Busy Mead day for me:
1. Bottled a1G Acerglyn started back in March.
2. Started a 1 G Peach Melomel
3. Went to my LHBS and bought a 1 gallon Cabernet kit, which I will eventually use to make a 2G Pyment.
Them gosh-darn, good for nothing tick bearing Varmints. (I've picked 3 embedded deer ticks off myself in the past 2 days, plus two crawlers). Just saw a notice in the paper- They are going to start a Lyme vaccine trial in Maine the next couple months. Sign Me Up!
I do a 1 gallon peach mead from time-to-time, and found it takes about 8 lb of fresh peaches in the one gallon to make the peach flavor come out. I do peel them, freeze, thaw and smush then refreeze, and add them at the beginning.
I pressed 2 batches of cider last year. Both included about 150 lbs of various apples and about 30 lbs of pears. Pears have some sorbitol (or is it xylitol?) which adds a little sweetness to the finished product. I let the buckets sit in my garage for a couple weeks to ripen and 'sweat', then...
Here's another thought. If you live in an area where it gets below freezing, then freeze it, collect the drippings and voila you have made applejack. I just did that yesterday with a 3 gallon batch of cider that I fermented out to 16% (added fajc to the fresh cider to up the OG). Collected 1...