Dad is mead, Mom is wine, what is baby?

I made a 5 gallon batch of mead, just 15# of honey, water, nutrient, and yeast about 8 months ago. This stuff has never tasted quite right. I had some low temperature issues in the primary and first secondary, but I don't know what to expect as I have never tried another mead. Neither me or my wife can drink it because of the after taste. IIRC, the OG was about 1.090, and FG was 0.998. It has been clear for 4 months and stabalized for a month.

Two months ago I made a batch of strawberry wine that I used too much fruit and too much sugar in. It is in the tertiary fermenter now. It tastes good but it is too sweet and would probably strip the paint off the side of your house. OG was 1.130, FG was 1.014. Possibly too much alcohol for my yeast. I have been contemplating either dilluting this batch to 1.008 or a bit less (that's where my last batch was sweetened to) or repitching with champagne yeast.

The other night I decided to try to blend the strawberry wine with some rhubarb wine that I have in the secondary. While putzing around with the blend, I decided to try a 50/50 mix between the strawberry and the mead. The stuff is spectacular!!!! It is pretty strong, probably pushing 14-15% ABV, but the sweetness of the strawberry masks the aftertaste of the mead and high alcohol, and the strawberry really comes through.

My question is - If I wait unitl the strawberry wine is done and blend it with the mead, what will I have?

That's a prime example of why I only use 1/2 gal (about 6#) in my meads.

With fruit it's a Melomel.

That sounds like a plan if you like it. I think it sounds great!

As a side note, though- the strawberry will mellow and not be rocket fuel in a couple of years. You'd have to sulfite it a bit and age it, but it would be good eventually if you can wait that long. Champagne yeast won't help, as you're already at 15% ABV and you'd have super charged rocket fuel. It sounds like it may be about done with the yeast you have, but it might drop a couple of more points. Wait for a bit and see if the sg is changing before you decide. If it's done, I'd sorbate and sulfite before combining it with the mead, just in case the yeast in the mead isn't quite done and it would restart fermentation in the bottles.

As hb_99 said, a fruit and honey wine is melomel.

Warbles,

In Ken Schramms' book "The Compleat Meadmaker", he points out that quite often, the green mead i.e. post fermentation, can taste like "Listerine". I understand that this is because the honey is basically "pure sugar" (OK, not quite, but not far off) and as a result of the use of yeasts that tolerate the sugar/alcohol levels (champagne yeasts for example), it's not unheard of to have a finished mead of 15 to 18% abv.

Honey, by it's very nature, is quite a subtle taste (irrespective of what type of honey it might be), and as a further result, can take at least a year to "cool down" some. It does seem to be a "rule of thumb" that the longer you age it for, the better.

I'm thinking that as you have a 5 gallon batch, why not split it further. By having some mixed with the strawberry, as you already mentioned, but maybe lay down a gallon on it's own, label it and forget about it. Then maybe read up about "oaking" another gallon or it (or maybe 2 gallons, 1 for drinking in 12 months and the other to be oaked and then laid down, labelled and forgotten about for the same length of time as the straight mead).

I reckon it'd be an ideal quantity to experiment with. Though it's really up to how quickly you want to drink it.

Just my 2cents worth.

regards

fatbloke.