Heya everyone,
I wanted to go into homebrewing for a while but finally decided to give it a go, and maybe in an unorthodox way because the thing that always fascinated me was mead!
So my first 1gal batch was interesting, it transpires that I added too little honey for the yeast I used (champagne) and it turned bone dry with not any significant flavour so I kept a bottle and binned the rest.
My second batch though I put some more effort in, it is a version of JAOM with some extra christmassy spices (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice and ginger). So after pitching and leaving to ferment for 1 month I decided to rack it to secondary. After tasting some I felt that it was too harsh tasting - far too much tannin and taste of orange but otherwise still some residual sweetness and quite powerful alcohol content (used 1.5kg of honey for 1gal - about 3.3lbs). So I decided to add an extra 0.5lb of honey which I had from when I first prepared it but now there is no airlock activity after ~6hours. Should I leave it in secondary for lets say another month and then rerack and taste, do you think it will remain too sweet or it will get messed up? Should I expect the tannin taste of the orange to subside?
I really don't want to bin that one because the initial taste after just 1 month made me think that it will be terrific when aged and the flavours can come out. Plus the honey itself cost quite a bit!
Thanks in advance!
I wanted to go into homebrewing for a while but finally decided to give it a go, and maybe in an unorthodox way because the thing that always fascinated me was mead!
So my first 1gal batch was interesting, it transpires that I added too little honey for the yeast I used (champagne) and it turned bone dry with not any significant flavour so I kept a bottle and binned the rest.
My second batch though I put some more effort in, it is a version of JAOM with some extra christmassy spices (cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, allspice and ginger). So after pitching and leaving to ferment for 1 month I decided to rack it to secondary. After tasting some I felt that it was too harsh tasting - far too much tannin and taste of orange but otherwise still some residual sweetness and quite powerful alcohol content (used 1.5kg of honey for 1gal - about 3.3lbs). So I decided to add an extra 0.5lb of honey which I had from when I first prepared it but now there is no airlock activity after ~6hours. Should I leave it in secondary for lets say another month and then rerack and taste, do you think it will remain too sweet or it will get messed up? Should I expect the tannin taste of the orange to subside?
I really don't want to bin that one because the initial taste after just 1 month made me think that it will be terrific when aged and the flavours can come out. Plus the honey itself cost quite a bit!
Thanks in advance!