started my first ever brew today! *stoked*

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

KC_Brewski420

Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2011
Messages
22
Reaction score
0
Location
kansas city
well i got my mead brewing equipment into after work and i desided i needed to start right away! lol soooo impatient! i know.. i started with a JAOM and all is great!! its bubbling like a champ! now to impatiently wait a little over 2 months to test the results wish me luck!:ban:
 
Best of luck!!!

I'll tell you the story of my first mead as a result. I decided the day before that my friends and I should make mead. They were naturally like, "Sweet idea okay!" Next day we bought a ton of stuff at the brew store and cheap filtered honey at meijers. We joked the whole time doing this (three 1 gallon batches, show mead, metheglin, and cyser). Sterilization was a bit of a serious joke at this time, we did our best.

The real fun started with pouring the molten honey (i've stopped cooking my honey since :p) into the bucket. Basically I poured it towards me, and thankfully my thick jeans protected me from this scalding mixture! Ha, anyway girlfriend called and was jealous I was having so much fun, but that's another story...

After 8 weeks, we bottled the metheglin and show mead. From there we proceeded to drink 1 bottle of each, and found we made the most disgusting thing in the world! It was god awful, but we still had to finish it too! It wasn't alcohol bad, though that was there. It kinda tasted like rubber, bitter, burn, I don't know what else. Great thing was trying to make it taste better. We added orange slices and water. That only made it harder because it diluted the mixture. It was fun, but probably stupid, and gave me a slight headache. Note: we fermented this at high temp not knowing any better. Funny how it works that way.

Results, cyser got stuck at 1.06 and 10% alc, but it tasted good (comparitably). No funny stories with that guy.

Don't let that fun story discourage you, I just though it was exciting, and I hope yours turns out well. I shared one of the bad bottles with my friends...
 
haha! great story! and thanks for sharing it i was very careful with my measuring and sterilization being a newb i didnt want to mess up this early in the game tho it was bound to happen! and so 30 min after it started bubbling i had a overflow of foam out of the airlock haha... my luck i drained some out and she is just fine and back to bubbling like a champ again

now to enjoy a fine duckrabbit milk stout and bask in my glory!
 
JAO is a pretty easy mead. Which makes it great for getting your feet wet. It was my first attempt and turned out well. In my rush to taste it, I didn't age it at all, so I'm sure it would have gotten a little better with age. Regardless, I still enjoyed it as did everyone else that tried it. Especially over the winter when I simmered some in a pan and mixed with some room temp mead to make a great grog. That was quite a relaxing night. Nothing like a warm glass of mead on a chilly night in front of the tv.
 
I brewed up my first Joe's Ancient Orange just over 6 months ago. I too had an aftertaste that was best described as "rubber stopper". This was after having it "age" for about 2 months. Didn't throw it out or drink it all but rather, decided to let it age even further.

This past weekend, just over 6 months aging, I cracked open another bottle. Boy was I surprised. NO more rubber-stopper aftertaste. :ban: It was still pretty sweet and quite smooth. I'm going to let it sit until the holidays and then try again to see how it goes.

So, as I posted in another website, when in doubt, let it age!

Bill
 
Really? Mine is already clear (started it about 3 weeks ago) despite still having some small bubbles coming from the yeast at the bottom.
 
my JAO is officially into week two its looking great its cleared up quite a bit i was suprised at the smell coming from the airlock i figured it would be of a hot alcohol smell but it smelled alot like a orange juice mixed with clove i cant wait till this batch finishes ... im starting a new batch of mead today after work find my thread carmel sundae mead i will keep you all posted there as that happens
 
weeks 3 almost over and my oranges are starting to drop and it is clearing very nicely cant wait to try it ! mmm it smells so good!!!
 
Back
Top