Raspberry Melomel (Bronze Medal winner at 2010 Great Arizona Homebrew Competition)
 

This scored a 43 at the 2010 Great Arizona Homebrew Competition

7.5 lbs clover honey
24 oz. fresh raspberries
4 lemons, juice of
4 limes, juice of
1/2 cup brewed earl grey tea
Lavlin D47 yeast
staggered nutrient addition (see hightest's FAQs)

Mix everything together in a 3-gallon carboy. Top off with spring water to 3 gallons. Ferment until fruit loses color; rack off of fruit and top off with water; rack when fermentation is complete; rack as needed until clear; bottle with 3 oz. dextrose and age for 1 year

:tank:

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Boquet/Aroma: "good lite honey aroma, massive raspberry nose" "great raspberry up front, slight honey"

Appearance: "perfect color (pink!), clarity, & carbonation" "pink bubbly! lots of carbonation, great clarity, some legs"

Flavor: "good honey to fruit flavor balance. nicely warming alcohol. carbonation great." "good berry flavor, more dry than sweet, very carbonated"

Overall: "very nice mead. I'd like to have a case stashed away! great job!" "this would be a great celebration bubbly - very much like a fruity champagne. thank you!"

Nice work. Was your FG measured after priming sugar? How did you manage to get your yeast to peter out, but still carb?

sweetness!

Wow, I make a very similar raspberry cyser (actually I don't know what to call it, its 1/2 gallon of apple juice, 3-4 lbs of honey, 12 oz. frozen raspberries, and about a quart of earl grey tea, total 1 gallon). I can't believe that someone else uses earl grey tea.

I honestly think I just got lucky...

how's yours coming along humann?

a quart of tea in a one gallon batch? how many tea bags? let me know how that works out.

2 bags, it turned out pretty well last time. The gravity was 1.128 so its not like it's watered down or anything, just a hint of bitterness and aroma fromt he tea. I'll let you know when the current batch is done, though I just started it last night so it will probably be at least a month.

I hope this is as good as you all make it out to be, cause I am going to be making a 5 gallon batch very soon.

Hey there AZ_IPA. Thanks for the recipe. I just started a batch this Friday, and unlike when I made a JOAM batch, this one seems to be off to a slow start. When you started with yours, did you notice your yeast getting off to a quick start or was it a slower, gradual process?

It did start off really slow. I think it's because with JOAM, you're using bread yeast which probably takes off a little quicker.

Give it time, and if you think you're stuck, hit it with some nutrient (but watch out for foam over!)

When I made my JOAM I used EC-1118 and it took off at a blistering pace. I'll let this one go since the yeast groups appear to be growing, and they're giving off CO2. It's just nowhere near as fast as the JOAM recipe did.