Oak Aged Mead - Tastes like Bourbon!

Has anyone used oak chips in a mead? I have a semi sweet, 10% mead that I added some oak chips to, and left for about a week. I'm starting to regret that decision though, and now it tastes like straight bourbon without the alcohol burn. Interesting to say the least, but not quite what I was looking for. I bottled it with the hopes the oak will decrease over time. (the mead is relatively young at a few months)

What about you guys? How is oak working for you? I'd like to try to use it more, it adds something really interesting and I'd like to see what it does for beers as well. Thoughts?

mike

I have had "commercially made" bourbon barrel mead called Nau-t-gal. It's a Chicago product. I thought it was amazing. What was your recipe? Any chance you could arrange for me to sneak a taste? I've very seriously been wanting to do this myself, but don't have much mead experience, nor have I had more than the one. Maybe we could arrange a beer-for-mead swap?

Anyway, yes the first bottle I had (2006) was very bourbon-y. I think it aged for like 6 months. The second bottle (2007) was aged for a considerably shorter time, didn't have nearly the same amount of bourbon profile and, IMHO, was not nearly as good.

well for bourbon lovers this is your stuff The recipe was as simple as can be, just 10 lbs honey to 3 gal water with lalvin k1-v yeast. I let it ferment out and clear, then I took one gallon off and put one ounce of medium toast oak chips in for one week. We'll see how the mead and the oak get along in the bottle during the aging process. This mead would need another six months at least for aging without the oak. Now I'm thinking it might need more.

As for a swap, I'd love to try that! I'm new at the shipping thing, and might need some tips. I apparently missed out on the holiday swap here, but i'd like to try what other mead makers and brewers are doing out there.

mike

Sorry, I let this thread drop for awhile, then tonight I was thinking, "damn, some bourbon-aged beer or mead would be good right now..." Then I remembered this thread, so here I am. Sorry I missed your response until now.

I have no problem waiting 6 months for something to finish. On the other hand, I believe I'm embarking on a period of unparalleled brewing. As a result, I should have many interesting brews in the next 3 months or so.

I definitely want to swap though.


So... what was the OG and FG of the mead? How long did it take to ferment and clear?

Sorry, but I dont want to start a new thread but can you age beer with the Jack Daniels oak chips I use for Smoking?

Jack daniels uses maple for the charcoal filtering, they use oak for the barrels.

And yes, you can use those to age. I would think you'd need to disinfect them (perhaps by charring them in the oven), but they should work.

You can also buy basically the same thing (cut/ground/trimmed into more exacting shapes) at the LHBS for considerably more coin. The advantage is greater predictability of surface area. The disadvantage is more cost. Draw the line where you will.

As far as sanitiation is concerned, I soaked my chips for an hour in a solution of Campden tablets. Campden is used primarily for wine making, it essentially kills off the baddies in a must before your add yeast to it. The benifit is that its something you can add directly to your wine or mead, without fear of off flavors. Some people will make a must (wort to brewers) and add the prescribed amount of campden to it and leave it for 24 hours, before they add their yeast. Campden is known to kill yeast if added during fermentation. Soaked my chips and added them to the secondary.

OG for this batch was 1.09 and it fermented to 1.015 (fairly sweet). Made August 11th, racked to secondary August 25th, racked to tertiary September 23rd, added Oak chips November 25th, bottled December 2nd. I'd say it still needs six more months to mature enough to drink.

mike

any update?

lol, I drank it

Actually, the last bottle was (of course) the best. It was almost a year old when I opened it, and the bourbon mellowed considerably, allowing the vanilla to come through.

I've learned since then that oak chips are a little one dimensional in their flavor, and oak cubes lend more mouthfeel and depth. Also, American oak is very bourbon-like, even commercial wines I've had with American have that same whiskey flavor. French oak however, lends a much softer (and I think more pleasant) flavor. I've got a mead cooking up right now, and I'll be oaking some in French cubes once it's done.

MikeRLynch said:

lol, I drank it

Actually, the last bottle was (of course) the best. It was almost a year old when I opened it, and the bourbon mellowed considerably, allowing the vanilla to come through.

I've learned since then that oak chips are a little one dimensional in their flavor, and oak cubes lend more mouthfeel and depth. Also, American oak is very bourbon-like, even commercial wines I've had with American have that same whiskey flavor. French oak however, lends a much softer (and I think more pleasant) flavor. I've got a mead cooking up right now, and I'll be oaking some in French cubes once it's done.

