Any suggestions for a newb..?

[ssirseth67]

I have one 3 gal. carboy with a straight forward orange blossom honey mead that's been chugging away for about 4 weeks now. I also have a 3 gal. carboy with the recipe I saw here for an Apfelwein. (literally just finished putting it together)

I have 12lbs. of Orange Blossom Honey and 12 lbs. of Black Sage Honey and am trying to figure out what to do with them.

Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated..!!

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Peanut butter and crackers.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

You could give it all to me! In all seriousness though, what do you most enjoy drinking? Thats a good place to start...

 

[ssirseth67]

Peanut butter and crackers is very tempting.!

I've never used fruit in a mead before so I'm terrified of ruining the honey.!
But I've had some flavored with cherry, apple and pear that were amazing.
I also thought about just doing another straight honey and water but then throwing in some oak chips for flavoring.

Hmmmm...I think I will crack open a home brew, this will certainly help the decision process...

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Whatever you decide to do please let us know... that much good honey has unlimited potential.

 

[ssirseth67]

I decided to use the Black Sage honey for now.

3 gallon batch
12 lbs. black sage honey
5 grams of Red Star Montrachet
6.25 grams of GoFerm
1 tsp. Fermaid K

I mixed the Montrachet and GoFerm with 1/4 cup of warm water and set it off to the side.

I then warmed the honey and poured it into 2 gallons of warm water to dissolve. Stirred until I was comfortable that the honey wasn't just going to separate and settle to the bottom.

Transferred to a 3 gal carboy and added cold water to cool and top off.

Once cooled I pitched the yeast and aerated the must.
Pitched the Fermaid K and aerated again. Popped on the airlock and hoped for the best.

Not sure about my OG. I had someone else check it as well as I was reading 1.320. I've never dealt with anything that has this much concentrated sugar. Could that be right or do we need to take hydrometer reading 101 again..?

About 5 hours later the first signs off fermentation began to appear.! I went to bed and when I woke up this morning it is chugging away at about 3-4 seconds between bubbles in the airlock.

I picked up some Stavin - French Oak medium toast beans from my local brew shop. Once the primary fermentation is complete I plan on splitting it out into three, one gallon batches. I will use the oak beans in one and am headed of to the farmers market this morning to see what they might have for the other two..!

More to come and any and all help is greatly appreciated.
Oh yea, and I shook the hell out of it this morning to try and get more oxygen into the must. Good idea or should I leave it alone since it is chugging away..?

 

[Insomniac]

An OG of 1.32 is... well, it wouldn't ferment. Mead calculator says that 12lb of honey in 3 US gallons would be about 1.144, did you forget the extra 1 in there? 1.132 would seem more reasonable! Shaking it for the first few days is fine, you wouldn't want to do it after about halfway through the ferment though.

 

[ssirseth67]

Sorry...yes that's 1.132...DOH!

 

[ssirseth67]

So when its time to split it off into three 1 gal batches I have oak chips for one. Cranberries for another and pomegranate for batch number three.

Thoughts anyone..?
Advice..?