Cinnamon Metheglin

[jjwelchNola]

Chronicling my latest mead exploit and seeing if anyone has tips to make this better. Only my second mead so still learning. Added 15 lbs of honey to 5 gallons of water. Took a specific gravity after adding nutrients and yeast and discovered it was only 1.080, which I thought was odd but wrote it off due to mixing issues. Added nutrients again at 24 hours and at 1/3 sugar break. Realized one month in I made a mistake and had undersweetened my mead, and to get my yeast to the higher end of it's alcohol tolerance I needed to have 15 pounds of honey added to water until it reached 5 gallons, so decided to add some more honey when I moved to my secondary. It was also at this time that I added 3 cinnamon sticks.

Approximately 2 months after first pitch took an SG at 1.000 and moved to secondary with 4 pounds more honey. SG bumped to 1.022, which I believe will allow me to kill most of the yeast off through alcohol poisoning.

Separated into several 1-gallon containers and added vanilla to a few. Gonna check it again this weekend to check the strength of the cinnamon and vanilla flavors and remove them if necessary. Also gonna add some fruits to a few (peach, apple, maybe pear) to get a pie-type flavor going.

If anyone has any suggestions for what else I can add to this base to get some good/interesting flavors, or what has or hasn't worked for them, please let me know.