Wildflower Traditional

[BRGriffith]

Hello All!

It's been a while since I've been on here, but I just placed an order for some honey from Dutch Gold today, and I just wanted to share my plans, recipe, pics and etc. I ordered 30 Lbs of wildflower honey from them, and I'm planning on using about half to make a dry traditional mead. Here's my recipe:

Wildflower Traditional: 5 Gallon

-15 1/2 Pound Wildflower Honey
-Spring Water To 6 Gallon (For Racking Purposes)
-FERMCALC: Yield 6 Gallon @ 1.095 S.G.
-Fermaid K And DAP (Staggered Addition)
-Lalvin D-47 Yeast
-Primary ~1 Month
-Age On Medium Toast French Oak Chips

How does this plan sound? I'm planning on doing primary for a month or so to try and coax out some of the spicy and tropical notes that D-47 is known to give. Then, my hope is that Medium French Oak will add some vanilla and spice characteristics as well as some depth and tannin complexity. Let me know what you think guys!

I'll be adding pictures along the whole way, so expect the first set to come as soon as I get my liquid gold!

Thanks for reading!

 

[bernardsmith]

Lots of folk seem to have questions about D47 with honey... what about 71B? and your idea of aging on oak is a good one but I would be cautious about the length of time you age on the oak. You might find that simply allowing the mead to age a week or two on oak is more than long enough...
By my calculations, 15.5 # of honey in 6 gallons will give you an ABV of about 13.5%. (not sure your calculation of 1.095. I got 1.103 but as a rule of thumb, I assume 1 lb of honey adds 1.040). Not quite rocket fuel, but that is something that may take a while to become drinkable.

 

[WVMJ]

You are basically following SOP for making a mead. D47 works great in meads if you can keep it cooler, 71B can be a stinker if you dont feed it enough, there are lots of choices for yeast. Going with the oak is going to put this in the excellent category. We like to put in oakmore at the start in the primary, it settles out in the primary, after it has cleared and been racked we like to put in chips, some experts feel that you get most of the flavor from chips in just 24 hours and that any increase is small increments, we like oak so we toss it in and just leave it until it needs racking again. If that wasnt enough oak staves work nice during bulk aging and are easy to remove. We sometimes make an extra gallon and extremely overoak it, and then use it as a topper for other meads or wines, be careful to label that gallon well WVMJ

 

[On-target]

Your plans look pretty good. Just make sure you keep the primary fermenting temps below 70 degrees. D 47 can make some fusels if the temp gets above 70. If you can't maintain that temp you might want to look into a different yeast. As for the oak, I like to add alittle less than most people on the forums do but leave it in for a longer time in secondary. Good luck!

 

[BRGriffith]

Thanks for the responses guys! For my SG calculation, I was using Fermcalc, which assumes honey at a specific gravity of 1.4142, but if it comes out a little higher at 13.5%, I'll be okay with that. So long as it's between 12-14% (with my target ferment temperature at around 62 degrees ambient), the D-47 should be happy.
As for oak, I think I'm going to use maybe 1/2 cup in my 5 gallon better bottle, and let it age on that for maybe 6 months. It sounds like both myself and WVMJ like oak quite a bit, so how does this dosage sound?

 

[BRGriffith]

Quick update!

I received my honey yesterday, so I went ahead and got everything started. Everything went together very smoothly, and this morning my must was bubbling along quite happily. Ambient temp is more like 65 degrees, but it's close enough.
As far as oak goes, I'm thinking 1/2 cup of med toast french chips in secondary for several months. How does this sound?

Let me know what you think!

 

[fatbloke]

Stir it at least once a day (gently/carefully) until it hits the 1/3rd sugar break.

Your pic shows it to be dangerously close to the top of the bucket, for my liking anyway........

Or you could draw off a gallon or so (in the honey jars), keep that in the fridge and when the main batch hits the third or half break, you could add it back in safely.......

S'up to you.......

 

[BRGriffith]

Finally! Yesterday was racking day, and I got a couple pictures of the progress. When I first opened the primary bucket, I was pleasantly rewarded by the sweet scent of honey. It went dry to 0.000, and I'm assuming that once it fully clears and degasses it will be a little lower. For such a young wine, well, let's just say I'm impressed. I even managed to snap a picture of it in the glass before it was gone, lol. Also, here's a picture of my mead in it's new home (a better bottle), with 1/2 cup french oak.

Thanks to everyone for their input and for reading along!

 

[On-target]

Congrats, looks like its going good. What's the next batch?

 

[Snowden]

Finally! Yesterday was racking day, and I got a couple pictures of the progress. When I first opened the primary bucket, I was pleasantly rewarded by the sweet scent of honey. It went dry to 0.000, and I'm assuming that once it fully clears and degasses it will be a little lower. For such a young wine, well, let's just say I'm impressed. I even managed to snap a picture of it in the glass before it was gone, lol. Also, here's a picture of my mead in it's new home (a better bottle), with 1/2 cup french oak.

Thanks to everyone for their input and for reading along!

Did you have to top it off once transferred to secondary to remove headspace, or had exact volume going in?


Sent from my iPod touch using Home Brew

 

[BRGriffith]

Nope, I like to have six gallons in primary, that way I never have to worry about topping up. Plus, it gives me some to taste along the way

 

[9mmruger]

Well, it's looking really good at this point. What exactly does the toasted oak chips impart to the mead? (Newby here, although I do have a batch going right now).