Newby looking for Raspberry Mead Recipes

My first post and my first attempt to make mead. Did few batches of home made wine, but never mead.
I plan to try it small, maybe gallon or two.
I was hoping to find good mead recipes that would make sweet mead with the taste of raspberries and have alcohol content of 12-18%.
Here is my imagination for the mead I want to do:
Ingredients:
1. 4lb of honey/gal of water
2. 16 oz of raspberry syrup
3. Fermax Yeast Nutrient
4. Sweet Mead Yeast - WLP720

Making:
1. Dilute honey and raspberry syrup in gallon of worm water.
2. Bring must almost to boiling point and keep it there for 20-30 min
3. Cool down must
4. Add Fermax nutrient and let it sit for 24 hours
5. Add Sweet mead yeast.
6. Let it seat until fermentation is completed
7. Once completed bottle it and put in refrigerator for a month
8. Drink it.

sfbayarea said:

My first post and my first attempt to make mead. Did few batches of home made wine, but never mead.
I plan to try it small, maybe gallon or two.
I was hoping to find good mead recipes that would make sweet mead with the taste of raspberries and have alcohol content of 12-18%.
Here is my imagination for the mead I want to do:
Ingredients:
1. 4lb of honey/gal of water
2. 16 oz of raspberry syrup
3. Fermax Yeast Nutrient
4. Sweet Mead Yeast - WLP720

Making:
1. Dilute honey and raspberry syrup in gallon of worm water.
2. Bring must almost to boiling point and keep it there for 20-30 min
3. Cool down must
4. Add Fermax nutrient and let it sit for 24 hours
5. Add Sweet mead yeast.
6. Let it seat until fermentation is completed
7. Once completed bottle it and put in refrigerator for a month
8. Drink it.

Click to expand...

Well, to start with, those liquid yeasts are a PITA. Finicky as hell to use (well, the Wyeast one is, I understand that the White Labs one is as well). I'd suggest that you try a dry yeast first (Lalvins 71B or K1V come to mind).

You'd need to check the ingredients of the raspberry syrup, as some contain preservatives that don't go well with yeasts. Otherwise you're asking for trouble.....

4lb of honey to a gallon, is a lot. It'll give you quite a high gravity (and yes you do need a hydrometer to check the gravity, otherwise it's all guess work that could end up with wasted ingredients, impatience, and not understanding what might have gone wrong).

Why would you want to heat a honey must ? It's mead we're on about here, not beer. Heating honey musts is a waste of time/effort/energy/ingredients. Honey is natures most anti-bacterial, anti-fungal single substance (it's why you can apply it to wounds and find that they will heal quicker or that some of the samples taken from Egypts ancient tombs was found to be edible after something like 3 millenia). Besides, heating honey musts drives off a lot of the aromatics and some of the more subtle flavouring elements.

That range of % ABV is very wide, and potentially will give you no end of problems, if you think you can just mix X, Y and Z and get something good. Meads not hard, but hell, it certainly isn't that easy.

Oh, and the raspberry thing ? Yes, it's a wonderful fruit (I enjoy it a lot, and we grow about 4 or 5 different varieties), but because of it's very nature, it's a flavour that will dominate a brew very, very easily. You should really be thinking toward using "real fruit" (doesn't matter if it's fresh or frozen) possibly of more than one type.

I'd suggest a little more research for recipes that have been tried (and tested ?) first. To prevent any possible disappointment.

regards

fatbloke

p.s. Oh and most meads are hideous tasting when young. You'd should be considering at least 6 months ageing, probably more...... Mead does need one special ingredient. Patience........