Joe's Quick Grape Mead

I used clover honey from grocer, turned out great.

So a buddy and I just made this a couple days ago. Unfortunately, we didn't pay very close attention and used a 96oz bottle of juice instead of 64oz ::facepalm::

What can we expect to get out of this? Will it just be really grapey?

The wife and I bottled our 6 gallon batch of this the other week. The yeast crapped out at a SG of 1.012, but it was still 14.4% abv (yeah, a little heavy on the honey at the start). So we didn't sweeten it at all, turned out fantastic. As our first mead, I'm quite pleased.

So does the recipe mean that you mix water with 27 oz (wt) of honey with 58 oz (vol) of grape juice, and add 6 oz of each when you rack?

huesmann said:

So does the recipe mean that you mix water with 27 oz (wt) of honey with 58 oz (vol) of grape juice, and add 6 oz of each when you rack?

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The way I did it was adding the 6 oz of honey and and juice to backsweeten in addition to the ingredients listed in the recipe. So you mix the water with 33 oz of honey and 64 oz of grape juice. Then to backsweeten, add the 6 oz honey and 6 oz juice along with the 1/2t of Sorbate and 1/2 crushed campden tablet.

Here's my version ingredients list for the 1 gallon batch:

2 lbs Clover Honey
6 oz Clover Honey (Backsweeten)
64 oz Welch's Blueberry Pomegranate Concord Grape
6 oz Welch's Blueberry Pomegranate Concord Grape (Backsweeten)
1/2 t Potassium Sorbate
1/2 Campden's Tablet Crushed
1 packet Lalvin EC-1118

And for the 5 gallon batch:

10 lbs Clover Honey
30 oz Clover Honey (Backsweeten)
320 oz Welch's Blueberry Pomegranate Concord Grape
30 oz Welch's Blueberry Pomegranate Concord Grape (Backsweeten)
2.5 t Potassium Sorbate
2.5 Campden's Tablet Crushed
1 packet Lalvin EC-1118

You'll notice that I did not include the 1 oz of Buckwheat (I just couldn't find it at the time) - I did my five gallon batch in December and it has definitely gotten better with age, though I definitely needed to be a bit more careful when I bottled it into wine bottles - there's a little bit of sediment.

I hope this helps!

Is it really necessary to boil the must for 1 minute?

No way! do not boil the must! I didn't, the honey doesn't have anything growing in it, the juice shouldn't either. I just tried mine last week with friends, and it was a big hit. I followed the recipie, fermented for 8 weeks, backsweetened for four days, and it was huge hit.

OK, well I didn't boil it but I did heat it up a little to help dissolve the honey in the juice. It's bubbling away at about 2.5 seconds between bubbles.

Wade E said:

I believe his last name is Mattioli and you were right to add both sorbate and sulfite as sorbate usually doesnt work unless there is a sufficient amount of free S02.

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This is my first Mead is the honey supposed to seperate out of juice

My stuff usually seperates for about six hours. The last mead I did looked similar to a black and tan for a while.

Mine didn't separate, but then I did aerate (i.e. shake) the heck out of the must before pitching the yeast.

Ok I have about a 1/2 in layer of honey on the bottom what should I do?

I would just set the fermenter in some warm water for a while then rock it back and forth for a while to mix it.

Cool thanks alot

So my batch of this was bubbling away at about 1 per 15 seconds at first, but now it's slowed down to about 1 per 90 seconds after about 10 days. Any cause for concern?

huesmann said:

So my batch of this was bubbling away at about 1 per 15 seconds at first, but now it's slowed down to about 1 per 90 seconds after about 10 days. Any cause for concern?

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Most fermentation takes place within 48-72 hours... Don't ever stress about counting bubbles... If you're really concerned, take a hydrometer reading.

Will do. Now, I understand that successive static hydro readings will let me know when the yeast has pooped out, right? What should be the gap between readings--3 readings with 3 days between, 3 readings with a week between? Something else?

huesmann said:

Will do. Now, I understand that successive static hydro readings will let me know when the yeast has pooped out, right? What should be the gap between readings--3 readings with 3 days between, 3 readings with a week between? Something else?

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I always just kinda play it by ear, the two times I did this recipe, it was down to the expected FG by 10 days, so I only did the reading before fermentation and then the reading on the day I was going to transfer it to secondary.

OK, well, I racked to a secondary and the SG went from 1.092 to 0.998. Is it likely to go down any further?

huesmann said:

OK, well, I racked to a secondary and the SG went from 1.092 to 0.998. Is it likely to go down any further?

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The sorbate and campden tablet will stop any future fermentation so no... .998 is a good target anyways.

Just bought enough for a 5 gal batch mmmmm

Hey all - I used the 5gal recipe and got a SG of 1.07, will this be ok?

Essentially added the grape juice, to the carboy, added the honey, bit of water to get it up to 5gal, and shook the hell out of it then took a gravity reading. Not sure if the honey may have sank to the bottom or something when i took the gravity reading or not. Any ideas?

Some pictures as well:



next to the skeeter pee i did today as well:

yeh...I believe I've always heated the honey in water to dissolved it a bit. Not to anywhere near boiling, just enough to be sure it was dissolved.

Hrm, im not noticing any bubbling of the airlock after 24hrs, but I don't see any honey settling at the bottom either. I aerated it a bit today about 6hrs ago and still nothing. Should I continue to wait or pitch some more yeast?

Thanks!

I would wait a little while more

I should have waited, but last night I did a starter with some yeast + sugar + yeast nutrient + yeast energizer and pitched it. It's now bubbling away

Thanks for your help everyone! Looking forward to the results!

After ~48hrs lots of bubbling on the airlock. About 1 every 2-5 sec.

Curious to know if anyone has used Sparkolloid with this to get some clarity?

I tried some bentonite and it cleared a little, but it's still a little cloudy. I might try Sparkolloid in my next batch.

jgilmour said:

Curious to know if anyone has used Sparkolloid with this to get some clarity?

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I added nothing but yeast to mine, and given enough time, and a few rackings, it came out as clear as any commercial wine. It took 6 weeks, but man is it clear.

I brewed this back in March, and now 6 months later it has matured into an almost ice wine like flavour. I don't know how it gained all that complexity from grocery store ingredients.

Can someone post a picture of it in a glass. Curious to know how clear its supposed to be.

It looks like red wine. It is clear. The EC-1118 makes a very compact lees, and as Joe Mattioli states, the welch's is already clarified. I've made it before, and it's the only mead recipe I'm making twice. It is exactly as advertised, unlike Joe's Ancient Orange.

+1 to Fletch. Mine came out as bright as a rosé after about 6 weeks, and I followed the recipe to a T.

I never added the buckwheat honey. Is that added at the beginning or during backsweetening?

I put mine in at the beginning.

I whipped up a 5-gallon batch yesterday, but didn't have any buckwheat honey, so I just used more clover. It's quickly bubbling away already.

I got all of the starting ingredients rounded up.

I'll be starting it tomorrow. Pics to come...

Here it is.

Start date: 10/10/2011

I'll try to keep this updated. Also, this my second attempt at making wine/mead haha. Still getting the noobness out...

10/19/11 Update

She's still bubbling along. I'm shooting to rerack sometime next week.
Should I wait until fermentation has slowed down considerably?
Or will the Sorbate/Campden combo stop it for sure?

Wait until it is done fermenting before racking or stabilizing. It can be hard to stop an active fermentation.