KCPyrate
Well-Known Member
I started two one-gallon batches of sweet mead on National Mead day, just a month ago on August 1st... This is my first official stab at mead though I have made Cysers and Melomels before. I fully expected it to take six-months to a year of aging to taste good from everything I had read and from previous experience with the cysers and melomels but this stuff is pretty amazing after only a month.
Both gallon batches were variations on the same recipe using 3.5 pounds of honey in approx 1 gallon water, plus golden rasins, yeast nutrient & Wyeast Sweet mead yeast. (One recipe used Orange Slices, Clove & a Cinnamon Stick, the other with a cup of Jasmine Tea & Orange Zest). Since almost a month had passed and there was quite a bit of sediment/yeast at the bottom I racked to secondary this weekend. It is currently at 13% ABV which is supposedly the max for the sweet mead yeast. A couple of friends and I tasted the hydrometer sample and found it to be very tasty and totally drinkable. Since racking and topping off with water this weekend another 1/4" of sediment has dropped out and it is a beautiful color and almost clear.
Is this normal for sweet mead? If it only gets better with age it seems this stuff will be amazing... Is it mainly the drier stuff that requires aging to remove harshness & clarify? I'll definitely age at least a bottle of it but if it's this good after only a month why not drink it now & get regular batches of this stuff going all the time and just age the next batch? Thoughts?
Both gallon batches were variations on the same recipe using 3.5 pounds of honey in approx 1 gallon water, plus golden rasins, yeast nutrient & Wyeast Sweet mead yeast. (One recipe used Orange Slices, Clove & a Cinnamon Stick, the other with a cup of Jasmine Tea & Orange Zest). Since almost a month had passed and there was quite a bit of sediment/yeast at the bottom I racked to secondary this weekend. It is currently at 13% ABV which is supposedly the max for the sweet mead yeast. A couple of friends and I tasted the hydrometer sample and found it to be very tasty and totally drinkable. Since racking and topping off with water this weekend another 1/4" of sediment has dropped out and it is a beautiful color and almost clear.
Is this normal for sweet mead? If it only gets better with age it seems this stuff will be amazing... Is it mainly the drier stuff that requires aging to remove harshness & clarify? I'll definitely age at least a bottle of it but if it's this good after only a month why not drink it now & get regular batches of this stuff going all the time and just age the next batch? Thoughts?