New to mead, but excited!

OK, so I am an avid homebrewer who is also a bit of a wine lover and mead has me UBER-intrigued. Since I already own all the equipment (and then some) required to make mead, I made the leap and bought some honey and blackberry puree from NB today and scored 5 cases of 375ml bottles (120 bottles) for $10 a case. I also purchased the Compleat Meadmaker a little over a week ago and have already read it through (although I admit to skimming on the historical stuff to dive into the methods and processes).

My plan is as follows:
- 5 gal batch of blackberry melomel
- batch of basic dry show mead
- batch of vanilla mead
- if I have any honey left, I would also like to try to make a pumpkin or seasonal mead for next winter.

In general, interested in trying a few different styles. I like tannins and dry reds or complex whites and I'm not terribly interested in overly sweet fruity drinks.

I also have a kind of a fruit farm in my backyard with blackberry, gooseberry, jostaberry, blueberry, and raspberry bushes as well as peach, pear, and cherry trees to provide good fodder for future meads (if I can sneak enough from fresh eating stocks).

I purchased a couple pouches of the Lalvin K1V-1116 and plan to use this for the Blackberry and dry show meads.

Any suggestions for the Vanilla and Pumkin meads in terms of yeast and honey varieties?

well huray for you man very cool. have fun and fallow the book.

Congratulations on your leap of faith! That K1V-1116 is a good all-round yeast, as is D-47. Whenever someone asks for yeast recommendations, I always point them to the Lallemand Yeast Chart. It provides a lot of information and you can choose a yeast based on the properties you're looking for, or your fermentation conditions.

As for a honey recommendation, I always recommend plain clover or alfalfa honey, local if you can get it, for anything other than traditional meads. Well, alfalfa's good for that too, but save your good varietal honey for a straight honey and water mead to celebrate the essence of the varietal honey and to get the most bang for the buck.

summersolstice said:

Congratulations on your leap of faith! That K1V-1116 is a good all-round yeast, as is D-47. Whenever someone asks for yeast recommendations, I always point them to the Lallemand Yeast Chart.

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Thanks for the link. I'm a big yeast starter and pitching rate kind of homebrew guy but hardly notice a cursory mention of it in mead discussions. What is the reasoning for this?

I also noticed they have both dry and liquid yeast available (albeit the detailed info for the dry wine yeast seems better documented) but most on here seem to prefer the dry stuff. Is this a cost preference? Is that the same reason for not doing a starter?

Thanks in advance!

You really have two different kinds of mead makers, especially on this board: those who began as brewers and those who began as winemakers and they take different approaches. As a winemaker, I use hydrated dry yeast without a starter, I'd never, ever think of boiling a wine or mead, and I use potassium (or sodium) metabisulfite with citric acid for sanitizing equipment. Brewers, on the other hand, think in terms of liquid yeast, starters, and Starsan. Both work, and advocates have strong opinions. Experiment and see what feels right to you. I'll bet you friends drinking the mead will never know the difference!

mead is a wonderful world of waiting, rewarded with something mystical, ancient and delicious. i rate people on how they react to my mead. if you won't try it, you suck. if you try it and leave half the glass, you suck. if you try it and say "that is different" and finish the glass, you're good. if you try it and say "that is harsh" and finish the glass you are good. if you try it and come over the next day asking for more, you are truely enlightened.

Sounds like you're off to a good start. If your trees are dwarf, you may want to add more, but if they're just still young, your future's so bright, you'll need some shades soon. Whatever you do, leave the anxiety out of your meads; it tastes like crap.

Thanks for the support. I hope the hobby provides you as much pleasure as it has me.

My suggestion is to make a yeast starter. I'm new to Mead too and mine is under attenuated. Although I pitched 2 packages of yeast for a 5 gallon batch and hydrated it wasn't enough. Will definately do a starter next time. My FG is in the 1.03 range.

bruck said:

My suggestion is to make a yeast starter. I'm new to Mead too and mine is under attenuated. Although I pitched 2 packages of yeast for a 5 gallon batch and hydrated it wasn't enough. Will definately do a starter next time. My FG is in the 1.03 range.

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Did you do the staggered nutrient additions? I have never made a starter and never had an issue getting down to my desired final gravity.

I haven't made one for Mead yet, but when I make them for my beer I just throw in a tsp of yeast nutrient. Seems to work fantastic.

I've only used liquid yeast in my meads and never had a bad result. Although dry yeast with a starter would be just as good.

All I can add for advice is that I'm offering my palate to aid in any tastings you require...especially since you live so darn close.

D-47 is one of my all time favorite mead yeasts. If you read Schaam's book, you will see it mentioned very favorably in there many times. I do not use yeast starters either for mead, but rehydrate, like summersoltice said, with plain water. For high gravity meads, I'll do a staggered nutrient addition at various sugar breaks during the fermentation process. Also, when fresh fruit is involved you'll want to keep the lid off the fermenter, and just covered with a cloth so you can get maximum aeration and be able to "punch the cap" so your fruit doesn't start growing funky things on it expose to the air and it'll also help with oxygen transfer.

Good luck and have fun.
Dan

I'm doing a blueberry melomel now myself and it is really tasting good already after 3 months. It tastes nothing like I though that it would and that is a real treat. It reminds me more of wine then mead.

I'm going to be racking a raspberry mead tonight, hopefully it will be tasting quite delicious.

Flyweed, what do you mean "keep the lid off the fermenter?" I will be aerating with pure oxygen prior to pitching the yeast but why would I keep the lid off? I was planning to use a blow-off hose and then an airlock once the primary fermentation subsided.

I was under the impression that oxidation is an unwanted thing once the fermentation begins (or is this just my beer brewing mind running wild in a land of mead?)


Dan, how did that raspberry mead taste? I know you said it was a sweater recipe than you usually liked. Did you add raspberry addition at the start of fermentation then as opposed to the secondary addition?

The raspberry mead tasted like robitussin at first racking. Definitely needs some bulk aging. All the fruit was added in the primary. That way I don't have to muck around with the fruit after primary fermentation is done.

Randar....on a fruit mead it is common to not put the airlock and lid on until about the 1/3 sugar break...that way you can punch the cap (push the fruit down into the must) every once in a while to help aerate the liquid and keep the fruit moist. You WANT oxygen in at that point, unlike beer making.

Also, my raspberry mead was VERY sweet, almost cloyingly sweet. It was a real dessert wine for sure....if I did it again, I'd cut back a bit on the amount of honey and pounds of raspberries I used.

I never put a lid on any primary, except when I'm brewing beer. I cover with a towel and kept in place with a bungee cord. It stays that way for 10-12 days when I rack to a glass carboy under and airlock.