Q2XL
Well-Known Member
Does anyone have one?
Damn, I gotta get a membership to Costco. Everybody raves about it down here too.
Hey KC, did that 20lbs ferment out completely in 2 weeks? Also did the mead clear completely?
I did almost the same recipe last fall and the mead is not completely cleared yet. I thought it was due to the concentrate, but I used a different concentrate. It tastes amazing now but I want to wait longer for it to clear completely before I bottle.
I also used med toast french oak cubes for 3 gallons of it and that is even better.
It did - I think it took about 11-12 days for fermentation to finish, but I don't know what the FG was.... I can't remember if we took a reading or not, and if we did, we didn't write it down... And yes, it did clear pretty well on its own. We did end up adding some SuperKleer just to make it, well, super clear.
The oak cubes is an interesting idea; we found that the blueberry concentrate we bought had a TON of tannins in it, so we didn't need to add any tannins for balance... but I definitely think that if we had just used blueberries, additional tannin would have been warranted.
Yes the concentrate did have a huge amount of tannins. I only had to use the cubes for half of the reccomended time on the package. I did a taste test every 2 days. I split my batch so I will have a sample of oaked vs non-oaked to compair. This year I am thinking of using more berries to top off 6 gallon carboy and concentrate. Once that is done fermenting I will rack it off into 2 3 gallon carboys and vanilla bean one of them and leave the other as a reference batch.The oak cubes is an interesting idea; we found that the blueberry concentrate we bought had a TON of tannins in it, so we didn't need to add any tannins for balance... but I definitely think that if we had just used blueberries, additional tannin would have been warranted.
I just got 4 5lb box's of organic michigan blueberries for $6 each last week. I went back this week and they were 10.99 a 5lb box! I'm going with 10lb in the primary and then 10 more when I rack them off. I picked up some blueberry honey when I was in west michigan cheaper than I can order it for. Hopefully get to pitch it tonight.
You need to go picking... My dad, bro, and I picked 100 lbs in a little over 2 hrs this weekend just East of South Haven for $1.25 a pound. Insanely nice weather and bushes just falling over full of berries. 45 lbs in my freezer now!
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