Recent content by Gamrchick

How about the "BEER IS GOOD" song from Psychostick.... <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/O-jOEAufDQ4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> I'm with snccoulter and revvy. You are who you are. Don't rearrange your life for someone who is going to...

I absolutely LOVED this movie. It doesn't matter what happened. What matters is what looks like what happened and what looks like what happened...is purdy nasty! - Tucker

Thanks! Count me in

I have to agree on the sweetness. I prefer dry meads, in fact none of my meads have a FG over 1.008 except this one. I let this ferment until done (FG 1.000) then backsweeten to 1.012 - 1.014. Less is more when backsweetening. Add a little honey water at a time, take your gravity reading and...

I make a Chocolate Cherry mead that I get raves on, but my recipe is for a 5 gallon batch. There are quite a few people who make chocolate meads around here, so I'll let someone else post a tried and true one gallon recipe. I just wanted to warn you that chocolate meads take a long time to...

Here are some of my meads from the 2010 batches. There are a couple more pics in my gallery from 2011, but the majority are still in carboys.

You need to make sure that whatever you use does not have preservatives in it. It will stop, or at least hurt your fermentation. I have been using fruit, but will be experimenting next year with concentrates. When using fresh fruit: freeze the fruit then thaw it before adding to the...

Yes, Melomels mellow out a little quicker. I have two 5 gallon batches of Cranberry that are only a little over a month old and one is already drinkable. I'll probably start tapping into them in the spring, but we put several bottles away for at least 2 years from the start date so we have the...

You could get her a book to go with, Ball Complete Book of Home Preservation This is a great book - tons of recipes, plus a pressure cooker section for when your SWMBO wants to take it to the next level. :D

That's so funny. We checked this guy out just the other day. Our meadery is almost at capacity (until we build more shelves :D ) so we passed. Congrats on the great buy! We figured the carboys alone were worth the price. I'm assuming you've tasted the meads and are not happy with the...

I used to use a long handled spoon and now use a carboy mixer that attaches to a drill. You just do your best to not mix vigorously enough to cause a vortex or a lot of splashing. There's no way to introduce *no* oxygen while degassing, but you just try to not add a lot.

We haven't tested, but we ruined a pretty expensive batch of berry mead to oxidation. It's still drinkable (I use that term loosely) but has a "cardboard" taste to it. Also, instead of the beautiful purple color it started with, it is now tinged brown. Let me know the results of your test...

First, be careful about juices. They can have preservatives which you won't want. Second, strawberries have a lot of sugar. Make sure you have a lot of head space in the carboy or use a blow off tube. My experience was 5 gallons of mead in a 6 1/2 gallon carboy with a blow off tube and we...

This is what we do. We're planning on switching to a full 5 gallon batch, letting it completely finish fermenting then kegging it. This way we won't have to worry about starting fermentation up again in the meads we top up.