Caramel Apple Mead

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I decided to do my initial batch with blackberry; did 5# of clover and 5# of blackberry, but I plan to track down some buckwheat for the later racking. I think the blackberry worked ok, though, the must tastes very caramel appley...
 
Also my starting sg is high (1.38, down from 1.5 but I wasn't willing to water down any further). If I end fermentation around 14% (around 1.035 sg), how should I adjust the amount of buckwheat at racking? 2/3 of a pound maybe?
 
I made this as my very first mead back in April....just tasted it and Oh My God this is the best alcoholic beverage I have ever tasted!! I'm mad at myself now for only making a gallon of it; getting ready to do a 5 gallon batch.
 
I've never used super kleer before. Is it normal to have a bunch of trub on the bottom after adding it? Do I need to rack off of it? I'm at the aging stage now and don't want it to sit for a year and find out I should have racked it off.
 
Need to confirm: the grains are steeped for 45min then rinsed with juice and ___? Do you remove and discard the grains?

Plan to get this started soon, sounds fabulous.
 
I've never used super kleer before. Is it normal to have a bunch of trub on the bottom after adding it? Do I need to rack off of it? I'm at the aging stage now and don't want it to sit for a year and find out I should have racked it off.

Anytime I use SuperKleer I leave it for at least two weeks before racking off the new sediment that has formed. Then I allow my ferment to bulk age.
 
Need to confirm: the grains are steeped for 45min then rinsed with juice and ___? Do you remove and discard the grains?

Plan to get this started soon, sounds fabulous.

Saramc,

When you use grains to steep when making beer, you put the grains into a nylon grain bag and then put that into your steeping pot. Every 5 minutes you dunk & drain, like you would with a tea bag.

Squeezing the grain bag to remove all the liquid used to be frowned upon because there was a concern you would release tannins from the grains that would end up making your beer very astringent. "Astringency is perceived as a dry grainy, mouth-puckering, tannic sensation."

I believe the current thinking is that it is OK to squeeze as long you have kept the steeping temp below 170* which is where the tannins would start to be released. Here is a post by Revvy that indicates that squeezing is OK: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/biab-vs-steeping-grains-300657/#post3736845

After rinsing/sparging the grain bag, you will remove it and dump the grains. If you using a cheap nylon stocking, you can dump the whole mess in the trash or if you have a reusable nylon grain bag, you dump just the grains and clean out the grain bag during cleanup.
 
Thanks Opus! Glad to know I was thinking about this the right way. I also know the temperature has to do with alpha/beta amylase enzymes and how they work on the grains. Appreciate it.
 
Made this today for my new year mead. OG = 1.125 (6gal and an additional lb of clover honey).

Here is my SNA schedule:

0 hours = 1 tsp nutrient/.5 tsp energizer
24 hours = 1 tsp nutrient/.5 tsp energizer
48 hours = 1 tsp nutrient/.5 tsp energizer
96 hours = 2 tsp nutrient/1 tsp energizer

It already tastes good after drinking the hydro sample.
 
Just brewed this today. I didn't notice my DME supply was running low and I only had about 1lb of it left. I compensated with some light rock candy sugar and a bit more of the buckwheat honey. My guestimations must not have been too horrible - my OG was 1.124.

Think this will have any noticeable impact on the end product? Maybe a bit richer and darker from the extra buckwheat? I guess I'll know in... several months :D

edit: took 19 days to get to 1.075 for the first fermaid K addition. Is this normal? OP makes it sound like it might get down to 1.012 in a couple weeks... or does he mean from 1.035 to 1.012? I've never brewed mead or anything with wine yeast, so I'm not sure how active it's supposed to be.
 
This caramel apple mead sounds great!

I do have a newbe question (please excuse my ignorance). When steeping grain do you always crush the grain before using it?

Thanks in advance,

Mike
 
Well, I put together a batch of caramel apple mead and it tastes great! I can't wait for it to finish!

And I did use crushed grain, as suggested by the brew shop.

Good recipe. :)
 
Well, I put together a batch of caramel apple mead and it tastes great! I can't wait for it to finish!

And I did use crushed grain, as suggested by the brew shop.

Good recipe. :)

kd,

Welcome to HBT and to the Mead Forum/Recipes.

I'm getting ready to start another batch of the caramel apple meed today. I end up buying most of the beer/mead grains online and have them crush it. When I need a better crush, I do it myself. Check out Revvy's Ugly Junk thread at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-ugly-junk-corona-mill-station-90849/
 
image-4108054591.jpgJust whipped up a 4L batch of these tonight. I'm hoping I don't end up with a krausen fountain.
 
