Diesel Mead

Ok, so I'm almost a year into my first mead. I used raw natural honey unfiltered from Defiance, Iowa. I can't remember if it was clover, orange blossom, etc. Not exactly sure what happened, but the smell coming off this thing makes you think you're gonna get a dose of some HARD f**kin' liquor or jet fuel, but the flavor and aftertaste is a delicious dry mead.

10 lbs raw, unfiltered honey
4 gallons
Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast
Fermented in basement 70F
OG 1.090
Aged in Secondary 5 months
FG 1.000
Bottled in 375mL corked bottles

I aerated it through one of these... it helps get rid of that smell, but it's still there. Then again, this is baby jet fuel at 12%abv. I'm going to add a fruit wedge to sweeten it it. Is that illegal in mead circles? :fro:

http://bevineyard.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=65

allthingsgiant said:

Ok, so I'm almost a year into my first mead. I used raw natural honey unfiltered from Defiance, Iowa. I can't remember if it was clover, orange blossom, etc. Not exactly sure what happened, but the smell coming off this thing makes you think you're gonna get a dose of some HARD f**kin' liquor or jet fuel, but the flavor and aftertaste is a delicious dry mead.

10 lbs raw, unfiltered honey
4 gallons
Lalvin 71B-1122 yeast
Fermented in basement 70F
OG 1.090
Aged in Secondary 5 months
FG 1.000
Bottled in 375mL corked bottles

I aerated it through one of these... it helps get rid of that smell, but it's still there. Then again, this is baby jet fuel at 12%abv. I'm going to add a fruit wedge to sweeten it it. Is that illegal in mead circles? :fro:

http://bevineyard.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=65

Click to expand...

The "alcohol hot" taste that you can sometimes get with younger meads, will often mellow over time. There are a couple of yeasts that are known to produce fusels if fermented too warm (71B isn't one of them, but D47 is).

You can often disguise it with back sweetening.

The only thing I can think of relating to 71B that could be an issue, is that it's one of the yeasts that doesn't like being left too long after the ferment has finished i.e. it's prone to "autolysis" issues, but as I understand it, alcohol hot and fusel production aren't autolysis (might be wrong).

If you do back sweeten, don't forget it's best to stabilise with sulphite and sorbate first, as back sweetening without, can cause a refermentation problem and bottle bombs........

Thanks. I ended up just adding some "fresh" honey before I drank it. It helped it out, but still... I think I migth have left this one the cake too long.

I'm not sure the time on the cake is the culprit. During the initial ferment, did you add nutrients and shake? The guys over at GotMead.com preach the staggered nutrient addition and the frequent shaking in the first few days religiously. After a batch or two, I couldn't agree more. My stuff doesn't smell or taste hoochy at all and it's only been a couple of months.

Yeah, I'm not sure I did all the additions. I know I beat it up pretty good the first week with a drill whip, wanted to see what the "RONCO" method of mead would turn out to be. So it goes. I'll just have to age it longer, which isn't a bad thing considering homebrew goes quickly around here...

allthingsgiant said:

Yeah, I'm not sure I did all the additions. I know I beat it up pretty good the first week with a drill whip, wanted to see what the "RONCO" method of mead would turn out to be. So it goes. I'll just have to age it longer, which isn't a bad thing considering homebrew goes quickly around here...

Click to expand...

RONCO method..... excellent analogy :rockin:

It's one of the reasons that members both here and at Gotmead, who are based in the US, suggest making 5 gallon batches (US gallon that is).

Though it's more about the historic availability of the glassware and the history of having "office water coolers".

Here, it's often 1 (imp) gallon batches, because of the historic availability of 1 gallon glass "demi-johns", that were used for cider (hard cider) will into the 80's.

Either way, it's easy to work out how many 750ml wine bottles you're likely to fill from a batch. Also, smaller batches tend to keep the cost of producing down (3 to 4lb honey per gallon - instead of having to shell out for between 15 to 20lb of honey in one hit.....)

If you get through your home brew quickly then of course, it would make sense to make 5 gallon batches, or even more. Then once you've got 4 or 5 batches on the go, you should never be short of something to sup!

The only thing you've really got to allow for is a minimum ageing period....