Apple Pucker mead

[Arpolis]

Hello All

I have empty carboys and I am going stir crazy here. Work is giving a christmas bonus and now that my holiday shopping is over I want to start a couple more brew batches.

What do you think about the following recipe. I think I will get it going today:

5 Gallon Apple Pucker mead

Primary
10 lb of granny smith green apples cored & cut into 18 pieces
8 - 10# of honey or enough to reach a gravity of 1.064 - 1.066
Pectic enzyme
Yeast nutrients
Step feed yeast energizer
Yeast Lalvin 71B

Secondary
Camden tablets crushed
Potassium sorbate
5 lb of granny smith green apples cored & cut into 18 pieces
16oz lime juice
Let sit for several days then back sweeten to 1.01

I am looking for a 9% ABV drink that is puckering but still refreshing like green apples.

My only question is that I want to make sure and be as close to 9% ABV as possible. There will be sugar in the apples that will not be dissolved into the must when I take my OG readings. So the actual sugar content will be higher than what the gravity reading shows. I would put all the apples in secondary to make it easier but I wanted to use the 71B yeast because it metabolizes Malic acid. And Apples have a fair amount of malic acid so using most of the apples in primary should remove a large portion of the malic acid making a much more refreshingly tart flavor rather than a harsh tart in the end.

I have my idea on how I would handle it but I would like to know how any of you would or if you really even care to be that specific haha?

 

[Arpolis]

OK well I have this put together and have the pectic enzyme doing it's thing right now with the apples. I looked up several different sources and tried to figure up the sugar percentage by weight of my green apples. If all the sugar from the 9.282 lb of cored apples I had was dissolved into the must it would contribute 0.008 gravity points to 5 gallons of liquid. My goal gravity reading is 1.064 - 1.066 to hit right at about 9% ABV. Judging the honey was a little tricky because there was still solid space and not all liquid to disolve the honey into.

I actually put all the apples in the Water first with pectic enzyme and spent about a half hour off and on shaking the must. I also added yeast nutrients at that time. Good god I got a work out. I need shower now lol. I then added honey bit by bit and got a gravity of 1.060 at about 7 lb of honey. I think the trapped sugars from the apples will make up the rest.

So the must is still waiting right now and I have a little starter going in a mason jar right now. It contains about 50% must and 50% filtered tap water with 1/4 tsp yeast energizer. I will pitch that within the hour. Looking at the mason jar there is already signs of fermentation so I think this will go well.

 

[yeasties]

I am thinking about doing this same mead. how did it turn out?

 

[Arpolis]

Ohhhhh so awful. I don't know what happened exactly but it got a bad infection and just had a bad rancid sour about it. So I never duplicated the recipe. It started out nice and it was after the first racking is when it went bad. I did leave some good headspace because I had no saved must or similar wine to top it up. That plus some infection must have been the downfall. This was the batch that made me always oversize my batch for the carboy and refrigerate extra must till I no longer needed to top up.

I will say that since this experiment I have done other recipes with apple juices/cider and I am convinced now that Malic acid is important to good apple wine. So 71b I do not think is a good yeast. It just does not taste apple like after 71b has done its business. If I had to do this again I am thinking lalvin k1v-1116 yeast or Red Star Cote de blanc. And make sure to be able and top up with better sanitization practices.

 

[yeasties]

Ok. Maybe a one gallon batch to play around with is a good idea for me lol. I'm having so much fun with this so it'll be fun to experiment. And I have a gallon of palmetto hiney I have no idea what to do with. So I have to find a recipe for that also


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