First Mead(s): 2 melomels and a metheglin

[Indie]

I’m still new to brewing (only three beers in the bottle), and once my primary cleared last week I decided to try something new (though at this point I suppose it’s all still new): hard cider. Now that it’s bubbling away nicely I was trying to figure out what to do with all these one gallon jugs, and decided to make three 1-gallon mead tests.

These are my first meads, so feedback and suggestions are definitely welcome and appreciated!

Note: I live in LA and the tap water is pretty harsh (chlorine, fluoride, rocket fuel, etc) so before hand I gave 4 gallons of water a good boil to help burn off and mitigate as much nastiness as possible. When I mention adding water it came from this stock.

I made a small solution of yeast nutrient (for a typical 5 gal batch) then split in among three small bowls, and pitched yeast in to these while I was brewing (musting? meadering?). It sat in the solution (covered) for about an hr or so. When the must had cooled I pitched yeast and nutrient together.

Left to right: Berry Melomel, Banana Melomel, Spice Metheglin.

Berry Melomel:
2 lbs wildflower honey
1 lb orange blossom honey
2 lbs strawberries (frozen)
2 lbs blueberries (frozen)
1 vanilla bean
Lalvin D-47

Still frozen, I pureed the berries together, then put them in a pot with 4 cups water and brought up to just below simmering. Added the honey and vanilla bean, let sit on low heat stirring occasionally to make sure the solution blended. This made about 1 gallon of must without additional water.

Banana Melomel:
2 lbs wildflower honey
1 lb orange blossom honey
2.5 lbs banana (4.2 lbs w/ peel)
1 vanilla bean
Red Star Montrachet

I peeled and diced up the bananas and put them in a medium grain bag to contain all the mush. Added 8 cups water, boiled for approximately 30 min, then took the heat to low. I added the honey, then elevated the mush bag and allowed it to drain back in to the pot (I gave it a few good compressions to aid in the process). Stirred this occasionally to dissolve honey into solution. Made just over ½ gallon must.

Spice Metheglin:
2 lbs wildflower honey
1 lb orange blossom honey
2 bags earl grey tea
2 vanilla beans
2 cinnamon sticks
4 whole cloves
Lalvin K1v1116

I brought 4 cups water to a boil, then removed heat and steeped tea bags and all spices for approximately 30 minutes. After I added back low heat and added honey to dissolve in to solution.


I cooled all musts in a water bath to between 70-80 degrees, shaking intermittently (and vigorously). I topped off with water and my OG readings were:

Berry – 1.126, Banana – 1.106, Spice – 1.088. I have a feeling the pulp of the berry skewed that result. Next time I’ll strain a sample and get a straight liquid reading minus pulp.

I finished these about 1a last night (this morning?), now 10:30p tonight fermentation is moving along nicely. I was kind of afraid of this, but got home from work to see that the berry pulp had filled the airlock and blown off (somewhat spectacularly on the closet wall). Lost half the vanilla bean. Not sure how long the air lock was off, but i sanitized it again and replaced. Before replacing the airlock i sterilized a long handled spoon and gave it a couple stirs to break up the crust on top before it could harden at all. We'll see what happens.

I’ll let it sit in the primary for approximately two weeks - 1 mo, then rack on a monthly basis as it clears. For the metheglin I may give it a week conditioning on some oak cubes further down the line.

Cheers!

 

[mccann51]

These are three solid looking recipes, and they sound delicious.

Two big things:
1. do you plan to add nutrient? If you're not aware, since honey is effectively just sugar, you need to add some yeast assimilable nitrogen (YAN) for the yeast to have a healthy ferment. The malt in beer has a lot of YAN, which is why you may not have heard of adding nutrient before. Yeast nutrient (often just diammonium phosphate [DAP]) can be bought at probably every brewstore. You should get it sooner rather than later, because: A) Montrachet is a yeast that is quick to give off sulfur if it doesn't get it's N (though the other two will do the same if they're completely N starved), and B) DAP is an inorganic form of N, and yeast can only uptake inorganic forms early in the ferment; later on, the alcohol inhibits inorganic N assimilation. Also, whatever the package of yeast nutrient says to add, double it, because those recommendations are for grape wine ferments, and grapes have more N and other nutrients than honey (yes, your melomels probably have some N already, but I suggest doubling the nutrient to be safe). Anything labeled yeast energizer will probably do the trick too if there isn't yeast nutrient on the shelf.
2. what temps are you fermenting at? D47 is not very heat tolerant and will throw off a lot of fusels and other crap if you're fermenting above 70F I think.

Oh, and I personally consider mead to be brewing, haha. Cheers!

EDIT: for the first half a week (or to be more specific, until the gravity has dropped by 1/3, also know as the 1/3 sugar break), aerate at least once every day, twice if you can. The O2 helps the yeast get their population up so they can have a stronger ferment. This will also help keep the berry cap down (I hate when those blow!).

