Cool cucumber mead

[CreamyGoodness]

Hey not for nothing but you guys on this thread are my kind of people. *sips more scotch*

 

[Arpolis]

I did take a new picture on day 50 when I added the lime and extra cucumber to the cucumber mead so here is a quick side by side comparison of my top 5 favorites of the progression pics:

 

[vahallasbrew2]

Dang it's color has changed a lot since day 1.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Do you think having thinner cucumber slices would provide extra surface area and thus up the cucumbery goodness extraction ratio?

 

[hazegray77]

What's the alcohol content? With those juice bottles I would be concerned about plastic being leeched into your mead by the solvent characteristics of alcohol.

 

[hazegray77]

But cucumber mead does sound very good!

 

[hazegray77]

Puree them and throw em in a hop sock! prob the best surface area you'll get!

 

[vahallasbrew2]

.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

So how is this progressing?
Regards, GF.

 

[Arpolis]

It has cleared really well with no finnings. I smelled it the other day & it it's smell is really weired. Imagin a jar of pickles with no sour vinegar at all. I know that's an oxymoron since you cant have pickles without vinegar but that's the best description I got.

The mint is non-existent I think so future recipes should have mint in the secondary only and in a larger proportion. At the 3 month mark I will take a taste test an probably bottle.

 

[vahallasbrew2]

How goes the fermenting?

 

[Arpolis]

All looks good. When I get some time this needs to go to bottles. When I do that I will take a sip and let y'all know how it is.

 

[vahallasbrew2]

Awesome I can't wait to hear what it taste like

 

[Arpolis]

Hey everyone

I took a taste test of the cucumber brew today. I hope everyone can re-cap on how my first taste test went when the brew was full of yeast still and a week old. I will now attempt to explain what happened and how this tasted for comparison.

I took a single shot out for tasting and put it in the freezer to get nice and cool. I wanted the best scenario for this taste test. On the nose it was definitely cucumber. The mint & lime juice was completely overpowered. But I must say. Even though I associated cucumber with the smell it did seem "different". Again I reference back to kind of like pickles with no vinegar.

I did not take the whole shot but took a half and swished in my mouth a second to get a taste. So if you took a cucumber and striped it of all that was good and holy and left the corrupt and vile defilement of the devils garden. That’s what I got. I again spit out the drink and when air hit my mouth it only got worse and I gagged several times. I ran to the kitchen to grab something to put in my mouth to stop the horrible injustice upon my taste buds. I saw a can of 7UP and thought will take too long to pop the can then saw some strawberries in the bottom of the fridge. I flipped the plastic lid and grabbed a strawberry and shoved it in my mouth quickly.

BUT AGAIN a sweet sour mush entered my mouth and I spit the strawberry only to see it has molded on the bottom. I scram out in anger and went back to the 7up and took the time to open it and swish my mouth out several times.


Uggggggg!

Vahalla I think you do this to see me in anguish

So I signed up with this experiment and put together a recipe I figured would give a worse case scenario and truly show if there is any benefit from using cucumber. From what I have seen, tasted, vomited, gagged & cried over I think cucumber is a dead end. I do honestly love cucumbers but they belong in salads. You can probably garnish a really dry traditional mead with a slice of partially frozen cucumber for a nice cool refreshing bite after a hot drink. But to ferment it and drink the cucumber..... NO Sir. I think I am done with this. I have some oil stains on the drive way I think I can clean with this stuff lol. It will be put to some use.

