Cool cucumber mead

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vahallasbrew2

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I wanna drop a cucumber mead just to try it out, base ingredients being cucumbers juiced up and some spear mint grind up in a pestle and mortar, I was thinkin maybe a 1:2 cucumber juice to water and maybe a ounce or 2 of fresh mint for the "cool" part I think it would be pretty good with a light Minty taste Any ideas or changes?
 
This was an idea brought up abot 3+ weeks ago actually. My suggestion was to add some spear mint to add to the "cool" factor. One thought brought up was that cucumber does not have a strong taste so I would go 100% cucumber juice mixed with honey and mint.
 
Arpolis said:
This was an idea brought up abot 3+ weeks ago actually. My suggestion was to add some spear mint to add to the "cool" factor. One thought brought up was that cucumber does not have a strong taste so I would go 100% cucumber juice mixed with honey and mint.

Yeah it was my idea the cucumber mead you told me to put in spear mint in it I forgot about it till I found it thread. Just now
 
Well Vahalla you have peeked my interest enough to want to try this. So if you are game so am I & will give this a try with ya. I will try a 1/2 gallon test batch and post some pics here and if you want to join in be my guest. Here is my plan:

I will do this a bit like I did my JAOM not to long ago....SIMPLE! :)

Ingredients:

I have 7 large Cucumbers on hand (I will try and peel, dice & juice with a simple metal screen and ladle work. Cucumbers are half water as they are so we shall see how much juice that produces.)
5 grams of fresh mint from the garden that has been vacuum sealed and has been sitting in my freezer for a while.
1.5# of Local Oklahoma Wild Flower honey
1 package of Fleischmann's Active Dry Yeast (Leftover from making JAOM)

That will be my primary and will sit probably for a month or so or until the fermentation goes dry "Hopefully". Then I will rack onto 5 quarter inch slices of cucumber and 5g more mint. Let that sit until clear and bottle to age. This being a Cool drink I don’t think we want it sweet so I am hoping to make it dry with no back sweetening. Cucumbers are fairly high in amino acids and are pretty healthy raw so I am hoping the yeasties will not need any more nutrients then what is provided. I will start on this and post updates.
 
OK so here is what happened....

Just cutting up the cucumber and manually trying to juice was impossible. So I took two whole peeled and diced cucumbers and placed in blender. Added 1 cup of water and blitzed for about 30 seconds. Pored the slop into metal strainer and used a ladle to push/squeeze out the juice. I repeated the process for 4 more cucumbers here this is what I ended up with in a half gallon container:

Cucumber Mead pre honey.JPG

I added the honey and used just a little hot water to get the last of the honey out. we are looking at 1.5lb of honey.

I took 6 long strips of the cucumber peel, snapped in half and added that to the must.

Measured out 5g of my frozen/thawed mint leaves and added that to the must.

I then shook the whole thing for about 2 min. Here is the result:

Cucumber Mead X After honey.JPG

I took a gravity reading and it is at 1.106. So if it gets fermented dry we are looking at about 14% ABV.

I added the yeast, gave a slight swirl and added airlock. Now just to wait and see how it does. Once fermentation is done I will rack onto more cucumber and mint and then wait till clear. Should be fun to see how this turns out.

P.S. I hope I am not stealing your thread and if you think so I do apologize. I just hope that if you are interested in a full scale batch my little one will steer you the direction you want to take.
 
Arpolis said:
OK so here is what happened....

Just cutting up the cucumber and manually trying to juice was impossible. So I took two whole peeled and diced cucumbers and placed in blender. Added 1 cup of water and blitzed for about 30 seconds. Pored the slop into metal strainer and used a ladle to push/squeeze out the juice. I repeated the process for 4 more cucumbers here this is what I ended up with in a half gallon container:

<img src="https://www.homebrewtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=48869"/>

I added the honey and used just a little hot water to get the last of the honey out. we are looking at 1.5lb of honey.

I took 6 long strips of the cucumber peel, snapped in half and added that to the must.

Measured out 5g of my frozen/thawed mint leaves and added that to the must.

I then shook the whole thing for about 2 min. Here is the result:

<img src="https://www.homebrewtalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=48870"/>

I took a gravity reading and it is at 1.106. So if it gets fermented dry we are looking at about 14% ABV.

I added the yeast, gave a slight swirl and added airlock. Now just to wait and see how it does. Once fermentation is done I will rack onto more cucumber and mint and then wait till clear. Should be fun to see how this turns out.

P.S. I hope I am not stealing your thread and if you think so I do apologize. I just hope that if you are interested in a full scale batch my little one will steer you the direction you want to take.

Oh no I don't think you stole my thread I put it up here so people would try it :D and someone did so I'm totally stoked I'm glad you found it interesting and tried it out I'm still short on carboys and cant try it myself yet but I'm definitely going to when I get that jug, I'm very pleased of my recipe with the help of bug I believe help me form the idea into a plausible recipe and it being tested I'm very much excited to here what it was like,9 please keep me updated on this experimental recipe I'm very curious to see how it goes! And I see that it turned green which was one thing I was shooting for since most meads I've seen were always gold or yellow :) thanks a whole whole bunch for trying it out once more please keep me on tab for how I rolls thanks a whole lot!!