 

[Indie]

Thanks for the info!

Currently they're fermenting at about 72°, all three in a large tub filled with water to above the must line. As I'm home and able I'm adding some ice to try to bring it down a little.

I added a Wyeast nutrient I had on hand. The bottle doesn't seem to indicate one way or the other what exactly the nutrient contained. Are all yeast nutrients created equal, or should I be looking for something specifically nitrogen rich?

Roughly 36 hrs in now, fermentation seems to be going strong on all three - about 2 bubbles/sec on all. Regarding the 1/3 sugar break, how exactly can that be calculated? I couldn't really find any definitive answers. My thought would be: (OG - Estimated FG)/ 3, to divide the fermentation in to thirds and from there it's easy. My dilemma is finding a formula to really helps me estimate FG. Thoughts?

Thanks again!

 

[mccann51]

Okay, for determining the 1/3 sugar break, you need to determine the FG, as you said. I use this calculator. So for the berry melomel at 1.126, and w D47 having an ABV tolerance of 14% (I think), then your FG should be ~ 1.015; so at ~ 1.090, you should be about one third of the way done from 1.126-1.015. The other two meads will ferment to dry (1.000), so just figure the 1/3 of the OG to 1.000.

For the nutrient: no, all nutrients are not created equal, but since no companies except Lalvin (aka Lallemand) give specifics of their nutrient contents, we have to wing it. Wyeast makes good products, so I'd assume that their nutrient is more-or-less quality. Like I said, double the recommended addition and you should be good.

 

[Insomniac]

Looks good! A heads up on the banana. It will take forever to age, I started mine on... (looks).. almost exactly 5 months ago, check it out here I got a lot of interesting responces from others who had tried.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/banana-melomel-239836/

I drank the rest of my "sample" (what didnt fit in bottles and has been sat in the fridge under vacuum) just the other day. I had been tasting it every so often and it has just got some of its banana flavour back so I will be waiting a little while more before opening the first bottle.

I would advise you do the same and keep the banana batch till last, maybe even get another round of meads going, complete and drunk befre cracking it open.

 

[mccann51]

That good advice for any mead: the longer you can hold off drinking it (ie the longer you age), the better it's gonna be. I wish I had more willpower sometimes, because there's some meads drank months ago that would be really coming into their own about now.

 

[Indie]

Thanks all for the info. I took gravity readings the other night, after 3 or 4 days fermenting, and got the following: Berry - 1.080, Banana - 1.080, Spice - 1.086 (from OG readings of 1.126, 1.106, and 1.088 respectively).

Since the fermentations have been consistently strong since they started, I figured the berry and banana where right about where they should be. What surprised me though was how the spice had only moved 2 points. I treated these readings as my 1/3 break and pitched more nutrient in to the berry and banana. Since the spice seems to be moving significantly slower, I started thinking this might be due to a lack of nutrients and pitched more nutrient there as well.

I'm surprised at how much activity there was in the airlock for how little progress has been made.

Today (Sunday) marks the 6th day since making the must, and fermentation hasn't showed any signs of slowing on all three. The water bath they're in has held fairly consistent at 68°-70°, with me adding ice once or twice a day to keep it down. I'm leaving the berry and banana alone now, but still aerating the spice until it reaches it's 1/3 break.

Insomniac - thanks for the link to your post. Inspired, I think I'll try to add updates like that.

Cheers!

 

[mccann51]

Hmm, I'd wonder about that metheglin. Did you knock the bubbles off the hydrometer when you took the reading? CO2 bubbles can artificially raise the SG reading. Even w no nutrients, K1V is a very strong fermenter, and after 3 days, the gravity should be a lot lower. I'd measure it again, and if it's the same, you may have a stuck fermentation (though I'm guessing it's a sampling error).

 

[Indie]

I'm 9 days in now and fermentation is starting to slow a little. Pitching more nutrient in the metheglin at the same time as the 3rd break seems to have done the trick. Gravity readings now are: Berry - 1.042 (11.24% abv), Banana - 1.040 (8.98% abv), Spice 1.048 (5.58% abv).

The metheglin still has a ways to go to close to attenuation, but at the rate the berry and banana have been going I'm guessing they'll peter out in the next week or so.

I tasted samples I took for gravity, and they're good! All are still overly sweet, but I know they have a ways to go on fermentation. The berry has the harshest taste, what I imagine are the fusel alcohols I hear so much about. The banana is mild and I can't taste any of the vanilla notes. The metheglin might be my favorite, though it's definitely dominated by cloves. As it ages I may try to add back in a little vanilla to it.

I'm still planning on aging the metheglin with some oak cubes, so this in and of it self may give me back the vanilla I want.

 

[mccann51]

Glad to hear they're moving along okay!