Help with Orange Melomel

I'm going to make a 1 gal orange melomel using 3 lbs orange blossom honey and some oranges. But I don't know how many oranges would be enough to give a good level of orange flavor, yet keep the acid from being too harch. I was going to use the peels for extra flavor and tannin as well. How many oranges/orange peels should I add? BTW, I'm using champagne yeast, so it'll be a dry mead.

mew said:

I'm going to make a 1 gal orange melomel using 3 lbs orange blossom honey and some oranges. But I don't know how many oranges would be enough to give a good level of orange flavor, yet keep the acid from being too harch. I was going to use the peels for extra flavor and tannin as well. How many oranges/orange peels should I add? BTW, I'm using champagne yeast, so it'll be a dry mead.

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Be careful with champagne yeast. If you've never used it before, it gets DRY. I can't imagine what it'd do to some honey.

Do you think cotes de blanc would be better? what yeast would you use?

I used 3/4 of a super ripe navel orange for my first mead (1 gal), and it's still going at day 77. I just cut up slices, peel and all, squeezed them a bit and tossed em. In the beginning of the ferment it was like drinking orange furniture polish, waaay too strong. By now the flavor is waaaay in the back, barely there at all. If you decide to add the orange more towards the end of the ferment, instead of the beginning, I assume the flavor would be more up front. And you're already using orange blossom honey, so I don't think you'd need much. Maybe rack on to some oranges in your secondary.

Right now I'm thinkin' that I'll add two oranges to secondary, but I'll use a peeler so I don't get any white pith. I'll freeze the oranges and then thaw them before adding. I think that should be sufficient. I'm going to stick with the champagne yeast because I don't like sweet beverages very much. I just hope it leaves enough residual orange and honey flavor, rather than sweetness.

-edit-
I just thought of a problem with that method: it doesn't take into account acid balance. I'm thinking I should add the juice from one lemon at the start of ferment. Hopefully that'll do it.

I have another question: If orange juice is used, will the mead clear? My guess is that it wouldn't, because orange juice is not clear.