First Mead

[winstonofbeer]

So i am thinking about making a small batch of mead to start out with.
Went over to a friends house and she had us sample some of her mead/wine.
Was great stuff and enjoyed our time over there, but some of the recipes call for 23lbs of frozen raspberry's and a couple lbs of honey.

Its great stuff i tell ya, But wow that would be spendy if you had to buy all those raspberry's.

So anyways...I was asking a neighbor about collecting cherry's from her tree if possible this year to make some mead out of them and she was so happy she brought me over 2 quart jars of canned cherries from the tree's in her backyard.


My question here is, Can i make a mead out of 2 quarts of can cherries? She said all she did was can and put a little sugar in them.

What i am looking for a in a mead is where the fruit flavor is very noticeable and the sweetness remains.


Thanks for your help.

 

[2ndGenBrewer]

Since it sounds like you want to start with a small batch I do believe 2 quart jars should be enough for a 1 gallon batch (you want to use 3-4 lbs fruit per gallon)
I suggest you start your mead with just honey (3-3 1/2 lbs), water, yeast, and nutrients. Let it ferment till it stops (1.000 or lower with a hydrometer) and then rack onto thawed fruit. By adding the fruit to the secondary you get alot more flavor out of the cherries that would otherwise be destroyed by the fermentation process.
Then just let it sit for 1-2 weeks and rack again to allow it to clear.

Hope this gives you a starting point.

 

[malkore]

Those recipes better have more than a couple pounds of honey to 23lbs of raspberries, or its not mead Mead has to be 51% honey as the fermentables or its a fruit wine with honey added.

Cherries and sugar is cherry wine...not mead. Not even close.

but to the point: yes mead making isn't exactly cheap. Even 'cheap' honey is going to run $3-4 per pound and you're using 3+ pounds (on average) per gallon of finished mead. Its easy to spend $60 for a 5 gallon batch of mead, not including any fruits or spices you want to add.

 

[winstonofbeer]

This is a part of one of the recipes she gave me
35 lbs. frozen/defrosted raspberries
10 lbs frozen/defrosted apricots
4½ gal honey

By what i am gathering here, This is not "mead" but wine?

So this recipe, I will never do..honestly. Way to much fruit to ever come up with.
But the taste of this mead/wine was really sweet and swmbo loved it.

SWMBO never has like beer, Even fruit beer's i have done, So i am looking for a sweet drink per say. One of our other friends gave us some actual mead to try once..and she thought it was good... So thats why i was aiming torwards mead.

Fruit in this area is easy to come by, Cherries look like to be plenty if i get full swing at 2 different peoples cherry tree's. So if honey is the only major $$$ issue, I can make small batch's...I am used to dropping $30 bucks on 10gal of beer so if i spend $30 bucks and get 5 gal of mead i will be more than happy.

So if you have any great recipes or idea's for a sweet mead i would be extremely grateful.

correct me if i am wrong here tho, 3 1/2 lbs of honey, 1gal water. Bring water up to 100 degree's. Take of heat and mix slowly in the honey. After honey is mixed in completely put in plastic bucket. Wait for it to get below 80 degree's. Then add nutrients and pitch yeast.

I am used to beer yeast. Is there a "generic" yeast everyone uses? In beer its like US-05 or Nottingham.
Also, With beer i have always just dumped the dry packet in without rehydrating. Is rehydrating required in mead yeast?

Once fermentation is done...3 weeks? Rack onto secondary on top of fruit.
Let sit for anouther 3 weeks then rack again and let it set for anouther 2 weeks. Then bottle?

If i am missing anything here, Please let me know Complete noob when it comes to mead.

Thanks again for all your guys help.

 

[bob1852]

This is a part of one of the recipes she gave me
35 lbs. frozen/defrosted raspberries
10 lbs frozen/defrosted apricots
4½ gal honey

What size batch is this???????????????????

1 gallon of honey is ~12 lbs, so 4.5 gallons is ~54lbs of honey.....

That better be a recipe for at least a 15-20 gallon batch of mead....

 

[kicknbrew]

My first ever mead recipie I did in a growler with 2# local honey, water, and yeast, plus an airlock. Pitched, waited, waited, racked, waited waited, bottled, refrigerated for a month, and drank.

My friends called it Sake Mead, it was a wee strong, but really, really good.

I say try plain ol' honey first, so you can experience the beauty that is a good, simple mead. Then go wild.

 

[winstonofbeer]

What size batch is this???????????????????

1 gallon of honey is ~12 lbs, so 4.5 gallons is ~54lbs of honey.....

That better be a recipe for at least a 15-20 gallon batch of mead....

9 gal or 89 bottles is what was used
Thats why i ask...She calls it mead....But it sounds more like wine....

 

[PBruske234]

Dude thats way to much honey for even a 9 gal batch. It must taste like raspberry cough syrup. If your just starting out, want a low cost mead. Do the JAOM recipe. You can find it on this forum. Quick, easy, and as basic and low cost as your ganna get (in my opinion). She is using 6 lbs of honey per gal, I use 3.5 lbs per gal to give you an idea, and my mead finishes sweet.

And if the main fermentable is honey, than its a mead. I think thats what he was saying. This is a mead, especially with 6 lbs per gal, honey is def the main fermentable, shes just using wayyy to much.

Yeah if you want to cut cost, JAOM recipe. I'll send you pictures of my stuff if you want. We have 17 gal right now. Cheap and easy. No racking, no worries, just delicious mead

 

[1Brotherbill]

This is a part of one of the recipes she gave me
35 lbs. frozen/defrosted raspberries
10 lbs frozen/defrosted apricots
4½ gal honey

Boing! When I first read that I thought it said 4 1/2 pounds. Gallons! Holy moly.

