My First Meads!!

Late in the week after some reading on this forum, I decided to test the hand at making some mead. I decided to try and make my own recipe and make them two different ways.



The one of the left is made with strawberries, pears, cinnamon, vanilla bean and nutmeg. Boiled for about 30 minutes and then let sit over night to cool and mellow. Then bring up to temp and add 4 pounds of Orange Blossom honey.

The one on the right is made with apples, cinnamon, and vanilla bean. I used 3 pounds of Tupelo honey and then added it directly onto the apples and cinnamon.

I also really like the one gallon carboys. Those are pretty handy when you want to make small batches, and if they don't turn out too well then its only a gallon.
They are bubbling away too.. Can't wait..

Any comments/suggestions are appreciated..

Something that you will hear from many mead makers. Never boil the honey.
I just get the water warm and warm up the honey a little, enough to disperse the honey in the water.

Also, you do get better flavors by putting the fruit in the secondary. You may loose some of your flavor and aroma in the primary fermentation.

Be very carful with spices such as nutmeg and cinnamon and clove, less is more. In a 5 gal batch I use only about 1/2 a whole nutmeg and no more than 2 cinnamon sticks. For cloves in a 5 gal batch you only need about 1-5 whole cloves for a really clovey batch. The spices will come out in the aging process as does some sweetness and more subtle flavors.

Matrix

The temperature that I put the honey in was about 160ish. Never got close to boil. Only the fruit boiled. I was thinking about just letting it sit in the primary and then putting it over the fruit in secondary. We will see how it turns out.

What kind of yeast? 4 lbs honey in a 1 gal batch? Plus fruit? Depending on the yeast that is either going to sweeeeeeet or rocket fuel, ie 18% alcohol.

I did my first mead this weekend also. 1 gal with 3.75# honey. I used D-47 yeast.

I can't remember exactly what kind of yeast it was. Either a Premier Cuvee Wine yeast, or Cotes De Blancs (Epernay 2) Wine yeast

The LHBS gave it to me and said it was a great yeast for meads.

How are they coming along? I cant wait to try some of these on my next trip to the hassee.

They are going great.. Thinking about transffering the apple mead to another one gallon and adding more fruit to it..

Anyone think it will add more flav?

Ok.... Cardinal sins.

Heating honey. It doesn't need to boil to loose aromatics and more subtle flavours. At most, not more than enough to make it run out the jar/bottle/can/jug.

Heating fruit. Will bring out the pectin that's present in most fruit, will give a cooked/stewed taste to white and green fruit, makes it mush as help and a bugger to rack.

Yeast. Don't bother with HBS, they don't usually know about meads and just recommend something that may ferment a higher than normal gravity (there's more too it than that - Google, HBT and gotmead are your friends). D47 should be kept below 70F to prevent fusel production.

I can probably think of more but I'm posting from my phone and its a PITA to type with.....

Sorry to hijack but I did my first mead 2 weekends ago too and need some feedback.

Blackberry Mead;5gal batch 8lbs of blackberries and 1gal of honey.
OG 1.09
Current G 1.00
I used white labs sweet mead liquid yeast.

I couldn't find a concise guide on making this so I did heat the fruit and honey.
I used frozen black berries that I picked last year, ran boiled water over them, crushed and heated to 150F, strained a bunch of times. Then I added the honey to the hot juice and mixed well. Cooled to about 110F; transferred to fermenter and added 2 gallons of cold spring water on top to bring up the volume while dropping the temperature to pitch temps. Added 1tsp of pectic enzyme to fermenter and pitched yeast. At first signs of fermentation I added 2 tsp of yeast nutrient and again at 1.05.
Sample taken at 1.00 was very tasty; surprisingly sweet. Plan to bottle next week.

I have more 2011 blackberries to use up so I want to do another one soon.
What can I do better?

bottling in 3 weeks is real quick, how clear is it already

It is not clear; I can leave it longer in primary if need be.
I don't plan to use a secondary; I will secondary age it in bottles and would like to carb up some if not all of it.

I've heard that you should leave the meads in primary for 3 to 6 months. Mine have been in for 2 months now.

Fatbloke- What temp do you recommend for the honey? I have seen alot of people using different temps. Hopefully they turn out great. If not its only one gallon and I will remake some different batches.

You shouldn't leave the must in primary that long as the lees will wind up imparting off flavors you don't want.

Meadrol said:

You shouldn't leave the must in primary that long as the lees will wind up imparting off flavors you don't want.

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What's the max? 5 gal vs 1 gal?

I'd say that once you have a pretty good buildup of lees on the bottom you should probably go ahead and rack off, vs. a set time limit. You may have to rack off several times to get good clarity before leaving it to age. Some folks leave it in the primary for a set amount of time, say, two weeks and rack it off, then rack off 3-4 more times every 30 days.

I'll go ahead and rack them off this weekend then. The gallon jugs are not too expensive. I will keep switching them back and forth to allow to clear.

I might have let them go too long however. When I smelled them they had a sort of bad apple smell.. Not like a rotten fruit but just a little bit of an off smell.. Think I should keep them and just rack or just start over?

tally350z said:

Think I should keep them and just rack or just start over?

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Throwing out mead...why, that's just crazy talk Go ahead and rack it off...more than likely the smell will age out.

Why transfer if it is smelling funny?
Wouldn't be better to stir crazy in the primary and let those yeasties clean up after themselves?

unless stressed out yeast is causing the funk

mredge73 said:

Why transfer if it is smelling funny?
Wouldn't be better to stir crazy in the primary and let those yeasties clean up after themselves?

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You shouldn't aerate after the 2/3 sugar break unless you want a hell of a lot of oxidation ... wouldn't think that'd taste too good either.