Nerro's First Five Year Plan

Yesterday I have started the fermentation of a new mead. The recipe has been composed in such a way that a high alcohol (~20%) mead with vanilla and slight cinnamon and cloves undertones is achieved. The recipe is as follows:

Recipe Type: Dry vanilla mead
Yeast: Kitzinger Reinhefe "Champagne"
Yeast Starter: no
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: no
Batch Size (liters): 4 (1.056 gallons)
Original Gravity: 1.148
Expected Final Gravity: ~0.995-1.000
ABV: ~20%
Boiling Time (Minutes): 5
Color: dark brown
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 days @ 68F (20C)
Secondary Fermentation (# of months & Temp): 2 months @ 68F (20C) on four (nice thick, split and scraped) vanilla pods
Bottle aging: 58 months(time in secondary fermentation is counted as aging)in4 1L bottles

Starting materials:

• 1800g dark honey
• 1,5L apple juice
• 2 1-cup sachets of earl-grey boilt out completely in some water
• 3 small cloves
• 1 pinch of ground cinnamon
• Kitzinger Reinhefe "champagne" (yeast)
• 1 big tsp of DAP

Process:

1. Add the honey to the boiling water and apple juice. Do not adjust the volume yet
2. boil the tea to extract all the flavour and bitternes and add the hot brew to the wort-to-be
3. boil for 5 minutes with the cloves and cinnamon and remove the scum
4. after boiling remove the cloves and add ice cold water to adjust the volume to 4L
5. add DAP
6. cool the must to 25C as quick as possible using a bath of cold water or a wort-chiller if you happen to have one
7. pitch the yeast and stir it in vigorously
8. allow the must to "breath" for about an hour
9. pour the must into your carboy and shake it like hell
10. stopper and airlock for primary fermentation for 14 days
11. rack to secondary with as little air-contact as possible
12. add split and scraped vanilla pods to the mead
13. allow secondary fermentation to proceed for 2 months
14. rack to tertiary or bottles and age for the remainder of 5 years (including the secondary fermentation this amounts to an additional 58 months)

This is the first in what will be a small series (5 or so) of five year meads. I intend to use these meads as a starting point for a more in-depth home-meading career. Seeing as how I'm only 21 it seems well worth the effort

I will keep you posted obviously.
Proost!

Nerro said:

Seeing as how I'm only 21 it seems well worth the effort

Click to expand...

You are right on track. You won't believe how fast those 5 years go. If I'd have started making mead when I started brewing at 21, I'd have some 10 year old bottles within a year.
It seems like quite a time commitment, but It comes around sooner than you'd think.

Now five days into fermentation. The fermentation is proceeding very well. It seems to be picking up speed as the viscosity of the wort is getting lower. The color has become a bit lighter. So far everything seems to be moving along as expected.

Does anyone here have any idea what ABV I'll reach? It's said that Champagne yeast can go up to 18% but I have read of people using montrachet yeast and getting 18% in stead of the proposed 14%...