Just helped my GF make mead for the first time!

She made 2 1gal batches, recipes below.

As I've never made mead before, we kind of just threw these together based on two of "Joe's" recipes. What do you think of these ingredient lists? My understanding is that they will ferment out very dry, so I'm thinking about back-sweetening these with some more fresh honey once they are done.

Thoughts?


Pyment [Est. OG: 1.081] (based on Joe's Quick Grape Mead)

• 1.5 lbs of local Michigan honey.
• 64 fl oz Welches 100% grape juice (no preservatives, based on nutritional information, this has 288 grams of sugar)
• Topped off to ~1 gallon with RO water.
• 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 packet of dry "Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast"

Melomel? [Est. OG 1.052] (Based on Joe's Ancient Orange Mead)

• 1.5 lbs of local Michigan honey.
• 1 whole sliced orange (including rinds)
• Topped off to ~1 gallon with RO water.
• 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 packet of dry "Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast"

That's interesting I also helped my girlfriend make a mead, though it was a blueberry-strawberry mead.

Yes, with champaign yeast it will definitely go very dry. I recomend in the future you use a different yeast. Champaign is the most agressive of the wine strains. If you backsweeten it then don't forget to stabalize it first. That is, add some potasium sorbate and let it sit for a few days. With a champaign yeast you may want to do two regiments of potasium sorbate. Then when it's not not fermenting add the honey water. Don't forget to put some campden tablets or some potasium sorbate or even boil the honey water for 2-3 minutes to kill the wild yeasts in the fresh honey. Most times it is not prefable to boil the honey but trust me, I have had a batch ferment after the addition of the honey water you backsweeten with and I was certian that fermentation had stopped.

Matrix

JamesZeagleir said:

That's interesting I also helped my girlfriend make a mead, though it was a blueberry-strawberry mead.

Click to expand...

Never heard (or seen) of people boiling their fruits in the must. Is this a good thing?

I've been told to get the most flavor out of your fruits or flavorings its best to add them after the initial fermentation.

1776 said:

Never heard (or seen) of people boiling their fruits in the must. Is this a good thing?

I've been told to get the most flavor out of your fruits or flavorings its best to add them after the initial fermentation.

Click to expand...

Generally, its not "best practice" but that carries a caveat.

"white or green" fruit, its not a good idea, as you end up with a "cooked" flavour (unless that is what you're after). Whereas "blue, purple and black" fruit often benefit from heating.

The flavour will be different if its been fermented, so if you want a more fruity flavour, then its usually better to ferment a base brew dry, then stabilise, then rack onto or add the fruit.

The other thing that happens when you cook/boil fruit is you get the pectin to firm up. It's how you get jam and jellies. So the pectin will be harder to get rid of. Usually, I puree my fruit and put it in the secondary fermentation. Sometimes I do put in some fruit juices on the primary but only if I intend to put it in the secondary too for a more complex flavor.

Matrix

1776 said:

Never heard (or seen) of people boiling their fruits in the must. Is this a good thing?

I've been told to get the most flavor out of your fruits or flavorings its best to add them after the initial fermentation.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you should put them in the fermentation over the boil if you don't want to buy a lot of berries. Also yeah putting fruit in the boil gives a different more "cooked" taste, the way I describe it is like a slightly smoked fruit based Clamatos Cesar if that makes sense? But I personally find that cooked fruit's worth doing with Wyeast Sweet Mead strain (but that's preference). That being said if you do put them in the boil running them through a strainer when you move it into secondary or bottle is not enough! I would highly recommended getting Volie' fabric. It's cheap and easy to get (it's less then 10$ a square meter). Siphon through the fabric into a bucket then do that again through the Volie' into what ever you want sediment free, it also gets all the super small clumps of fruit jelly that builds up over time inside the carboy which is pectin if I'm not mistaken.

This is what I did:

Well, in Ontario where I live fruit is really cheap right now (like $4 a kilo of strawberrys and like 6$ for blueberrys). After boiling my water for an hour, I just used nearly 20lbs of berries in the mash alone ( I used a squeeze press to get the juice). Then I just let it simmer for about 45 minutes. After which I added 3lbs of blossom honey and two table spoons of liquid strawberry and blueberry extract as well as about an extra pound or two of of both berries. Boiled it for 40 minutes at 110c and strained all the berries and put it in my carboy. I used Wyeast Sweet Mead. Although inside my carboy I had 9 peeled dragonfruits because I find it's something that always gives mead a delicious taste.

