Joe's Quick Grape Mead

brewdude76 said:

I made a batch of this about 40 days ago and finally tasted it before planning on bottling it. After noticing a rocketfuel quality, i reracked to another secondary. I followed the recipe exactly and backsweetened with the semisweet amount, using the proper amounts of Campden and sorbate. I was skeptical of getting a drinkable mead in 35 days and now I'm convinced it's not possible. Am I unlucky/crappy or have people gotten good results after the minimal time?

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I think the difference in individual opinion regarding what a constitutes a 'drinkable' mead accounts for differing opinions of the final product. I too made this recipe and followed the ingredients and additions exactly, and while I would call it 'drinkable' at the 5-week mark, it definitely still had characteristics of a young mead, i.e. some hot alcohol flavor and a general 'rawness'. It wasn't raw enough to keep my friends from polishing off the one gallon batch in the space of a weekend though

Um I added Ilb of buckwheat honey instead of 1 oz. Any idea of what to expect?

dutchboy62 said:

Um I added Ilb of buckwheat honey instead of 1 oz. Any idea of what to expect?

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Hooch?

i just hope its not undrinkable

dutchboy62 said:

i just hope its not undrinkable

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What do you have it in that you were able to add a lb of honey and not notice? Are you using a 1 gal container?

Also, how long ago did you start it? If it's fairly new and you have the space you can add water/juice to get it back down to a sensible SG. That, or let it brew out and see what it's like and possibly backsweeten more to cut the alcohol taste.

I'm just a noob, but that's what I'd do.

I bottled mine over the weekend and it is very dry,........ but I like it!! Going to let my 2nd gal. age a bit and see which one I like better..

I just bottled mine today. After getting it all corked and labeled, I realized I forgot to backsweeten! There was a little left over from the bottling so I took a hydrometer sample (0.998, 12% A.B.V.) and had some. It's rocket fuel, but tasty nonetheless. I got 9 bottles out of a 2 gallon batch and I hope to age them for quite some time before popping one open. If it's too dry I'll probably mix in some sugar/sprite/etc.

i made one on 8-19-09 it just started tasting right i cant wait to crack open a bottle in a couple months.

I had some of this over the weekend from a batch I started last March and bottled last August.

Man, it keeps getting better and better! I know this is a "quick" mead - but give it time and you'll be amazed!

For some reason I always have huge fermentations with my JQGM! I thought I left enough room this time - guess not!

Wanted to make this but I cannot find buckwheat honey. What should I use to substitute?

Second question... Has anyone carbed this up for a sparkling mead?

I was worried about buckwheat honey too, i looked in my local price chopper, and they had it! It is price chopper brand, but it buckwheat none the less. Not sure if you have a price chopper around you, but if you do i would give it a shot. I price chopper checked all the ingredients today and it comes out to be roughly $20.00 a gallon, i think i may buy clove honey at discount store. But defiantly looking forward to a speed mead, something to drink while my cider is aging.

I was curious myself, planned on using 1 gallon glass jug, but how much head space should i leave so i dont have a mess? like 4 inches down? Ive seen a messy shot of it filling airlock, and i would assume when that happens it isnt good for keeping air out?

I had some extra apple juice from another mead, so I decided to follow this recipe exactly, using it instead of the grape juice. Looking forward to it!

Do you stir this everyday?

i dont, dont think you are suppose too.

2 weeks fermenting, 1 month secondary, tried a couple days after bottling and it wasnt bad. It was pretty sweet, and im sure a 12 ounce bottle or two and you would be rocked! Only did one gallon batch so i set a six pack aside that im not going to touch for 4-6 months, or try at least haha. Im going to make a 5 gallon batch soon.:rockin:

Just made a batch per the original recipe tonight.

I'll report back in a few months.

Jeff

Haven't brewed anything in a while, I always had great results with this recipe in the past. Started a 5gal batch of this on 10/10/10. When I was buying the grape juice I accidentally bought 3 grape juices and 2 grape/blueberry/pomegranate juices. Definitely looking forward to what the other juices add to it.

7 days later, gravity is down to 1.025. Tastes delicious already. I'm gonna shake the hell out of it once a day for the next few days to get it down closer to 1.00.

So if I understand correctly, you mix the 2lbs 1 oz honey in with the 64 oz of grape juice, top with water to get to 1 gallon, add yeast. Rack to secondary over 6 oz honey, 6 oz juice, 1/2t of Sorbate and 1/2 crushed campden tablet.

I dont know very much about mead but with this would you want to prime and then bottle? Or would I only prime if I wanted a "sparkling mead?"

Would two 1 gallon glass carboys be good as pirmary and secondary for something like this? With an amount this small what would be the best way to fill bottles from a 1 gallon growler? Or would racking it to a bottling bucket be the best solution?

thanks for the time,

The sorbate and campden serve to squelch the yeasty beasties. If you add them, you won't be able to make a sparkling mead unless you force carb. If you add priming sugar after the campden and sorbate, all you're doing is backsweetening, and if you've already added the extra juice and honey, any extra sugar is just going to push the drink toward cloying.

Thanks for the clarification... As far as the first step, there's no boiling / heating of any kind of the honey / juice mixture, right?

That is correct, no boiling or heating required.

