Show us your Mead in a photo!!!

i cut mine big. They softened up after beeing in there for 3ish months. I just dug them out with a fork. It wasnt too bad but next time definitely smaller

Here's my JAOM (only after 3 or 4 weeks) from a hydrometer sample I took and then cold-crashed afterwards... It's that low cause I drank some of it.

Penguinetti said:

Yea, I thought about that the moment after I got all the oranges in and thought to myself "How in Sam's Hell am I gonna pull these bad boys out..."

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Get a bag( 1 gallon jug use a plastic shopping bag, for carboys a trash bag should work) roll it length wise so that the opening is at one end and the bottom is on the other. Insert the bottom part of the bag into the carboy. Invert carboy so the fruit is at the neck and blow the bag up like a balloon and
gently pull the bag out allowing it to only deflate enough to fit through the neck.It should pull the fruit out with it. this also works with wine bottles that the cork has pushed into the bottle.... and of course there is a youtube video on this,
and yes I realize this is but a helpful tip IMO

ExoticMeadMaker said:

Get a bag( 1 gallon jug use a plastic shopping bag, for carboys a trash bag should work) roll it length wise so that the opening is at one end and the bottom is on the other. Insert the bottom part of the bag into the carboy. Invert carboy so the fruit is at the neck and blow the bag up like a balloon and
gently pull the bag out allowing it to only deflate enough to fit through the neck.It should pull the fruit out with it. this also works with wine bottles that the cork has pushed into the bottle.... and of course there is a youtube video on this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eLCpflimoo
and yes I realize this is but a helpful tip IMO

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Wow, well okay then. This may be but I'm definitely glad you threw this in there.

48 hour old Cerry Vanilla Melomel and 3 week old Clover traditional thats about to go into the secondary

Just bottled this today. Ken Schramm's sweet Mead. Its ten months old now and super smooth.

This is my first batch of mead. Its a cherry melomel. This is about one week into fermentation. Thinking about making it a sparking. Not sure yet. I added pitted fresh cherries to the primary, depending on how it tastes when i rack it to the secondary i might add more.

Here's my ghetto-ass setup:

My first attempt at mead, its a cinnamon cyser. Just racked it into the secondary yestarday, it tasted like rocket fuel. But im sure it will taste better with some more time. I never got the OG cause I was brewing it gehtto style at first, it was at 0.995 yestarday.

Flumpy, compared to mine, your set up looks like a lab.

KuntyBrew said:

Blackberry & Blueberry melomel

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I bet that will be a great melomel. I made a huckleberry and blackberry melomel and the flavor is outstanding. It gets better every month that it sits in the bottles.

Flumpy said:

Here's my ghetto-ass setup:

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Mmmm... a little WD-40 mead.... Goes down smooth.

My first attempt at Mead. Its a Cinnamon 'Gala' Cyser. Transfered it to the Secondary last nite and it tastes like Grade 'A' Rocket Fuel. I hope some time mellows it out, as I'm sure it will. Sorry for the double posts, I thought I messed up and it didn't post the first and now I don't know how or if I can delete it.

And I always top off the carboys with a little bug spray.. keeps the critters out

Ginger Cherry Melomel for next New Years Eve. Thirteen.

great color tyrone

The left is 13 days into secondary, I call it liquid love; cinnamon ginger cyser with buckwheat honey. The right side is my youngest, 2 days into primary; cinnamon cardamom orange cyser with wildflower honey. The center lil guy is just an experiment with the wildflower honey, a cardamom pod, and a lil water.

The current gang complete with aptly novel names... from screen left to right:

(1) No. 1 Nectar; my first short gallon mead after stabilising it, then cold crashing it in the freezer, and finally adding positive and negative finings. (Currently bottled in some recycled Leffe and Grolsch bottles, one of which I've added cinnamon and vanilla extract).

(2) Mr. Bungle (named because my housemates and I had a fantastically tortuous time trying to rescue my closed bung from the demijohn when shaking the must); my second gallon mead chocked full of about 4lbs (~1,900g) of honey, and

(3) Wizard's Socks; my ghettotastic half gallon brew of fly agaric and lemon infused mead (named because of the day or so I left the ingredients to stew in muslin stockings before adding the honey and preparing the must).

Skot_88 said:

The current gang complete with aptly novel names... from screen left to right:

(1) No. 1 Nectar; my first short gallon mead after stabilising it, then cold crashing it in the freezer, and finally adding positive and negative finings. (Currently bottled in some recycled Leffe and Grolsch bottles, one of which I've added cinnamon and vanilla extract).