Click to expand...

Cool, I may have to oak this pyment I just made with some medium toast french oak. Thanks!

I am thinking of starting to make a mead, and the bourbon flavour idea intrigued me.

What was the full recipe that you used, and any suggestions for a new mead maker?

Sure, mead is the easiest thing in the world, it's the first thing I ever fermented.

Traditional Mead
4 gallons

- 1 gallon (12 lbs) honey (I used wildflower, you can use anything you want)
- Water up to 4 gallons
- Lalvin d-47 or other wine yeast
- Yeast nutrient

Sanitize all buckets, mixing spoons, hydrometers, and generally anything that comes in contact with the mead. Mix the honey with the water, don't heat it! It'll take a while, but just keep stirring. Rehydrate the wine yeast in some warm water. Take a gravity reading of the honey mixture (now called must) and you should be somewhere around 1.098 and 1.100. When the yeast is ready, pitch it into the must and shake like hell, get as much o2 in there as possible. Put a teaspoon of the yeast nutrient in there as well. Toss it in your closet and forget about it for a while.

When it comes to oaking, I would rack your mead to a secondary and add the American oak chips at that point. You don't need much, a small handful in the four gallons should be plenty. How long should you leave it in there? That's entirely up to you. I left it in for a week and it was too much for me, and I had to age it out. Taste is the only way to know, so sample a little every other day or so until it's where you want it. Good luck, and send me a bottle when it's done

I hope that my Oak'd Mead tastes like bourbon! I started mine around Valentine's Day, and I am getting ready to bottle towards the end of this month. I had an OG of 1.124, and a FG of 1.020...13.65% I think that I might have added the oak too early causing the extended fermentation, but it did ferment to completion.

viking said:

I hope that my Oak'd Mead tastes like bourbon! I started mine around Valentine's Day, and I am getting ready to bottle towards the end of this month. I had an OG of 1.124, and a FG of 1.020...13.65% I think that I might have added the oak too early causing the extended fermentation, but it did ferment to completion.

Click to expand...

How long has it been on oak, and what kind?

Anyone tried putting it in an actual barrel?

I had a semi-dry traditional mead aged in a Pappy Van Winkle barrel. It was made by Celestial Meads. It was amazing, wish I knew the specifics. I suspect the hard part is getting your hands on a Pappy Van Winkle barrel.

I just did a search for oaked Mead thru Google and found this thread. I have been brewing Mead and G.F.Beer and wine just about anything fermentable really and now have a 1 Gallon soaking in french oak. Its been in secondary for two weeks now and the mead has changed to the color of the oak, looks brown, instead of a nice gold from the honey I used. I read that others have taken out the oak after a week and that it taste more like bourbon so Im now wondering if I leave the mead on the oak for a year what it will do. Like want happens in the cask for example. Any ideas?

You should check out: www.denardbrewing.com . He did a trial study involving French, American, and Hungarian Oak cubes. It's VERY informative. I've oaked mesquite honey mead with all 3 (med toast) according to his preferred time schedule and found that my taste compares favorably with his. So far, the Mesquite Honey oaked with American med toasted cubes is probably my favorite mead period. This weekend I'm trying the Hungarian - it's been in the bottle for a couple of months now, we'll see how that tastes.

Why not heat the honey? Ive made juice meads and cook with honey at 175° for 45 min turned out fine. 13% just wondering

Scavanaugh said:

Why not heat the honey? Ive made juice meads and cook with honey at 175° for 45 min turned out fine. 13% just wondering

Click to expand...

Heating will destroy many of the unique flavor/aeromatic elements of honey. The sweetness will remain, but the character of a particular varietal will be lost. If you're adding a lot of fruit to make a melomel, or spices for a metheglin, this doesn't matter quite as much. If you're making a traditional mead, it makes a huge difference.

Wow crazy, just rejoined HomeBrewTalk after a long hiatus and found an old thread I started with another user name in 2007!

To echo others, if you did a side by side of a mead that was made with heated honey vs not, you'd find the one with no heat applied was much more aromatic. Depends on the yeast you use and the fermentation temperature as well, champagne yeast and fermenting at 70 degrees will strip a lot of those aromatics out as well. While the attenuation of the yeast won't be effected by the heating of the honey, the flavor and aroma will.

Dang now I got to make a batch of mead for the first time in almost 10 years! (when did I get this old????)