damdaman

Recipes 

I started my first batch of JAOM 2 weeks ago. Opened it up to take a gravity reading today, and SG is 1.006 and still appears to be working! I thought this stuff was supposed to finish fairly sweet? It was a 3gal batch so I pitched 3 packets of Fleischmann's yeast, so probably over-pitched based on looking back at the recipe, maybe that has something to do with it?

It doesn't taste bad, if a bit rough... there's definitely an odd bitterness to it that I assume would normally be covered up by the residual sweetness, and the cloves come through a bit stronger than I would have hoped.

I'm assuming best course is to leave it alone, let it finish, stabilize and back-sweeten at bottling?

saramc

Recipes 

It seems some end up with a natural residual sugar and others ferment dry. So stabilizing with k-meta plus sorbate prior to b/s is an option. My 2010 JMAO is now approaching three years old and was tweaked with one cup of Hershey's chocolate syrup per gallon--became chocolate orange spice mead, quite nice--two bottles left.
Getting ready to start a fresh gallon of original JMAO on New Year's Day, it is a tradition.

As far as the taste of your batch, definitely give it some time as you will be amazed how it ages. Personally I have yet to enjoy JMAO as soon as it is clear, but around three months it starts to perk up for me. I also use good honey, orange blossom and tupelo are my favorites--meadowfoam when I have it. I really like to play with different combinations of honey.

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damdaman

Recipes 

Thanks, good to know that some people end up with this recipe dry. I do think I'll back-sweeten eventually though, but I look forward to seeing how the flavor matures.

fatbloke

Recipes 

Generally, JAO starts high and finishes at about the 1.020 to 1.030 sort of area. Plus when scaling up from 1 gallon you'd normally just triple all ingredients except the yeast, but just leave it to do its thing IMO then once the fruit has dropped rack and taste then. It may recover some perception of sweetness. If it doesn't then think about back sweetening......

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