(2) Mr. Bungle (named because my housemates and I had a fantastically tortuous time trying to rescue my closed bung from the demijohn when shaking the must); my second gallon mead chocked full of about 4lbs (~1,900g) of honey, and

(3) Wizard's Socks; my ghettotastic half gallon brew of fly agaric and lemon infused mead (named because of the day or so I left the ingredients to stew in muslin stockings before adding the honey and preparing the must).

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First off, awesome names. Secondly, I would be incredibly cautious about consuming fly agaric in any form, let alone in conjunction with alcohol. Could be a Darwin Award in the making, right there...

+1

They are great if you wanna trip or whatever, but they affect different people VERY differently. One person could hallucinate and the next could fall over in a fit of seizures. Make sure and warn anyone that is drinking it that it's not just alcohol.

Bifrost: bottled and delicious.

Hazroth said:

Bifrost: bottled and delicious.

View attachment 49115

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That looks amazing! What the heck is Bifrost mead?

Meadowfoam mead

Atek said:

That looks amazing! What the heck is Bifrost mead?

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It's a delicious mixture of Buckwheat and Fireweed honey with muscadine grapes and subtle spices that complement the honey. It came out as a semi-sweet mead and is unbelievably tasty.

Going to make my first 50 gallon batch of it this march.

Couple pics of whats currently going...

First is a week old (9 day actually) Cherry Vanilla Melomel, think we are going to call it our valentines melomel as we made it on valentines day, may make it an annual tradition, especially if it comes out good. The whole bring back good memories of a good day whenever a bottle gets cracked open kind of thing.

The second is a month old traditional with clover honey, clearing nicely in its secondary as you can see the kids picture pretty well through the bottle.

My first batch of mead!! Very basic recipe of honey, water, an orange, a few raisins and yeast. Not tried it yet so looking forward to it!

I know this is off topic but where did you get those Flip top bottles BrewUpAndSup?

Hi there. I'm from the uk and my wife got them from a cookery shop. Have a look on that well known auction site as I've seen them on there. Hope you find some

Ok cool thanks for the info. I hope to find some.

My mead closet (L to R: 2 gal show mead, 1 gal raspberry, 1 gal cherry vanilla, 1 gal JAOM). Also, a pic of my very first attempt at mead, a traditional sweet mead, after 9 mos. Was very good and the jar did not last long!

A couple pics of this morning projects. The clover mead went into tertiary/aging and the cherry vanilla melomel went into secondary....

the clover mead is still a bit (or more) sweeter than my tastes I think, but still teastes decent for only being a month old.
OG 1.109
FG 1.009
ABV ~14.25%
(Wyeast sweet mead smackpack...yup I tried it, yes it's high maintenance)

The cherry vanilla melomel dried out completely, both cherry and vanilla flavors barely there as it is so young (2 weeks), looking forward to what aging will do with it.
OG 1.114
FG 0.998
ABV ~14.84

Contemplating racking the melomel onto oak next....and toying with the idea of combining them one is sweeter than I like and the other real dry, so thinking if combined I might get a nice medium sweet subtle cherry and vanilla flavored concoction in the 14.5% abv range



-First pic is the hydro samples poured into glasses
-Second is in the fermenters after racking
-Third same as last from other direction, lighting sucks, clover looks good but the c.v. melomel can't really be seen

Here's a pic of my current collection of bottles.

On the top shelf is my very first mead. A plain sweet mead.

Second shelf left to right:
Sweet mead with apples and caramelized honey
Semi-sweet mead apples, caramelized honey and nutmeg

Bottom shelf: The latest batch - strawberry mead

Well here is a dodgy photo of mine from about 2 weeks ago (just after it had spurted fermenting foam everywhere out the airlock!). It's an Ironbark / Yellowbox honey (Native Australian) based mead with Black Blood Plums, Raisins, Prunes, and Dark DME, plus some spices - vanilla, cinnamon, cardomom, fenel, clove).

I imagine (from the taste and smell so far) it's going to be pretty full on - maybe will need a year or two to mellow!

they look great, I like your labels

bought 60 lbs of honey from a local apiary and took 45 lbs of it to make 15 gallons of mead during the super bowl with some friends almost a month ago.

Just took a hydrometer sample and taste test. This was my first attempt at a show mead and i used the recipe "Medium Sweet Orange Blossom Mead" in Ken Schramm's "The Compleat Meadmaker" with the only modification being that i used wildflower honey instead of orange blossom.

15lbs wildflower honey
water to 5 gallons
71b-1122 yeast
yeast nutrient and energizer

OG 1.115
FG (this hasnt been racked yet so i am expecting a few more points down) 1.020

12.47 abv


Large honey aroma and taste already with a smaller boozy bite than i am used to having in such a young mead. This is very drinkable already. Once this clears and i bottle it i am going to have a hard time keeping myself from drinking it quickly

Cant wait to have my friends rack and bottle their 5 gallon batches. Id say my first group mead class worked out very well!


