Wyrmwood
Well-Known Member
My (first) mead was clear as a bell so I bottled yesterday. If interested, you can follow the journey here, https://www.homebrewtalk.com/blogs/wyrmwood/752-mead-1.html.
I went ahead and tasted some, even though I fully intend on giving these out at Christmas time. I was very surprised to find it tasted like dry white wine. There was virtually no honey flavor. I've had mead in the past, including more recently a Redstone Traditional Dry, and I seemed to recall more "honey" character.
I also added 4.5 lb of honey to the secondary of a beer I brewed recently and it was fantastic, with mouthfuls of honey, but I imagine that's because I caramelized the honey before adding and didn't use a super high ABV yeast, and I also carbed with honey.
Anyways, so I was surprised to see how little honey taste there was in this mead, especially since I used 14 lb of honey, 5 of which was "dark".
So, if I want more "honey" character, what do you suggest? I imagine the caramelized honey would not ferment out as much. Should I try an ale yeast? Something that won't go beyond 10% or so? Or, is this a matter of age, and it the mead will gain honey character with age? As I mentioned, this is for Christmas
I went ahead and tasted some, even though I fully intend on giving these out at Christmas time. I was very surprised to find it tasted like dry white wine. There was virtually no honey flavor. I've had mead in the past, including more recently a Redstone Traditional Dry, and I seemed to recall more "honey" character.
I also added 4.5 lb of honey to the secondary of a beer I brewed recently and it was fantastic, with mouthfuls of honey, but I imagine that's because I caramelized the honey before adding and didn't use a super high ABV yeast, and I also carbed with honey.
Anyways, so I was surprised to see how little honey taste there was in this mead, especially since I used 14 lb of honey, 5 of which was "dark".
So, if I want more "honey" character, what do you suggest? I imagine the caramelized honey would not ferment out as much. Should I try an ale yeast? Something that won't go beyond 10% or so? Or, is this a matter of age, and it the mead will gain honey character with age? As I mentioned, this is for Christmas