What I did for/with Mead today

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Racked ~7 gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon pyment to stainless kegs. Grape skins were moved to the large keg and I'll remove them in ~ 4 weeks.
Gravity checks on marshmallow bochet and pomegranate cherry mead... both are close to finished but need a few more days. Likely rack those next week.

Bochet for Solera project was racked from two separate 5 gallon carboys off the lees. I'm not sure but there might have been a bit of a pellicle haze in each. Both were racked under the haze and I sacrificed more than I wanted to try and avoid it. I have about 6 gallons of it to go to an oak barrel if it doesn't start up with some kind of pellicle in the carboys it was racked to. The two plastic carboys that they were racked out of have been cleaned and marked to note possible pellicle contamination.
 
Nutrients added to the horchata inspired mead.

Fining agents Kieselsol and Chitosan reported to duty and went to work on my B.O.B. and Marshmallow Bochet meads.

The prior meads I added fining agents to are pretty clear. Will likely rack them next week on top of some more K-Meta.

Cucumber session mead is dropping plenty of stuff all on its own. Likely rack, back sweeten, and fining next weekend. Acid adjustments afterwards, as needed (likely).

It's mead making season while the weather is more favorable! I need to start on my Christmas mead soon, as I should have started it in December.
 
Been a while since I posted.

Bottled 3 gallons of orange blossom traditional that has been sitting in a carboy since April 2023.

Really happy with the outcome. 13ish % ABV. no other flavors to his behind. Definitely has a honey nose and taste. Final gravity was 1.018.

Todd Peterson
 

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MightyMosin said:
That clarity is great.
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Thanks you sir.

Time + Kieselsol + Chitosan

Note of interest. This mead spent 2 months on medium toast French oak cubes. Every time I racked the clear mead to its new home, I ended up with black, silt looking substance in the bottom of the carboy. I’m guessing it has something to do with the wood.

Proud of this one.

Todd Peterson

​

 
I misspoke. Only time. No clearing agents on this one.

Looking to do a bourbon fortified traditional soon. Anyone have any tips on fortified meads? Thinking to use a buffalo trace product because I am partial to their juice.


Todd Peterson
 
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Bottled 5 gallons cranapple & blackberry Session 8.2% and 6 gallons orange 13.4%. Kegged and force carbing just short of 5 gallons pink lemonade session 9%. Tried crystalized fruit for the first time for extra flavor in the orange and blackberry. Turned out ok but not as good as frssh fruit. Will be interested to see how it ages. Might have to experiment some with it.

@Todd Peterson I have done a few fortified session meads 8 to 9% brought up to 12%. Did an Evan Williams bourbon, Fire Ball and a couple vodkas. Not a fan of the bourbons at all as they kind of overwhelm the honey and or fruit flavors. Vodka worked a bit better but I quickly settled on the more "standard" 14% to 16% mead, melomel etc as I can get better flavors and less "alcohol spirits" burn with them.
 
CKuhns said:
Bottled 5 gallons cranapple & blackberry Session 8.2% and 6 gallons orange 13.4%. Kegged and force carbing just short of 5 gallons pink lemonade session 9%. Tried crystalized fruit for the first time for extra flavor in the orange and blackberry. Turned out ok but not as good as frssh fruit. Will be interested to see how it ages. Might have to experiment some with it.

@Todd Peterson I have done a few fortified session meads 8 to 9% brought up to 12%. Did an Evan Williams bourbon, Fire Ball and a couple vodkas. Not a fan of the bourbons at all as they kind of overwhelm the honey and or fruit flavors. Vodka worked a bit better but I quickly settled on the more "standard" 14% to 16% mead, melomel etc as I can get better flavors and less "alcohol spirits" burn with them.
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Thanks for the feedback CKuhns!
 
Long mead day today and I'm still not complete.
Lots of carboy cleaning and sanitizing so i can juggle my racking today. Rack and then start cleaning carboy so I have another to rack into. The Carboy/Brwewbucket cleaner is completely paying for itself today!