Also looking forward to delivering a bottle of this to the apiary i bought the honey from. They have never made mead and said they dont know of anyone who has made mead with their honey before.

Nice color, will look good when it clears, the nutrients take you out of the show mead category and into traditional, I'm still learning alot myself but like the idea of doing a group mead making party even if everyone did smaller 1 gallon batches, good excuse to hang with friends and drink mead.

TheBrewingMedic said:

Nice color, will look good when it clears, the nutrients take you out of the show mead category and into traditional, I'm still learning alot myself but like the idea of doing a group mead making party even if everyone did smaller 1 gallon batches, good excuse to hang with friends and drink mead.

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i didn't even think of that, thank you for pointing it out

i used fermax and a yeast energizer that has vitamin b and other additives that would knock it right out of show mead status.

At 1.020 FG would you consider this a sweet mead or a semi sweet mead?

To my taste i am thinking sweet. 1.010 in my book would be semi sweet which is what i am hoping it will drop to but i am afraid the yeast is pooped.

Doing a 15 gallon mead day was a blast but i think i might stick to 1 gallon batches for those parties from now on unless i find a better way to do it.

I was heating up the honey/water on the stove and then transfering to 7 gallon buckets to be shaken for oxygen. If i find a way to cut out the heating and still mix the honey in the water sufficiently, maybe just heat the water? and get a aeration stone and oxygen tank it will make it a much easier day.

Either way it was a ton of fun and those who attended already have new things they want to come over and try

My equipment is open use to my friends so long as they buy their own ingredients and clean up

Vital Statistics:
OG: hydromel: 1.035 – 1.080
standard: 1.080 – 1.120
sack: 1.120 – 1.170
ABV: hydromel: 3.5 – 7.5%
standard: 7.5 – 14%
sack: 14 – 18%
FG: dry: 0.990 – 1.010
semi-sweet: 1.010 – 1.025
sweet: 1.025 – 1.050

Looks like it would be semi sweet

Alchemy said:

i didn't even think of that, thank you for pointing it out

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Youre very welcome

Yeah I agree about the 1.02 being sweet to me too, I have a clover mead aging that stopped at 1.03, too sweet for my taste but I also have a cherry vanilla melomel that went south of .998, I'm going to use the two to do a little experimenting with combining.

I usually heat 1/3 of my water to 90-100 degrees and have my honey sitting in a hot tap water bath to get it thinned out, both just to make the mixing of the two together easier, yet not so hot that I am spending a lot of time cooling things.

I like to mix my nutrients with the remaining water that I am going to be topping off with and set in fridge or outside so its pretty cool/cold, then adding that brings me right to a nice pitching temp and well incorporated nutrient level with minimal wait time and hassle.

I use an airstone and pure oxygen as I (note the occupation) have free easy access too, easier than shaking even a one gallon jug or even my previous method where I used a stainless wire wisk to whip the hell out of the must prior to transfering into the fermenter

TheBrewingMedic said:

Youre very welcome

Yeah I agree about the 1.02 being sweet to me too, I have a clover mead aging that stopped at 1.03, too sweet for my taste but I also have a cherry vanilla melomel that went south of .998, I'm going to use the two to do a little experimenting with combining.

I usually heat 1/3 of my water to 90-100 degrees and have my honey sitting in a hot tap water bath to get it thinned out, both just to make the mixing of the two together easier, yet not so hot that I am spending a lot of time cooling things.

I like to mix my nutrients with the remaining water that I am going to be topping off with and set in fridge or outside so its pretty cool/cold, then adding that brings me right to a nice pitching temp and well incorporated nutrient level with minimal wait time and hassle.

I use an airstone and pure oxygen as I (note the occupation) have free easy access too, easier than shaking even a one gallon jug or even my previous method where I used a stainless wire wisk to whip the hell out of the must prior to transfering into the fermenter

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I think i will use this method of heating some of the water on the stove and heating the honey in a water bath instead of heating it directly. I used cool water to cool down the must but as i had heated the honey to about 160 it still took a bit to get everything cooled down.

My water here gets to 160 from the tap so i could fill up a sink with that and just stick the honey jar/bucket in it to get it liquified and then stir it in to the fermenter with the 100 degree water and then mix and cool with the pre-chilled water.

The one gallon party really has me thinking as it is much cheaper for someone just starting out to do and most people dont need or even want 25 bottles of mead/wine. plus if anything goes bad the loss of money isnt too bad.

Might invest in a bunch of one gallon jugs/stoppers airlocks for this purpose and buy a storage rack for my fermentation closet to keep them.