Dandelion Mead

Hello, first post, been lurking around for a couple months.

Brewed up 3 gallons of Dandelion Mead 3 weeks ago using the following recipe:

1 pound Dandelion Petals
3 gal water
4 pounds honey
3.5 pounds white sugar
4 lemons
3 oranges
2 bags of green tea
1 bag of chamomile tea
White labs sweet mead yeast (liquid)

I split the sugar between honey and white sugar because i thought it would produce a lighter body and produce an overall milder tasting mead.

Boiled all the ingredients first and let them sit over night.
Strained all the solids out the next morning and transfered to 3 gal carboy with a teaspoon of pectic enzyme.
Waited 24 hours and added the yeast.

When i got home from work it was bubbling away and I had a problem free primary.

Today (3 weeks later) I decided it was about time to rack it off the lees.
Racked it into a another 3 gal. OG was 1.11 and final was just over 1.0. Does anybody have any idea what sort of Alcohol % i should have?
I put it in a storage area in my apartment that stays pretty cool, hoping the cool temps will encourage sedimentation. Do you think that adding pectic enzyme would be useful for clearing it up? or will the presence of yeast/alcohol interfere?

Ill let you know how it turns out, im planning to rack it again in two months and bottle it.



Also I am doing a little experiment, recycling any active yeast in the lees, and using a 1 gal carboy i had lying around:

I Used the rest of the honey and sugar i bought for the dandelion mead to make some Spicy Metheglin.
Recipe:
1 pound wildflower honey
1.5 pounds white sugar
3 tea bags of cinnamon orange rooibos
1 tea bag of cardamom chai tea
1 lemon
1 diced granny smith.

I am brewing everything on the stove right now and my plan is to let it cool and transfer it into a 1 gal along with a healthy dose of the yeast cake from the dandelion mead and see what happens.

Thoughts?

I used the Gotmead.com calculator at:

http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=745&Itemid=16

You are at about 14.3% ABV. If I remember right your yeast may have an ABV tolerance of around 14%. I have no experience with using yeast cakes but if your yeast have drowned and died in alchohol then your yeast cake may not do to well. Try it anyways. Worst case scenario is that the yeasts are dead and just become good food for any re-pitch of new yeast.

Well the yeast took to the new batch now about 24 hours later, its bubbling away. Hope it tastes good, pretty much threw it together rooting around my cabinets, wheel see.

For your spicy metheglin, consider putting in sone cinnamon, cardamom, clove, or ginger in the secondary. Those teas show up in the finished product but spices usually are a bit subdued. Unless that is what you want.

Yea those are good ideas, I made a ginger mead once, but used too much ginger i think. After the fermentation the sharpness of the ginger mellowed out and a sweet ginger flavor dominated the wine and the flavors seemed muddled. Maybe something in the secondary would have balanced it out more. It would have been interesting to cook with maybe, but it wasn't too appetizing to drink, ended up oxidizing and i had to chuck it. I've always been interested in using strong tasting meads as mixers in cocktails. I think a Manhattan made with a spicy mead could be delicious.