Although, I did put my jar of honey in some warm water on the stovetop to make it more runny and easier to pour. As you know its slow and thick when room temp.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

I ended up starting a batch of this on 11/2/2010 and bottling it last night - tastes pretty darn awesome! I had half of 16 oz fliptop and I was good for the evening (I was already pretty darn tired as well). I used the Welch's Blueberry Pomegranate Concord Grape.

Has anyone scaled this up for a 5 gallon batch? Would you just multiply everything by 5 (even the sorbate and campden)?

Jeebas said:

Has anyone scaled this up for a 5 gallon batch? Would you just multiply everything by 5 (even the sorbate and campden)?

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Yes. Except the yeast. One pack will still work...

I think I've seen somewhere you could get by with 3 campden tablets - oh Yooper? Where are you?

So 10 lbs of honey and 320 oz juice(5 64 oz bottles) initially (I'm leaving out the 1 oz of buckwheat honey from the recipe - I never did add it in the beginning anyways). Then backsweeten with 30 oz juice and 30 oz honey and 2.5 t of sorbate and 2.5 crushed campden tablets?

I would also assume that the yeast is gonna taken longer than a few weeks to work on such a higher volume? I'm prepared to give a larger batch 6 months if not a year.

Yes.

It wouldn't hurt to pitch a couple packs of yeast; I mean, what do they cost? $0.89?

Finally got myself a batch of this stuff made up about two weeks ago. I added 1/2 tsp. of yeast nutrient when mixing. Do you think that's good? I have heard that you should stagger additions of nutrient, but I just did it at the outset. Haven't had time to mess with it since then.

I'm fixing to make a batch of this in the coming week or two. I need to gather the wine materials as this is my first time outside of beer. Lucky I have an unlimited supply of free wine bottles if it as good as this sounds! My question is, how sweet is this coming out for you folks? I'd like it medium sweet as opposed to dry. I'll post when I start this and the result.

The way I make it - backsweetened with 6 oz honey and 6 oz grape juice per gallon of mead - it comes out semi-sweet (to my tastes).

Just bought 96oz of Welch's Grape Juice with Vitamin C and I am ready to start a batch of Joe's Quick Grape Mead.

Has anyone used Pasteur champagne yeast? I have A couple of packets and was wondering if this yeast would be a fine chose for this recipe.

I will be using a nice dark wildflower honey for the primary and a light clover honey to backsweeten.

Let me know what you think; should I use Pasteur champagne yeast or just wait till I can get to my local brewer store to buy Lalvin EC-1118.

The wife and I made a 6 gallon batch of this a couple weeks ago... getting ready to rack it out of the primary bucket next week after we free up a carboy by bottling the latest batch of Apfelwein. Can't wait, it smells tasty!

I just bottled 2 gallons of this, my first mead, and I must say that it was very true to its name: quick! And instantly enjoyable. My timeline looked like this:

Brew Day - added a bit more clover honey than prescribed, and no buckwheat honey. OG 1.110.
Week 2 - fermentation slowed way down. Gravity 1.020
Week 3 - fermentation done. Gravity 1.000. Racked off lees. Tasted hot of alcohol!
Week 4 - it's clearing rapidly
Week 5 - racked off further sediment. Remainder is nearly brilliantly clear. Added potassium sorbate and pot meta. Added honey and grape juice to back sweeten, but at half the rate as recipe describes, which suits my taste.
Week 6 - No further sediment has formed. This is so clear and has a beautiful rose colour. The taste has improved incredibly since the first racking. It's semi-sweet, has a deliciously floral and fruity aroma, and is real smooth. I'd drink this right away.

I whole-heartedly recommend this to anyone wishing to get into the mead game. It's so fast and rewarding that you'll be hooked, and want to try other, more involved meads.

What was your final abv

$20 a batch! Cinnamon and Gravy, thats some expensive mead there. Wow, I feel bad its costing you $10 a batch. (Unless that was for a 5 gallon batch, which would mean you are basically stealing your honey. I get the 1 gallon glass jugs for free, 2lbs of honey for $8 ($4 each at King Soopers http://www.culinarydistrict.com/Pro...ey-Western-Slope-Ambrosia-Honey-Company-16-oz), 64 oz juice for $4, airlock and stopper for $3. I guess I get to spend that last $5 on a gallon of gas.

I have been making a straight mead with a 1 gallon jug each month for the past three months for basically $12 (airlock and stopper for $3, and 3lbs of honey for $9). I guess my grocery store prices aren't so bad.

Anyway, back to topic at hand: My quick grape mead has been going strong for 2 and a 1/2 weeks, I'm excited to try it. I also made a twin batch with Blueberry juice (since the blueberry juice has about 1/2 the sugar content as grape juice, I suplimented with a little extra honey. Anyone else try this recipie with any flavors other than concord grapes?

edit: IT looks like a few people have tired varities (niagra (white) grape juice, and cherry juice), but I haven't seen any feedback yet. I know poeple usually like the quick grape, but what about the results from the quick other flavors?

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cerna348 said:

edit: IT looks like a few people have tired varities (niagra (white) grape juice, and cherry juice), but I haven't seen any feedback yet. I know poeple usually like the quick grape, but what about the results from the quick other flavors?

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I made it with black cherry juice. It didn't come out like I thought it would.

I haven't tasted it in awhile though...

I bought ingrediants today for this. Going to use a 1 gallon PET water bottle for the fermenter.

Got the honey from a friend who has a honey farm. Hope it turns out good. Guess I'll know if 4-6 weeks or so.

If you have made this without the buckwheat honey, how did it turn out?