Since your SWMBO would like a sweet drink be careful with the cherries. You might get a sour flavored cherry. Remember you only get out what you put into the batch. So if you put bad ingredients into the batch don't expect to get something good to come out the other end.

 

[winstonofbeer]

Dude thats way to much honey for even a 9 gal batch. It must taste like raspberry cough syrup. If your just starting out, want a low cost mead. Do the JAOM recipe. You can find it on this forum. Quick, easy, and as basic and low cost as your ganna get (in my opinion). She is using 6 lbs of honey per gal, I use 3.5 lbs per gal to give you an idea, and my mead finishes sweet.

And if the main fermentable is honey, than its a mead. I think thats what he was saying. This is a mead, especially with 6 lbs per gal, honey is def the main fermentable, shes just using wayyy to much.

Yeah if you want to cut cost, JAOM recipe. I'll send you pictures of my stuff if you want. We have 17 gal right now. Cheap and easy. No racking, no worries, just delicious mead

Please post a pic of that please.... Looks so simple! Even a caveman can do it

I looked at a few other recipes, And it looks like the common "carboy" per say is carlo rosi wine jugs...... Now i need to find a good wineo freind who drinks that stuff like water and i will be set....Hate go buy a jug..

 

[winstonofbeer]

Boing! When I first read that I thought it said 4 1/2 pounds. Gallons! Holy moly.

Since your SWMBO would like a sweet drink be careful with the cherries. You might get a sour flavored cherry. Remember you only get out what you put into the batch. So if you put bad ingredients into the batch don't expect to get something good to come out the other end.

Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, again noob here.
IF the mead came out tart, or even to dry, couldnt you backsweet sweetin with more honey?


Also, certain yeast i should be looking for?

 

[White_Stag]

We recently did a mead like that, using tart fresh-frozen pie-style cherries direct from the grower. For five gallons we used 10 lbs of cherries and 12 lbs of orange blossom honey, and when we racked it to secondary, we racked onto 3 lbs more of cherries, and the result is like taking a bite of a semi tart, moderately sweet cherry pie that has been turned into alcohol. We also used White Labs champagne yeast.

As for adding honey, we did that when we had one that was just too tart. We put a small amount on a spoon and dissolved into the glass- it was fun and made an unbelievable difference! When we plan to carbonate the mead we'll add 2 oz. Honey to each bottle, adding a bit of sweetness but mostly to carbonate. Hope that helps!

 

[malkore]

Yes you can backsweeten.

I only recommend Narbone 71-B yeast now. Its a stellar yeast strain for mead making.

 

[fatbloke]

Yes you can backsweeten.

I only recommend Narbone 71-B yeast now. Its a stellar yeast strain for mead making.

Well while 71B is good, I found that I got better results from K1V-1116 and D21 (better results that it is, after the mead had cleared - and I much preferred the taste after ageing as well).

As for back sweetening, yes, that's something I routinely do, but when you use honey, you should remember that if you've already got the mead cleared, honey can sometimes cause hazing to reappear.

I believe it's usually a protein thing, which can drop out over time if you carry out extended ageing. I recently had to resort to chemical finings though. A 1 gallon batch of Heather honey mead was back sweetened with the same honey and the hazing still hadn't dropped out 12 months later. So I just tried fining it with Kwikclear and it worked a treat.

It means that now, I start the racking process to remove most of the sediment, then while it's still a little cloudy (and ignoring any yeastiness in the taste) then use a hydrometer to back sweeten it to about 1.010 (after stabilising of course) and then let it clear naturally, the last of the sediment is removed once the main body of the ferment has cleared and I filter it to remove the last of any sediment picked up after the final racking.

Of course, that's just how I progress, it's up to you how you manage your ferments etc......

regards

fatbloke

 

[PBruske234]

Here is a picture of the finished product. This is JAOM recipe followed to the "T". This is what you can expect.

 

[winstonofbeer]

wow thats clear!
Looked at the "fresh" honey in the store That i work at... 11.49lb for honey!!!!

I asked my coworker...Is that a lb price? She said ya! Great deal and its great honey! Its only a couple bucks to fill up the honey bear.
I looked at her and said, When you need 3lbs...Thats spendy stuff!!!!

She was like oh...Um ya...Might want to go to costco.

 

[PBruske234]

Yeah I get 12lbs for $32.00. You should really shop around. But yes it comes out very clear. Good luck!

 

[1Brotherbill]

I looked at a few other recipes, And it looks like the common "carboy" per say is carlo rosi wine jugs...... Now i need to find a good wineo freind who drinks that stuff like water and i will be set....Hate go buy a jug..

One gallon Carboys are about 4 dollars at the HBS.

 

[winstonofbeer]

I got lucky,
Was talking to the neighbor and she had a old carlo rosi jug the was still 3/4 full.
Downside...It was 15 years old!!! Ya...Nice pile of junk of the bottom of the jug...Nothing that OXY wont take care of tho..

She also came across some old 1gal jugs that used to have cider vinegar in it. I guess her mother had them years ago and she had them filled with distilled water when water was scarce. At any rate, I have 3 jugs now Just need some honey and i will be golden. Oh and i guess a bucket w/ airlock hole. Or are you guys fermenting in the jug itself?

Thanks again for all the help and advice

 

[PBruske234]

Ferment in the jug itself. Do a search, look up the JAOM recipe, follow it to a "T". It will explain every question you have.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/joes-ancient-orange-mead-joam-45152/

This is a link to the recipe. Even though he calls it JOAM its JAOM. Got to the brew shop, pick up an airlock and stopper you should be good to go.