Vahallabrew2
 
So, being from the south where we drink tons of cucumber water, just one thing. If you get it to the secondary and still feel that it's missing something, consider a little lime juice or zest. Interesting combo, but it's amazing.
 
I checked it out this morning which is about 5 hours after pitching and the airlock was very active. Now the metal screan used to "juice" the cucumber was not super fine so there is a fair amount of pulp that has now risen to the top to form a cap. I will probably give this a slight swirl to loosen the cap and keep co2 moving in the morning and evening and for the first 3-5 days open is up and push in the pulp cap with a steralized spoon to help introduce some oxygen and help keep the yesties stress free. Looks good and still a real fine grass green color.
 
Cool I'm written all this Down in my recipe booklet so I know what to look for in my brew when I get to do it, I have a question where did you get your mint from? I can't seemed to find it anywhere well I haven't looked at a whole foods or organic store yet? Or would it be better to just grow my own mint herb in a home garden?
 
I grew mine in an herb garden. I have the same problem here in Oklahoma that no one has fresh mint. I usually vacume seal and freeze or soak in vodka to leach out the mint oil and use that for cooking. I figured the freshly frozen would work better in this application. If you grow your own and need to do it in doors I would suggest investing in a "grow light" because normal house light or window light does terrible things to newly budding mint plants.
 
Why did this not come up when I asked for odd recipes to try the other week?! Will have to give this a go in on of my mini 2litre carboys...
 
I'll have to grow my own I believe so I'll get a lamp I just hope the police don't think I'm growin the marijuana cause the drive by with heat sensors to check houses cause they uses lamps like that to grow weed lol any do thanks illget started on the herb patch asap, isomo if you brew a batch can you keep me updated on it for the books this is one if my recipes I put up for experimenters the more data I have the better conclusion I can form thanks a whole lots.
 
OK so I checked it approx. 15 &#8211; 16 hours after pitching yeast and they are going nuts, here are some observations:

The crisp grass green color is no longer so. It is super cloudy from the expanding yeast I can only assume and it looks much paler. Almost like a lime green juice but &#8220;cloudy&#8221; for a lack of better explanation. I took the airlock off and pushed down the cap of vegetable matter with a sterilized spoon to introduce some more oxygen for the yeasties. The smell was not what I expected. It was a complex smell, it has an initial sour note &#8220;But not rancid&#8221;, kind of a grassy/vegetable body and the faintest amount of mint in the background. I had to take several sniffs to figure it all out. Not a very &#8220;cool&#8221; Cucumbery smell that I was looking for. I will continue slightly swirling 2X a day with opening the airlock to punch down the cap once a day for 4 more days. After that I will just swirl around when I think the cap is getting dry or if I think CO2 is building up too much. If I see any other significant changes to sight or smell I will let you know.
 
The activity in cucumber mead has slowed down a bit and is not as active as I think it could be. I am comparing activity to a recent experiment 1/2 gal batch I did that was a vanilla chamomile herbal tea metheglin that has nothing but loos leaf herbal tea, honey and water. (no additional nutrients just like the cucumber mead). This leads me to believe that cucumber alone does not have the amino nitrates needed to start up the strongest yeast colony. I will still leave this alone and will see if it will ferment dry as intended or het stick short of that. As far as I know properly taken care of bread yeast can make it to 14%ABV so we shal see.
 
Ok it slowed Down possibly due to low amino nitrates altitude thanks I got it recorded, yeah I've heard that bread yeast are good till about 14% to that's what I'm using in my cinnamon banana and raisin mead and it slowed down quite a bit 2 weeks into to fermenting. Hmm I dont think bananas have a good amino supply either the raisins I'm not sure about l, I'll do some more r&d to see if I can find other ingredients to add that supports the flavor I'm wanting and add enough nutrients to keep the yeast doin work
Thanks a lot or keeping me on tab!
 
Without changing the flavor profile too much and can't think of any additional ingrediants that would compliment and add apropriat nutrients. An earlier post said adding a little lime works well with cucumber water, which may work well with cucumber mead. But lime does not add a lot of amino nitrates according to nutritiondata.self.com. I you want to play with other ingredient ideas then try that sight to see what the amino acid & nutrient levels are. I think DAP at the package suggested amounts may be the easiest answer. I just hoped this would run like my JOAM or metheglin and not need the man made additions. Back to the lime idea I think I will add a slice or two of peeled lime to the secondary unless that "sour" note does not calm down.
 
Yeah I mean, If you can contain the "zing" of a lime and keep it as an undertone like in a salsa or guac (bad examples) it could be a nice addition to the cucumber mint.

Very refreshing.
 
The transformation over two days is pretty stark. I know with a lot of fruits added to primary the color bleaches for most all of them but I thought this would be interesting to show in a picture.

