1.056 gallons)
Original Gravity: 1.090
Final Gravity: 0.995
ABV: ~12.5%
Boiling Time (Minutes): 5
Color: deep gold
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 68F (20C) (28 days)
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): no secondary used
Bottle conditioning: intended to condition and ripen for 6 months or upward

Starting materials:

• 1200g flower honey
• 1 orange (only the zest and the strained juice)
• 2 cloves
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• ~30 sultanas
• Kitzinger Reinhefe "sherry" (yeast)
• DAP

Process:

1. Take the zest of the orange and its juice and strain the juice to remove the bits of pulp. You should have the clear juice and the zest only. The rest of the orange is discarded.
2. Add 2 cloves
3. add 2 sticks of cinnamon
4. Add a small handful of sultanas (~30)
5. Add a hefty teaspoon of DAP
6. Add 1200g of honey (1200g = ~42.3 ounces or 2.65 lbs)
7. Add enough water to make 4L (1.056 gallons)
8. Heat to boiling and keep it at a slow rolling boil for 5 minutes. Do not remove the scum because you will also remove the ingredients when you do.
9. leave the must to cool down on it's own with a lid on it for half an hour. This serves to infuse the must with the flavours of the spices and the orange.
10. Chill the must in the pan in a big tub of cold water to ~70 degrees Fahrenheit.
11. pitch the yeast and stir well once the yeast has hydrated.
12. put the must into the carboy through a strainer and shake it like it's a baby girl after you already painted the baby's room blue and you already bought your son-to-be a gun and a football harness.
13. stopper with an airlock and leave it alone for the next month.
14. After a month it should be flat and the hydrometer should show you a steady value somewhere just below 1.000. This means you can bottle it.
15. Leave it to condition for ~6 months.

This is basically a drier version of JAOM and MAOM with a slightly more refined touch to it. No bread yeast but sherry yeast and more of the spices. The amounts are slightly different because they have been converted to metric as much as possible.

I hope you like it :)

Proost! :mug:

I'm not sure what the flavor of the JOAM is that I DO NOT like, but the term Pithy seems to fit...for lack of a better one.

The 2 cloves and 2 cinnamon sticks seems like overkill for a batch of that size. I suspect that the cloves contribute to the off flavor of the JOAM. If that's not the case, should be good.

I personally like the flavour the spices impart.

The pithyness is because of the way the peel is used. All the white bits must be avoided.

Yep, pithy would come from the orange 'rind'...the white parts. Hence why my 'version' uses orange zest and juice, rather than whole orange slices.

cloves aren't pithy. if anything their over use can create a somewhat medicinal flavor or aroma. I don't think 2 sticks and 2 cloves is overkill for 1gallon. It'll be more pronounced for sure, begging the question of whether this is a metheglin or a melomel...or a happy meeting of the two :)

methemel maybe? :) or meloglin...

melometh!
(10 characters)

I've just tasted my first (Still quite green) sample. and it was great!

Real fruity and nice and crisp. In a year this is going to be the ****! :D

I like it, I'm also going to age 1L of it with vanilla. Just to see how it comes out.

I bet it doesn't take a full year to age to peak flavor. if it tastes good now and doesn't have a hint of 'lighter fluid' to it, you're off to a good start.

never used sherry yeast...so def. keep us updated.

Interestingly it had a strong note of banana's to it. I'm not sure if that's fruity esters being formed by the yeast or that it's because I let it ferment at 20°C (68°F) which might be a little warm.

I used sherry yeast because it's supposed to be able to reach fairly high alcohol percentages and I don't like sweet meads. I didn't expect it to work quite so well though.

Right now I'm fermenting a sour citrus melomel (lemon and orange) with a burgund yeast. That one is definitely not going too fast. It's fermenting at slightly higher temperatures, ~25°C (77°F) on purpose. Both to create those fruity esters and to slightly speed up fermentation. Ill rack it in one or two more weeks. I'll keep you posted on that one too.

lol.. i love how your wrote "10 characters" in place of one character..lol..

an extra "!" would have been fine!