Dandelion mead

[Deafmeadmaker]

Back to brewing after a hiatus involving remodeling and selling my house. First up was a dandelion mead based off of a dandelion wine recipe I found.
2 gal. batch
4 lbs. of local honey from Holdman honey
1 gal. Ozarka water
Lalvin QA 23 (LHBS was out of my go-to Lav D)
6 cups of dandelions bought from LHBS

Brought the water to a simmer, Steeped the dandelion overnight using a muslin bag, removed petals the next day.
Added the 4 lb. honey
Q23 mixed with half of mashed banana/ one cup of Ozarka water as a starter. Added yeast nutrient to must.
Pitched yeast and step fed over the next two days, degassed.
SG:1.16
FG: 1.05
Pitched on 8/29/19
Bottled on 10/5/19
No sulphites used.
Tasting notes:
Carmal brown color, citrus like nose
Crisp dry taste between a lemon and orange flavor.

Now I'm going to bump this up to a 5 gallon recipe and use Lav D. for my next batch. Any suggestions on this work in progress? Picture added for showing off.

 

[bernardsmith]

Your SG and FG raise flags - Do you mean the SG was 1.160? That is a hell of a starting gravity. Most flowers (and fruit) sorta kinda blanch at SGs above 1.100. And an FG of 1.050 (SG is conventionally written to three places after the decimal point) means that your mead is tooth achingly sweet (about 1.5 lbs of honey is still unfermented and in solution per gallon. If you can tolerate that level of sweetness , more power to you... but for me I am not sure I could drink more than a shot glass of a mead that was that sweet. I can feel it stripping the enamel off my teeth from here.

 

[BudNini]

Back to brewing after a hiatus involving remodeling and selling my house. First up was a dandelion mead based off of a dandelion wine recipe I found.
2 gal. batch
4 lbs. of local honey from Holdman honey
1 gal. Ozarka water
Lalvin QA 23 (LHBS was out of my go-to Lav D)
6 cups of dandelions bought from LHBS

Brought the water to a simmer, Steeped the dandelion overnight using a muslin bag, removed petals the next day.
Added the 4 lb. honey
Q23 mixed with half of mashed banana/ one cup of Ozarka water as a starter. Added yeast nutrient to must.
Pitched yeast and step fed over the next two days, degassed.
SG:1.16
FG: 1.05
Pitched on 8/29/19
Bottled on 10/5/19
No sulphites used.
Tasting notes:
Carmal brown color, citrus like nose
Crisp dry taste between a lemon and orange flavor.

Now I'm going to bump this up to a 5 gallon recipe and use Lav D. for my next batch. Any suggestions on this work in progress? Picture added for showing off.View attachment 682408

what does LHBS stand for ?

 

[Deafmeadmaker]

what does LHBS stand for ?

Local Home Brew Store

 

[Yooper]

Your SG and FG raise flags - Do you mean the SG was 1.160? That is a hell of a starting gravity. Most flowers (and fruit) sorta kinda blanch at SGs above 1.100. And an FG of 1.050 (SG is conventionally written to three places after the decimal point) means that your mead is tooth achingly sweet (about 1.5 lbs of honey is still unfermented and in solution per gallon. If you can tolerate that level of sweetness , more power to you... but for me I am not sure I could drink more than a shot glass of a mead that was that sweet. I can feel it stripping the enamel off my teeth from here.

My guess is the OG is 1.116 or so, and the FG 1.005 from the recipe, but it's hard to say.

It's a pretty caramel brown, but my dandelion wines and meads are very light yellow. Did you use a dark honey? What kind of honey if I can ask?

I love dandelion mead and wine- I tell people it tastes like liquid sunshine- it's the only way I can describe it to people who have never had it.

 

[Deafmeadmaker]

I'm the first to admit my eyes are going. It's gotten to the point where I have a second person look at the reading. I take pictures some times. All I can tell you is that in my experience 3 lbs. of honey per gallon will produce a dry mead, That's why I bump it up to 3.5 to 4 lbs. and it isn't overly sweet
I use Holdman honey. They're a local apiary out in Seguin, Tx. About 1/2 an hour from my place. The honey tends to be dark. They have a web page and a Facebook page as well. In fact I just ordered some today.
http://www.holdmanhoney.com/

 

[Deafmeadmaker]

I considered naming the batch in honor of Ray Bradburry. Perhaps this time around I will.

 

[BudNini]

Local Home Brew Store

”duh” lol

 

[bernardsmith]

All I can tell you is that in my experience 3 lbs. of honey per gallon will produce a dry mead, That's why I bump it up to 3.5 to 4 lbs. and it isn't overly sweet

So , here's the secret: You use the amount of honey you need to reach the target ABV you are looking for. And that might be 1 lb of honey in a gallon of water or it might be 4 lbs of honey in a gallon. And you then select a yeast that will ferment every last molecule of sugar in solution. So your mead is brut dry.

In other words, when you ferment you are really ALWAYS wanting to make the mead you make bone dry. It's when you are ready to bottle that you now work on making that dry mead as sweet as you want it and you do that by stabilizing the mead to prevent any remaining yeast from reproducing and /or refermenting and then you add whatever honey or sugar you want to sweeten the mead to your taste.

That means that YOU and not the yeast are in control of your mead. The yeast are in control of the fermentation but the fermentation is not your mead. However sweet you like your wine or your mead you can still make it 5% ABV, 10% ABV, or even 17% ABV and any ABV in between.