Ok I decided to do a sweet and creamy Orange vanilla, reminicient of Orange Creamcyles. I have the primary sweet show mead going now. Here is what I got:
18-20 lbs of Alfalpha honey
2 teaspoons of Yeast energizer
2 teaspoons of yeast Nutreint
2 packets of Lavin D-47 yeast
Water to 5 gallons, may increase water to 6 gallons in topping off after racking from primary.
In secondary:
1 or 2 cans of Organic Orange Juice concentrate.
Water to 6 gallons.
Not sure how much to use.
In tetriary:
2-3 Vanilla beans (7 inch split and scraped in to a hops bag and into the must)
6 oz of Lactose (not sure of amount, basically to sweeten it up AND to add the creamyness I want)
Top off to 6 gallons again.
Main questions here is:
1. 1 or 2 cans of orange juice concentrate?
Going for a smooth sweet orange type flavor with no citrus sharpness but still want really good orange flavor.
2. Is the vanila beans enough? 2 or 3 or more? I want the vanilla flavor to comethrough a bit to complement the orange. Not to overpower it.
3. Is 6 oz enough Lactose? More or less for that nice creamy milky mouth texture and taste.
I realize that this is going to be very sweet. I like desert meads. Should I thin out the sweetness more by adding more water? Hmm.
So any ideas or experience?
I believe the readings of OG are 1.83 or so as I am reading with my hydromitor. Now the priamry IS fermenting fine, about a 2-3 bubbles ever second for the past 2 days, so I don't think that I will have problems fermenting this to 14% AND having it be very sweet.
18-20 lbs of Alfalpha honey
2 teaspoons of Yeast energizer
2 teaspoons of yeast Nutreint
2 packets of Lavin D-47 yeast
Water to 5 gallons, may increase water to 6 gallons in topping off after racking from primary.
In secondary:
1 or 2 cans of Organic Orange Juice concentrate.
Water to 6 gallons.
Not sure how much to use.
In tetriary:
2-3 Vanilla beans (7 inch split and scraped in to a hops bag and into the must)
6 oz of Lactose (not sure of amount, basically to sweeten it up AND to add the creamyness I want)
Top off to 6 gallons again.
Main questions here is:
1. 1 or 2 cans of orange juice concentrate?
Going for a smooth sweet orange type flavor with no citrus sharpness but still want really good orange flavor.
2. Is the vanila beans enough? 2 or 3 or more? I want the vanilla flavor to comethrough a bit to complement the orange. Not to overpower it.
3. Is 6 oz enough Lactose? More or less for that nice creamy milky mouth texture and taste.
I realize that this is going to be very sweet. I like desert meads. Should I thin out the sweetness more by adding more water? Hmm.
So any ideas or experience?
I believe the readings of OG are 1.83 or so as I am reading with my hydromitor. Now the priamry IS fermenting fine, about a 2-3 bubbles ever second for the past 2 days, so I don't think that I will have problems fermenting this to 14% AND having it be very sweet.