Atvar
Well-Known Member
I want to make my first mead, and have some ingredient questions. What I have on hand is:
2lb sams club honey (actually more but planning on using some in a barleywine)
7.75lb frozen blackberries I picked last summer
8lb frozen black raspberries I picked last summer
1 pack D-47 yeast
LD carlson yeast energizer
DAP
The plan is to use just some of this fruit in my mead, and the rest will be made into a few gallons of blackberry/raspberry wine. Soo... which fruit should I use and how much for a basic 1 gallon recipe? The 2lb honey will only give me ~1.069 OG and I'm not sure how the fruit will effect that. If it's going to be an issue, I might use up to 2.5lb honey to get it closer to 1.100.
How should I add the fruit? When doing wine, I crush it and put it into a nylon bag in the fermenter and use sulfite, but I don't think that is very good for mead?
I'll probably end up using either a 7.9gal plastic bucket or a 3.5gal apricot pastry filling bucket as a primary. I'm assuming headspace won't be an issue? Secondary will be a 1gal wine jug + bottles if needed.
Will my hard water (393ppm bicarbonate) be an issue?
2lb sams club honey (actually more but planning on using some in a barleywine)
7.75lb frozen blackberries I picked last summer
8lb frozen black raspberries I picked last summer
1 pack D-47 yeast
LD carlson yeast energizer
DAP
The plan is to use just some of this fruit in my mead, and the rest will be made into a few gallons of blackberry/raspberry wine. Soo... which fruit should I use and how much for a basic 1 gallon recipe? The 2lb honey will only give me ~1.069 OG and I'm not sure how the fruit will effect that. If it's going to be an issue, I might use up to 2.5lb honey to get it closer to 1.100.
How should I add the fruit? When doing wine, I crush it and put it into a nylon bag in the fermenter and use sulfite, but I don't think that is very good for mead?
I'll probably end up using either a 7.9gal plastic bucket or a 3.5gal apricot pastry filling bucket as a primary. I'm assuming headspace won't be an issue? Secondary will be a 1gal wine jug + bottles if needed.
Will my hard water (393ppm bicarbonate) be an issue?