Racked, back sweetened and acid adjusted my Cucumber session. After racking this, I needed to flush my line for almost an hour to get rid of the cucumber aroma. I had no idea it would hold on so strong.

Racked and stabilized my Marshmallow Bochet. Will back sweeten some point this coming week and probably add some fining agents next weekend. Maybe into the oak barrel two weeks later.

In process of racking through a gravity filter, and back sweetening (2) 5 gallon batched of a blueberry cyser. I have two other 5 gallon carboys that are ready to rack to get off of fine sediment, but I think I may be done with it after the cysers... I think I hear the band at the local brewery calling me soon-ish.

And for the first time, I remembered to flush CO2 through my siphon line and the filter before starting 😊
 
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@ MighyMosin I would think letting the line totally air dry for a day or so after cleaning and sanitizing it, should remove the cucumber aroma. Did you finally get it to go away?
 
T Murph said:
@ MighyMosin I would think letting the line totally air dry for a day or so after cleaning and sanitizing it, should remove the cucumber aroma. Did you finally get it to go away?
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I did get it to go away. The pump circulated PBW through it for about an hour while I did other stuff.

I didn't have any other 3/8 tubing and I needed it later, otherwise I probably would have done as you suggested.
 
Rish said:
Racked and bottled mead started 10/02/2020 and then bulk aged. Why this long? I hate siphoning from 1 gallon jugs (PITA) so put it off and off. Switching to 2 gallon batches using my beer gear with FV and bottling bucket with spigots (only took 4 years to figure out!🤣). Pretty tasty.
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I get that!!!

I hate bottling and I have filled carboys as a result... It's about time for me to bite the bullet and start wrapping some of these things up.
 
Cleaned my keg lines. Didnt really need it but try to do them every 3 or 4 months.

Yeard ago, modified a small hudson hand pump sprayer by adding a quick connect. Then fill it with sanitizer open the tap and let it run. Followed by a good rinse and tap water to flush things out
 
Racked the ~ 5 gallons of my Buckwheat, Orange Blossom (BOB) trad to another carboy off the last bits of sediment and all the settled oak dust. It's about 293 calories per 375ml bottle... once I get to bottling.

It is super clear, which is how I enjoy my meads.
 
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I drank my second last bottle of my first mead (11 months). I'm putting the pyment on halt as my brewing season is closing in. I wanted to make an orange blossom trad this spring, but as I would have to order the honey from Spain and they don't want to ship here, it's not feasible as I'm also a low budget brewer. Good thing is that my sister moved to Barcelona, so maybe she would be willing to smuggle a few kilos when she comes to visit :D
 
Racked Cab Sauv pyment from oak barrel over some K-Meta so I can bottle ...ugh...
Rinsed oak barrel with boiling water. Filled barrel with cool water and some K-Meta to hold it for a few days.

Stabilized 6 gallons of new Cab Sauv pyment. Will back sweeten later tonight or more likely tomorrow and then rack into above barrel.

Started the rest of the left over Cab Sauv wine kit to get a new Pyment going so that I can eventually rack out and bottle my Pinot Noir pyment out of a different barrel.

I wanted to back sweeten some blueberry cycser today, but the wildflower honey I plan on using is still a bit creamy and semi-crystallized and its Sous Vide bath hasn't yet loosened it up enough to easily mix into for sweetening.
 
Bottled a Cabernet Sauvignon pyment. Started on 6-11-22, Barreled 11-12-22, Back sweetened to 1.008 on 5-7-23.
In total, about 16 months in the barrel and I have to say that I really enjoy this batch.

Main honey was Raspberry blossom, back sweetened with 1.5 Lb Mesquite that was bocheted @225 for 35 minutes.

This is my 2nd Cabernet Sauvignon pyment.

Bottled (5) 750ml bottles and (13) 375ml bottles.
 