Cucumber Mead X After honey day 0.JPG Cucumber Mead X After honey day 2.JPG

The sour smell after punching in the cap is pretty strong now. Almost smells like there is lime already in it! I wounder if I have a contamination or not? I was pretty anal about keeping things clean. If it did have a contamination of some sort I would imagin that would be a more sulfery or rotten smell rather than pungently sour. Are Cucumbers acidic? Anyone think the PH is just too low? I have no PH strips on hand so hard to test.
 
It looks kinda rank, the ph level if cucumber juice varies from 5.1 to 5.7 that's not to low is it? Maybe the smell is from the yeast eating the cucumber and giving of a sour smell, I have a brew and It smells kinda sour but it taste good. Hmm, I got this saved thanks for the update
 
I think Mead can get as low as 3.8PH at the lowest befor the yeast start to go out of comission. Honey is acidic as it is. Just not sure how much without looking it up/testing. It could be just the fermentation process making the sour smell and that was my original thought. I just wanted to drum up some conversation and see if anyone ever have a real sour smelling mead mellow out and still taste great. Your encounter of the kinda sour smelling mead tasting good gives me hope.
 
Yeah my cinnamon banana and raisin brew smells sour kinda like a rotten juice but it taste pretty good it surprised me and my dad both and it's only two weeks into fermenting, I think it'll be ok but I'm a novice brewer so my word is worth less than others haha.
 
Ok so almost completed day 6 of this project. On day five the fermentation slowed way down. I have a ghetto balloon air lock on this bad boy and it was hard to stay erect. If I squeeze any of the CO2 out it takes a long while to come erect again. Also it seems to already be settling out a lot. If you look close you can see signs of CO2 bubbles rising up but you really gotta look close. I figured at about the 14 day mark I was going to take a gravity reading but if is slows any more I might start sooner to see if the yeasties completely putter out. Here are some more comparison pics.


Cucumber Mead X After honey day 0.JPG

Cucumber Mead X After honey day 2.JPG

Cucumber Mead X After honey day 6.JPG
 
Slowed way down hmm maybe the yeasties are running outa things to eat? causing them to kick the bucket sooner theory of my own any who the green color k was looking for has well is gone it looms like and it's turning yellow odd ;d that's a wonder, well thanks alot for the update I got it written down cheers
Vahallasbrew2
 
Slowed way down hmm maybe the yeasties are running outa things to eat? causing them to kick the bucket sooner theory of my own any who the green color k was looking for has well is gone it looms like and it's turning yellow odd ;d that's a wonder, well thanks alot for the update I got it written down cheers
Vahallasbrew2

We wont know for sure until we start checking the gravity. Once it clears fully it may end up with some green back in there.
 
OK now that that is out of the way.

I came home today and the balloon airlock would not even stay erect. I figured my yeast has died and it is time to measure the SG and see if it is stable over the next week. Well I be a monkeys uncle and it is at a gravity of somewhere between .992 - .993! Around 14.7% ABV. Less than one week and it is pretty much dry!?! The Cucumber may have been more plentiful in nutrients than I thought. It just wasn't as showy as other meads I have. An Identical sized batch of Vanilla Chamomile Metheglin took just shy of a month to go dry. So I thought to myself (This is just got to have a lot of alcohol hot being this young but I can probably get at least some flavor profile).........




AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH Blarguhackupgerbleblurpuck!!!!!!



Took the smallest swig from the wine thief and there was an initial hint of Soured milk/vegetables and then vomit everywhere!!!!!! I am not impressed at all so far. I keep comparing to my metheglin because it is only a month older than this and was made almost exactly the same just swap mint and cucumber for the tea. And that tasted exactly like I thought. Not real great with no back sweetening but tasted like vodka tea....

I don’t know about this one Vahalla. If people can convince me I will keep this thing aging until clear.
 
Well im here to try and convince you. My Concord wine tasted life barf for 3 weeks after fermentation finished. Its been sitting for 6 months now and it tastes pretty good. I imagine cucumber as a pretty delicate flavor. Give it some time to clear and for those flavors to resurface. :)
 
Yeah I have a mead that taste like crap but not like rank veggies, well so far I'm not convinced it's a success but I also have hope that aging may bring back the delicate flavors of the cucumber and mint. Hmm I got the data written down hopefully it'll be tastier in the future thanks alot for you help on this experimental brew if you want could you keep tabs on my like every other week or so with updates about this one thanks a whole bunch for your help, cheers :D

Vahallasbrew2
 
Cucumber is a "vine fruit" because of enclosed seeds but is actually classified as a veggie in food groups and such. Thanks Wikipedia
 
Wow that just shattered my entire universe I thought cucumbers were veggies since I was a kid.
 
I think the real test will be once it clears. Since it is prepared like JAOM I would treat it like JAOM and wait for the cap to settle to the bottom and it to turn all nice and greeny see-through.

This experiment excites me since I am such a fan of cucumber. I think its going to get worse before it gets better, but once that happens my theory is that it will taste very mild and dry with lots of fun cuke notes and a background of mintiness.

Keep fighting the good fight my friend.
 
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