16 days later and my carboys still bubbling continually, although no need for a blow off tube. The color is a blood red, it literally looks a carboy full of blood. Looks really cool, and smells utterly delicious.

i'll post a picture of it in a couple of days when i rack into secondary.

So, it is all fermented out...

The orange mead finished at 0.992, the grape finished at 0.997, very dry.

When taking the reading, we tried a sample. I expected it to be very dry, but it also had a very medicinal taste almost numbing effect on the tongue. I was surprised that the orange mead had this characteristic considering it is only 7-8% ABV... is this normal? Will back-sweetening mask this, or only age?

We are going to rack them to a secondary jug and stabilize, add some honey/juice for sweetness, and wait a couple of days to ensure that it is stable.

She is very excited to serve one of these on thanksgiving, so hopefully we can turn it into something drinkable by then!

1776 said:

Never heard (or seen) of people boiling their fruits in the must. Is this a good thing?

I've been told to get the most flavor out of your fruits or flavorings its best to add them after the initial fermentation.

Click to expand...

I have boiled much of my fruit in the must. I haven't had any issues albeit I haven't done an epic number of meads.

bduane said:

So, it is all fermented out...

The orange mead finished at 0.992, the grape finished at 0.997, very dry.

When taking the reading, we tried a sample. I expected it to be very dry, but it also had a very medicinal taste almost numbing effect on the tongue. I was surprised that the orange mead had this characteristic considering it is only 7-8% ABV... is this normal? Will back-sweetening mask this, or only age?

We are going to rack them to a secondary jug and stabilize, add some honey/juice for sweetness, and wait a couple of days to ensure that it is stable.

She is very excited to serve one of these on thanksgiving, so hopefully we can turn it into something drinkable by then!

Click to expand...

Usually recommended to age first, as you often get some of the flavour characteristics coming back, but back sweetening early is a method of masking any "young mead" off flavours.

If its good enough to drink, then go for it, but it would be considerably better to aim for next year.

Got it, we will give it a try. She wants to keep making mead, but understandably, the hobby won't hold her interest if she can't turn something decent around quickly to get started.

We just racked to secondary to get it off the oranges and yeast, and mixed in 1/2 tsp of sir ate and 1 campden tablet per gallon, and put these in the fridge to help the rest of the yeast settle out.

Our current plan is after 2 days we will warm it up to room temperature and add some honey and see if fermentation starts again. Is this right, or should we be sweetening right after adding the campden and sorbate?

bduane said:

Got it, we will give it a try. She wants to keep making mead, but understandably, the hobby won't hold her interest if she can't turn something decent around quickly to get started.

We just racked to secondary to get it off the oranges and yeast, and mixed in 1/2 tsp of sir ate and 1 campden tablet per gallon, and put these in the fridge to help the rest of the yeast settle out.

Our current plan is after 2 days we will warm it up to room temperature and add some honey and see if fermentation starts again. Is this right, or should we be sweetening right after adding the campden and sorbate?

Click to expand...

Mead is not a quick turnaround, honey seriously needs age-age-age. Short mead is what you seek FOR NOW, while you educate yourself. I actually made a few short mead kits, ready to consume in 7-14 days, when I was just starting and unsure. It would have cost me more to source ingredients vs buy the kit for $9 and free shipping ... plus never had a bad word said about them.... http://www.ambrosiafarm.com/mead.php - - - once I learned proper methods I was able to stabilize and bottle, cellar my meads from the kits. And three years later I still make at least two of these a year, hooked on the one with galengal, but I will have my own to harvest next year!
Also, it is more on the uncommon side that you see winemakers/meadmakers actually boil/simmer fruit on a regular basis. Bananas, carrots, parsnips, potatoes are the only items I can think of that would be boiled. We do use steam juicers, and dark fruits are the recommended fruits due to sometimes notable color changes with lighter fruits. And we commonly steep dried fruits/ herbs/spices to extract things.

Here is a link to a thread where I am making a quick chocolate mead and it is deemed ready to consume based on three testees: http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?/topic/51788-started-a-chocolate-mead/#entry1058789758

And a quick pumpkin chai mead that passed the same test: http://www.winepress.us/forums/inde...d-into-a-pumpkin-at-midnight/#entry1058789734

...Sara