Greetings,
Avid homebrewer here. My son wanted to make mead last New Years day to try and start a new family tradition. I'll admit I didn't spend a tremendous amount of time researching mead making as it was a spur of the moment thing. For the 5 gal batch we used 5lbs of honey from Costco (probably low quality honey) and two packs of lalvin v1116 (k1) yeast and some yeast nutrient. After a month I mixed up a slurry with another pack and poured it into the must for good measure.
It's been sitting in a stainless keg for 11 months now (never racked to secondary). I used a wine thief to sample some the other day. Appearance is yellow / clear and the taste....rocket fuel but strangly good, or was that my buzz. I didn't bother taking an OG as this was just a fun throw together seat of the pants project.
So my question is what now?
Let it continue to age? Add some spices? Bottle and carbonate some?
Open to suggestions. I was leaning towards bottling / carbonating one bottle that we can open on New Year's Eve taste be damned and letting the rest age until next year. At the same time setting up another 5gal batch on new year day. That way going forward I'd have 5gal of 2 year aged mead every Christmas / New Years.
Looking for suggestions / opinions from the experts.
Avid homebrewer here. My son wanted to make mead last New Years day to try and start a new family tradition. I'll admit I didn't spend a tremendous amount of time researching mead making as it was a spur of the moment thing. For the 5 gal batch we used 5lbs of honey from Costco (probably low quality honey) and two packs of lalvin v1116 (k1) yeast and some yeast nutrient. After a month I mixed up a slurry with another pack and poured it into the must for good measure.
It's been sitting in a stainless keg for 11 months now (never racked to secondary). I used a wine thief to sample some the other day. Appearance is yellow / clear and the taste....rocket fuel but strangly good, or was that my buzz. I didn't bother taking an OG as this was just a fun throw together seat of the pants project.
So my question is what now?
Let it continue to age? Add some spices? Bottle and carbonate some?
Open to suggestions. I was leaning towards bottling / carbonating one bottle that we can open on New Year's Eve taste be damned and letting the rest age until next year. At the same time setting up another 5gal batch on new year day. That way going forward I'd have 5gal of 2 year aged mead every Christmas / New Years.
Looking for suggestions / opinions from the experts.