Oh but lets keep this thread going. Someone else make a cucumber mead and let’s see where that goes. Cheers

 

[vahallasbrew2]

Wow I'm terribly sorry to have put you through such a tremendously crappy taste test. I am very thankful for your updates and brave taste buds haha. Well we now this is a failed ingredient but I will make one to avenge your taste buds, also to let people see what it was like I shall make a video of me tasting and reactions and put it on YouTube for all to see. Hahaha well I greatly give thanks to you arpolis for your time you gave into trying this brew I greatly appreciate it. If you have any crazy ideas for a mead brew pm me or post it on this thread and I'll give it a try for you. Thanks again haha airtight have put you in such nastiness. Cheers vahalla

 

[Arpolis]

lol I actually had a blast with it. This is why I am in the hobby. To try things that other people haven't and hope something nice comes of it. If 1/4 of my experiments go well I am happy for it. Thank for the idea and I may hold you up on trying something weired for me

 

[vahallasbrew2]

I'm glad you did haha same here I try new things just for schnits and giggles, yeah man throw a pm or thread at me if you have any hahaha

 

[Atek]

Just a thought but it might be beneficial to treat this as a pithy fruit. What I mean by that is that the favors may be easier to extract from only the zest of the cucumber, just remember the skins are slightly bitter so you would want to adjust the amount used accordingly. Just a thought.

 

[TeufelHundenM198]

I was curious how this one would end up, even though I had very little interest in trying it myself. I'm actually kinda surprised it turned out so terrible. Pretty unfortunate, the very idea of a cool cucumber mead had the potential to be one of those oddities people talked about at parties and what not.

 

[vahallasbrew2]

Yeah it was a shot in the dark, the idea came to mind by chopping cucumber one night after I just got done makin a batch of some R.A.M (regular ass mead) I said hey I love to eat them why can't o drink them and thats how I ended up here with a crazy idea and some ones brave taste buds accepted the challenge, like the sang goes, when does the narwhal bacon?

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Saw this the other day & thought it sounded interesting.
http://www.drysoda.com/flavor-cucumber.php
I haven't tried it yet, I tried the lavender instead...
I hope the cucumber is better than the lavender, cuz the lavender SUCKED; tasted like soap to me, guess I'm just not a fan of the taste of lavender. Smells good though.
Regards, GF.

 

[vahallasbrew2]

I like the smell of lavender not so much the taste it belongs in a soap or smell goods for ladies. Cucumber gin sounds good I might have to try it.

 

[TheBrewingMedic]

Lavender, like a lot of flowers has to be used with a very light hand or it'll become handsoap on you every time. I have a caramelized lavender peach batch going right now that I only used about half what was recommended to me and kept it in the carboy only long enough for the aroma to become obvious but not let it impart much of the flavor.

 

[crazypsychnurse]

This was an idea brought up abot 3+ weeks ago actually. My suggestion was to add some spear mint to add to the "cool" factor. One thought brought up was that cucumber does not have a strong taste so I would go 100% cucumber juice mixed with honey and mint.

There is a meadery in Lithuania that makes cucumber mead ...

https://www.reddit.com/r/mead/s/0Y6wzv5s8n

It's literally just honey and whole cucumber juice. These two go into a large pot and gets heated up to 80°C to make dissolving large amounts of honey easier, also develops better flavor in our opinion. DO NOT BOIL IT as the juice will be bitter as heck. We use rapeseed honey as it has the mildest flawor and smell of the ones we can choose from and honey with a very strong "temper" can easily make the cucumber flavor basically disappear.
The ratio is close to 1:1, we aim for 36-37 brixs. We keep it over 40 brixs because it takes time to prep 1000l of this liquid, usually 3 days and we don't want it to start fermenting before the whole batch is ready and dilute it a little with fresh juice to the sweetness we are looking for. Once done it goes into a very intense fermentation in about 4-6 hours if the temperature is right and it takes about 12-13 days for it to reach 15,6-16,1% ABV. All of this is prob not important to a home maker but just highlights how quick it ferments by itself.
I guess convert the brixs to gravity readings (idk how really) and go ahead, try to make some. It really does not need to be aged for a year or even 6 months to be an award winning beverage. We are actually waiting for the next Saturday to find out how the judges of the European Mead Makers conference will rate it.

 

[Rish]

^What yeast is used for this mead?

 

[MightyMosin]

^What yeast is used for this mead?

I'm curious too. I used D47 for the session that I am doing.