Show us your Mead in a photo!!!

New blueberry melomel made less than two hours ago.

jhoson said:

@gilliam , mind sharing the recipe?

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Saffron Metheglin (Recipe for 3 gallons)

4 kg honey (unknown origins)
2.5 gr saffron
Yeast: Lalvin 71B-1122
Yeast nutrients

Boil 2.5 kg of honey on low/medium heat until it caramelizes (ca 1 hour). Let it cool a bit and add the rest if the honey and water. Heat the must a little and let all honey dissolve. Add the saffron and stir a bit.
Let it cool and pour everything into the fermentation vessel, add yeast and nutrients and oxygenate the must (I do it by shaking the vessel).

Back sweeten to taste.

I tried to post some pics this morning but the post still hasn't appeared.

We'll try this again. The Applejack isn't a mead it's just something I'm brewing up to be ready to drink in a couple of months. It isn't what is traditionally referred to as Applejack but that is what my cousin called it when he told my dad the recipe many years ago.

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This is my Berry Blast Melomel - made with Strawberry, Raspberry, Blackberry, and Blueberries.
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Here is my first try at mead/melomel. A peach and pineapple about two months old. About to bottle. Tastes a little yeasty now but sweet should be good by xmas or new years.

pumpkinman2012 said:

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This is my Berry Blast Melomel - made with Strawberry, Raspberry, Blackberry, and Blueberries.
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Looks GREAT. I have a melomel bulk aging right now containing those exact ingredients. Will be bottling before too long.

It will be great! I entered this in the Missouri Valley Wine Society competition at 3 months old and took a bronze medal, it was real young but I wanted to give it a try.

My first bochet, caramelized the honey for about 1 hour. just waiting for it to cool down enough to pitch the yeast
Gravity= 1.085



my entire basement smells like burnt marshmallow now

Edit: added: enough non caramelized honey to bring the gravity up to 1.110. Using K1- v116 for yeast and SNA

I recommend a blowoff tube for that little amount of headpsace. Looks awesome though.

first kick at mead....ant tips on how long to ferment ? I have made wine before should I wait the same 6 weeks?

Duff post your question in a new thread....you'll get a million answers and tips!

Omg... U won't get mead... Get rid of all that head space!!!

duff571 said:

first kick at mead....ant tips on how long to ferment ? I have made wine before should I wait the same 6 weeks?

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please see GeorgiaMead's post below...way too much headspace, you will get some nasty infections...and for me, honey is too much $$$ to waste.

GeorgiaMead said:

Omg... U won't get mead... Get rid of all that head space!!!

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I was thinking the same thing.

It does look like a lot of headspace but it also looks like it's in primary so hopefully its pumping out CO2 which should protect it somewhat. I'd move to secondary just before the ferment is done and use a much smaller vessel.

racking it today to a smaller carboy

wait... what? too much head is a bad thing ? don't tell her that

Blackberry Melomel

Blueberry peach mead

bottled the bochette (sp) and had some left to enjoy now. Born March 11th, over five months to go from 1.086 to today's 0.990. A nice, smoky, floral goodness at 12.8% ABV, sipping wine.

This was made with 12# local NW Idaho honey and 1#strawberries 1/2# each blueberries/raspberries. I think I pooched it with this little bit though cause I got impatient with the extra 1Gal that wouldn't fit in my carboy and I ran it through a Pur filter.... >_>
This is my first time making mead and it's REALLY dry and super strong with a high acid flavor like super tart strawberries. I want to back sweeten it because it's supposed to be for a friends 21st bday. But I'm scared to.

Just bottled my Pumpkin Cyser and I'm drinking what wouldn't fit evenly into bottles. I have to say I am impressed as It's already easy to drink. I started at a O.G. of 1.155 and fermented down to 1.033 so it's really sweet, like a desert wine which is fine because it has pumpkin pie spices in it. I'm going to definitely make another batch of this but make it just a little less sweet but this is still a fabulous outcome for my third try at mead and it's not even aged yet.

Update. I added some vanilla bean and a couple cinnamon sticks to the carboy, I'm going to go and get some cloves to put in there too :3 I want that nice and spicy kick to it. What was in the bottle was the excess. After I re-racked the stuff in my carboy I had plenty of room for the excess I'd had before because I discarded all of the sediment. There's like little to NO headroom so I'm not worried about oxidization. When I had spiced the excess it tasted like a sugar cookie! TOTALLY YUMMY! I might have to pour our some though cause I want to add some more strawberries, raspberries and blueberries to it. Cordial ftw YUM!

JAOM on the left, strawberry vanilla done JAOM style on the right

14 Brave Thanes, Born little more than an hour ago.
3 gal. Batch
6# Honey
3# Maple Syrup
Fresh Apple Cider to make 3 gal.

Oh crap forgot to post some better pics of my previous mead, but here is a JAOM I had to do (because IM a cult-follower zombie?) It is something you just have to do when making meads it seems. Welp, here it is in its premature age,cant wait to see what happens. Ahh , life is a journey.

