Fall Season Mead

I am looking at making a mead for the family to drink during Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. Do you guys have any ideas for what you recommend I make to go with a traditional Thanksgiving meal? And do I have enough time for it to be ready? By the way, this is my first attempt at mead, I have done some wines.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Chip

4 months isn't much time. JAOM or something like that would probably cut it...1 month to ferment, 3 months in the bottle to age.

Ok, Thanks for the advice. I will start checking it out now.

My mead is all about 6 months old and it is now only "drinkable" from the standpoint that it would give you a serious buzz and it is not bad tasting, but it is not ready to serve to company for glowing reviews either. I did make a quick mead back in February that was good (and deserty sweet) in about 4 weeks, but it required cold crashing while still sweet and sulfiting and sulfating. You will be hit or miss with six month mead, but you could do a sweeter mead and would have enough time to test a couple of 1 gal recipes over the summer to get something you would be willing to serve. You could play with cold crashing at different FG's to get the right amount of sweetness and letting it age for more than 4-6 weeks would probably make it even smoother.

The idea that popped into my head for a thanksgiving mead was to make a modified JAOM with dried cranberries.

I haven't actaully made JAO, but read mixed reviews. Some say it tastes like prison hooch, and some say its drinkable....you might want to try it out on a 1 gallon scale first. One other thing to think about is that all of the meads that I made with Champagne yeast or 118 are really strong...like one wine glass and you are feeling a decent buzz. You may want to tone it down for family festivity drinking, or make sure you have drivers available. I tried my Honey-Maple Mead last night and it was pretty good after 6 months, but one glass and a home brew and you are probably not fit to drive...way more so than sitting around drinking some BMC's all afternoon

You can try making some lighter meads - an ABV 8-10%, with a little residual sugar may be smooth and drinkable in just a few months. For something drinkable quickly a yeast like DV10 can be really good. You might make a light cyser with some cranberry and have a batch that will be quite tasty by Thanksgiving.

Heathen57, would you mind point your honey-maple mead recipe? That just sounds delicious.