I made this tonight, only I have no idea what kind of honey I put in it. When I acquired some used homebrew equipment the seller threw in five 5# containers of honey. It's somewhat dark in color and says pure honey on the label. The guy I bought it from hadn't brewed in over 10 years, so it had some age on it and was pretty well crystalized. I did a lot of rinsing and soaking in hot water to get it pourable.

I have the buckwheat honey on order, so I missed adding the first pound of it in primary. I figure I will add it when I rack to secondary and add the vanilla beans.

This is my first attempt at a mead, so I'm pretty geeked. Hopefully it will be ready by the time my birthday rolls around in May.

Cheer!
 
I made this tonight, only I have no idea what kind of honey I put in it. When I acquired some used homebrew equipment the seller threw in five 5# containers of honey. It's somewhat dark in color and says pure honey on the label. The guy I bought it from hadn't brewed in over 10 years, so it had some age on it and was pretty well crystalized. I did a lot of rinsing and soaking in hot water to get it pourable.

I have the buckwheat honey on order, so I missed adding the first pound of it in primary. I figure I will add it when I rack to secondary and add the vanilla beans.

This is my first attempt at a mead, so I'm pretty geeked. Hopefully it will be ready by the time my birthday rolls around in May.

Cheer!

It might be ok by May, probably 1 year beyond that and it would be great! Within that time frame you want to be sure that you use finnings of some nature if you are worried about clarity. I would let that stuff sit in with the finnings for a few weeks prior to bottling.
 
Gonna get this going today. It will be my first mead/cyser. Plan is to substitute clover honey for the OB honey since that's what I've got.

Also, maybe this is obvious, but do you all crush the 60L before steeping/mashing? This sounds just like a partial mash beer, but no boiling and hops involved.
 
Got this started on Saturday. A few things of note.

My volume was way short of the desired 5 gallons. Thankfully I had some FAJC in the freezer, so I added it with the recommended amount of water indicated on the package.

Even with the added volume my SG was 1.132. Thought this was odd to begin with, but came to the conclusion that I extracted quite a few sugars from the steeping/mash step.

Speaking of the mash, I crushed the malt with my Barley Crusher at its factory set gap and used part of my BIAB set up. 2 gallons of "strike juice" at 161°F, temp came down to 153 at dough in and dropped to 151 over the 45 minutes.

Also, used all clover honey in lieu of the OB honey.

I made a silly mistake and pitched the yeast before the must had a chance to cool down. Not sure what the temp was, but guessing in the 90s. Hopefully that doesn't come back to haunt me. Fermentation started within 2 hours and was incredible active all day yesterday.
 
No idea myself, I've been curious about this one and appreciate any updates on your experience. I'd expect it to clear suddenly as that's been my experience with other cloudy honey-influenced fermentation however you never know when it will finally clear.
 
And my experience with AJ has been that it clears quickly. But of course I never mashed any grain in apple juice until this batch.

Not sure what I would use to clear it. Wouldn't classify as pectin haze. Maybe sparkolloid would help? If it doesn't start to clear on its on in a couple weeks I'm gonna try to assist it somehow.
 
Oh I guess the OP does say "use Super Kleer to clarify" after a month in secondary but before bulk aging.
 
Anybody else have a problem with a stuck fermentation? Down to 1.020, been there for two weeks.

Thinking of pitching some EC-1118 to finish the job.
 
I feel like 1.020 is good. Just keep it there and back sweeten it with less.


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So I just made this last night. I added GoFerm per the yeast re-hydration instructions. Am I supposed to add Fermaid K now that fermentation has begun? I've seen many wildly varying yeast nutrient schedules so I'm confused. :)
 
I don't know if this has come up yet, but is there something that can be used in place of Super Kleer? It's derived from shellfish which SWMBO is allergic to.


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All right, I made it this morning. Made a few changes but nothing major... Below are the ingredients that I used.

4 Gallons of Brown’s Orchard Apple Cider
2 lbs Plain Light DME

3 lbs 60L Crystal malt

4 lbs Wildflower Honey
5 lbs Clover Honey
1 lbs Buckwheat Honey
Sweet Mead Wine Yeast WLP720

Now the hard part, waiting!
 
I'm planning a batch of this soon. In researching this further, I discovered the infamous Graf malted cider recipe, which is very similar, minus the honey of course. I decided to try the Graf first to get the process down before I committed a full pound of my precious local honey. I have high hopes for both the Graff and this recipe! :mug:

Has anyone tried this carbonated yet?
 
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