Recent content by Blackbyrd2

Well, the quickmede wasn't really much more than honeyflavored water to start with. (9 parts water to one part honey- pretty thin stuff.) So I'm not going to mourn the 3 or 4 bottles I poured out. And really, I'm not all about the quick ferment. The last couple batches I've been over a year...

Shoot. I had some quickmede left over from a batch I put together several years ago. I knew it was bad and was going to toss it. (I'd tasted some last year, and apart from being barely alcoholic it tasted terrible. Not vinegar-y, just..old and blah. I hesitate to use the term musty because I...

My understanding is that campden tablets are great for stabilizing your mead/melomel/whatever after it's cooked, making it safer to bottle. Along with killing the yeast, it sterilizes it to prevent oxidation, apparently. Since my meads and melomels never actually seem to completely finish...

Yes. It's been a fairly successful recipe for me so far. I did apple with it recently, which took months to finish cooking. When it quit bubbling entirely, I added a couple gallons of water, mixed it all up and let it cook another couple months. That batch turned out a little sweet, even after...

I haven't diluted this down yet, and yesterday we pulled a quart off for sampling with friends. I neglected to get a reading before we started, and we drank the sample all up. The carboy has been bubbling along very slowly for the last few months. So slowly that I thought it was all done months...

My first batch was a quickmede from a traditional period recipe. It called for 1 part honey to 9 parts water, oranges and tea, and while it was ok shortly after brewing and fermenting (which was a short span, natch) it's a pretty weak and flavorless product. Period quickmead is little more than...

In the same vein, I have a batch of pomengranate mead I'm about to pitch, but the specific gravity seems way too high. Current reading is 1.175+ (The hydrometer is actually riding right on the edge of the bulge where the float bellies out, which is above any reading.) I've got 1 gallon of...

I was up in Anchorage, AK, USA a month or so ago, and had the occasion to try a bottle of "English Meade" with a yellow label, and some medieval style lettering. It was pretty good for commercial mead. There is also now a meadery on the Kenai peninsula, near Homer, I think, called Fire Valley or...

I started out boiling, and skimming the scum off. My mead was usually fairly dry. Now I merely raise the entire mix to 180 degrees for a few minutes (5-15 minutes) to ensure safety (I use bottled water, because tap water here is hideous) and then cool the pot down to under 100 to start the...

When you say you added '1 oz (7spoonfuls)' of Earl Gray, did you mean you brewed some earl gray, and added approx 7 teaspoonfuls of brewed beverage, or did you add approx 7 spoonfuls of actual, dry tea? I realize this may seem a silly question, especially in light of the fact that your SG...

I'll be interested to hear how this turns out. I made a pom melomel a while back. I took it, freshly bottled, to an event at the beginning of May. It was done cooking, but was very sweet-almost like a sherry. The pom was only slightly tart. Just present enough to let you know it was there. The...

They haven't aged much at all. They only just finished cooking recently. I racked em to let them clear, and eliminate some of the sediment on the bottom, but I could probably ave just bottled them at the time. I used some champagne yeast, and expected them to be fairly dry, and highly...

I can now report the following; Pomegranate melomel is sweet, slightly tart, almost syrupy. Tastes like a liqueur, in sweetness, consistency and in alcohol content. This would be great after a meal for sipping in teensy sherry glasses, but mass consumption I think would give you the mother of...

I've bottled the pomegranate, and the Black Cherry refuses to clarify, or filter, so it's going to be bottled cloudy. Tasty though. The 'normal' apple melomel is looking loverly, and is done, I think. Bottling it in a week or so. The 'split level' apple is still cooking. Remember, this was...

Bananaphone! I'm with Caplan. If you're happy with the taste, just rack em off, let em settle out, and bottle em.