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Back sweetened (2) 5 gallon batches of Blueberry Cyser. Both were dry at 0.096 and added ~2.5 Lb Wildflower to each to bring it up to 1.014. These both were hastily done with not quite as much fruit as I normally use... It isn't quite as fruit dark as previous batches, but it tastes nice.

This will go into stainless kegs and get carbonated to about 2 volumes and then bottled.

While I was busy with the honey, I filled up a 5 pound container with Wildflower and another one with Raspberry Blossom from the 5 gallon buckets.
 
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Added about 1/2 the typical amount Kieselsol and Chitosan to the above back sweetened Blueberry Cyser mead. I would normally just wait for the honey haze to drop out but I need those carboys sooner than later and I want to get that Cyser into kegs to cool and carbonate. I may end up using my home made quick carb on one of these kegs so I have some to take with me on an upcoming trip.

I also removed the K-Meta/Citric acid water from a barrel that I racked out of a week or so. Rinsed for prep for another pyment to go into.
 
Racked (2) 5 gallon batches of Blueberry Cyser into stainless kegs to go into refrigerator for carbonation... after I remove and rack a couple items that are cold crashing in there right now.
 
Busy Mead day!

Racked 6 gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon Pyment (batch #3) from keg into an oak barrel that previously held rum and my other Cab Sauv pyments... I freshened up the rum in it after its sanitization over the past two weeks... hopefully another great batch from it.

PBW cleaned, rinsed and sanitized above 6 gallon keg and then racked Cabernet Sauvignon (batch #4) into the newly sanitized keg along with bringing the grape skins over.

Racked six gallons of Marshmallow Bochet off of sediment into another carboy and then back sweetened to 1.018 SG. Some K-Meta was added and then racked into a recently acquired whiskey barrel. This particular barrel had ~4.5L of Costco scotch added to it to swell the barrel and make it all sealed up. About 2L was racked out of the barrel before I filled it with the Marshmallow Bochet. Somewhere aroung 2.0 to 2.5L of whiskey was absorbed into the oak. I expect that this batch will have a very nice whiskey enhanced flavor and be quite good. This is similar to my first batch of this particular mead, though I keep changing the recipe each time to see what works well.

Uncorcked (2) 753ml bottles of my first Marshmallow Bochet and put that into (4) 375ml bottles with lots of CO2 in that process. This is that last of it and @Dan O I have one of those set aside.

Cleaned , rinsed and sanitized about 5 carboys today. Thank you to the Mark II cleaner. So worth the money.

Started a 6.5 gallon batch Gewurztraminer Pyment... I've been looking forward to this one. It is using Mesquite honey and Vitilevure 58W3 yeast along with some Noblesse, FT Blanc Soft Tannins and some Booster Blanc.. I have some high hopes for this one.

Tomorrow will have some more racking and bottling if the schedule allows.
 
Bottled up a Mesquite traditional. I started that gravity fairly high and used SafAle US-05 and it stopped at 1.018 SG. I remembered why I hate bottling wands 😡. Anyway, I ended up crown capping (24) 12 oz bottles of this. This is just slightly over a year old and very tasty.

Racked my Cucumber session off sediment crap into another carboy. The ~500ml of left over in a flip top in the refrigerator was used to top the carboy back up near the top. Glad I kept that around.

More cleaning or fermenters. I now have a stack of cleaned vessels to put away... Might tackle a few more items today but this been a decent day of getting some of these projects on into the next stage.
 
Not totally sure this counts, but I got some more honey today.......not that I need it, mind you🤣🤣

Pic 2 is the ever-growing honey shelves😂
 

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This Saturday I ended up bottling my traditional mead which I followed the beginners traditional from the r/mead subreddit wiki.

FG was 1.032, which after calculating my SG came out to about 10.75% which is the upper range of US-05.

A bit sweet for my taste but parting it with a bit of water really helps bring out the honey versus just tasting sweet.

Overall, for being one of my first mead's I am quite happy with how this has transpired.
 

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