Bottled my second mead, elsewhere I had listed it as my first but I mentally blocked out my Cranberry mead from last year that lost all color and was nearly clear (see post #779 in this thread from April 2013).
Anyways, a nice cherry mead that finished just under 1.000 and to me just perfect. I feared it finishing too high and tasting like cherry cough syrup, but my fears were unfounded as this finished just right. This was just one gallon but I will make up a 5 gallon batch when temps cool down again.

Ibrewaletx said:

Bottled my second mead, elsewhere I had listed it as my first but I mentally blocked out my Cranberry mead from last year that lost all color and was nearly clear (see post #779 in this thread from April 2013).
Anyways, a nice cherry mead that finished just under 1.000 and to me just perfect. I feared it finishing too high and tasting like cherry cough syrup, but my fears were unfounded as this finished just right. This was just one gallon but I will make up a 5 gallon batch when temps cool down again.

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Would you be able to pm me the recipe or list the link to your recipe post? Thanks!

Ibrewaletx said:

Bottled my second mead, elsewhere I had listed it as my first but I mentally blocked out my Cranberry mead from last year that lost all color and was nearly clear (see post #779 in this thread from April 2013).
Anyways, a nice cherry mead that finished just under 1.000 and to me just perfect. I feared it finishing too high and tasting like cherry cough syrup, but my fears were unfounded as this finished just right. This was just one gallon but I will make up a 5 gallon batch when temps cool down again.

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Yes I would also like the recipe thanks in advance

He should put it in the Recipe forum so it's easy to find in the future.

Here is the basic recipe I used.

• 2 quarts Trader Joe’s 100% Cherry Juice (15 Brix)
• 1 quart Trader Joe’s 100% Tart Cherry Juice (14 Brix)
• 1 lb Clover Honey (Costco) added to obtain 25B (1.100)
• 1/8 tsp DAP
• 1/8 tsp yeast energizer
• 3 grams Lavlin 71B (Narbonne) yeast

I did a staggered nutrient addition with the DAP and yeast energizer.

I put the yeast in on 3/7/13, it was down to 21B on 3/9, 18B on 3/10, and 11B (corrected to 1.007) on 3/17/13.

Edit - I've added the recipe as Trader Joe's Cherry Mead

Working on the hive last night, pulled off one small comb that produced nearly a pound of honey, now fermenting for the neighborhood House Mead.

That's awesome! I've been meaning to ask you about the hive and see how it's going.

Glad to see you're getting a return on it.

TheWeeb said:

Working on the hive last night, pulled off one small comb that produced nearly a pound of honey, now fermenting for the neighborhood House Mead.

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That is great news! Mine should be ready for a harvest next year. Quick question, it gets pretty cold here, how do you insulate your hive for the winter?

Atek said:

That is great news! Mine should be ready for a harvest next year. Quick question, it gets pretty cold here, how do you insulate your hive for the winter?

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Well, this is my first year, and I am not the official beekeeper, my friend Kaleen is, but the plan is to move the hives closer to the garage to offer some protection, close off the bottom, and wrap them in several blankets leaving only the entrance slot open. If there is sufficient honey left in the hive - not really harvesting yet either, only small bits to experiment with - they should survive.

Raspberry Strawberry Lemonade Mead. 12 lbs Snowberry Honey. 4 lbs raspberries. 3 lbs strawberry puree. 2 cans Minute Maid lemonade concentrate. EC-1118 pitched on October 28, 2012. Bottled on September 3, 2013. 17.3% ABV.

^^^^Purdy!!^^^^

Outkikked said:

Raspberry Strawberry Lemonade Mead. 12 lbs Snowberry Honey. 4 lbs raspberries. 3 lbs strawberry puree. 2 cans Minute Maid lemonade concentrate. EC-1118 pitched on October 28, 2012. Bottled on September 3, 2013. 17.3% ABV.

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That looks really good. 6 gallon batch?

Jak: In a roundabout way, yes. It started out as a 3 gallon batch of raspberry lemonade and 2 Carlo Rossi jugs (just shy of 3 gallons) of strawberry purée with enough water to start the strawberries fermenting. Combined them both in secondary to a 5-gal carboy. Racked to tertiary at the 4-month mark and wrapped a towel around it in the cool corner of the bedroom and figuratively forgot about it for the next 6 months while it bulk aged. In bottling, I was a bit wasteful as I left about 2 bottles worth of liquid with the remaining bit of stirred up lees and wound up tossing it. Got 3 magnums, 12-750ml, and 10-375ml.

This photo is actually a few weeks old now. I started out with a plain mead and then racked it onto some strawberries. It's crystal clear now and all of the fruit has fallen to the bottom. I only used 3 lbs of strawberries because I wanted the color of the fruit more than a lot of the flavor.

12lbs clover honey
Water (my well) to five gallons
Nutrient
3lbs strawberries