Wild idea

Cliclaste said:

I will definitely do that, my question is though, what is the best way to sterilize the needles before adding them to secondary?

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That oven thing would probably work, but soaking them in vodka for the same amount of time would too. Bacteria can't survive in vodka. After the soak, drain the needles, and then add to secondary. The residual vodka can only help your mead, if you know what I mean.

NineMilBill said:

That oven thing would probably work, but soaking them in vodka for the same amount of time would too. Bacteria can't survive in vodka. After the soak, drain the needles, and then add to secondary. The residual vodka can only help your mead, if you know what I mean.

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I'm not sure of the oven method or the time involved, but I definately think I'd prefer the vodka method, but how about using gin instead, it's about 40% and is made out of juniper berries, so it would help with the "wild" taste

Cliclaste said:

I will definitely do that, my question is though, what is the best way to sterilize the needles before adding them to secondary?

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Going in the secondary you probably don't need to worry about sterilization, there should be enough alcohol in your mead to take care of anything that may be on the pine needles.

However if for peace of mind you want to do something you could try the steam method some use for oak chips/cubes, place them in a microwave safe container with a small amount of water, not enough to cover, and give it a couple minutes in the nooker to bring the water to a boil, then cover and let them sit for about 10 minutes. You can add the water into your mead as well as it will have some steeped flavors and is clean and safe.

The oven idea sounds good too but my concern would be that even though you are not letting them toast the method itself will cause drying and loss of some of the essential oils that provide the volatile compounds for flavor and aroma, would probably still work but you may want to consider increasing the quantity of needles some.

How did this turn out? Is it still in secondary? I am thinking about doing a similar mead would like to hear if it was any good .

raymondim said:

How did this turn out? Is it still in secondary? I am thinking about doing a similar mead would like to hear if it was any good .

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It turned out to be fairly decent, I had a few hiccups along the way and it had just a mild musk to it, but it's still pleasant to drink, the pine flavor did actually come through but you wouldn't know it was pine if it wast labeled, it just has a really nice earthy flavor I plan on making some more once my blue spruce puts out new shoots, I would try the older needles but currently my tree is infested with scale insects and I'd rather not put those into my mead