First Time Mead Maker

[merhlyn]

Hello everyone,

My name is Michael and I will be attempting to make my first mead tomorrow. I am planning on just water, honey and yeast as a way of getting my feet wet.

I got the bright idea that maybe adding a bit of vanilla might be called for. I am always using vanilla and sort of a addict for it.

I would like to ask, How would I add a hint of vanilla to a basic mead recipe?

I am doing a 3 gallon batch with the following
1 gallon honey sourced from my neighbor
Champagne yeast
Bottled water to take me to 3 gallons total

Thanks in advance.

 

[Shooter]

I would rack to a bottling bucket after it has aged and prior to bottling and then add the vanilla to taste.

 

[fatbloke]

Hello everyone,

My name is Michael and I will be attempting to make my first mead tomorrow. I am planning on just water, honey and yeast as a way of getting my feet wet.

I got the bright idea that maybe adding a bit of vanilla might be called for. I am always using vanilla and sort of a addict for it.

I would like to ask, How would I add a hint of vanilla to a basic mead recipe?

I am doing a 3 gallon batch with the following
1 gallon honey sourced from my neighbor
Champagne yeast
Bottled water to take me to 3 gallons total

Thanks in advance.

That's a good way to stress and disillusionment.....

Water honey and yeast is a show mead, and makes for a long, tortuous ferment.

If you check out traditional mead recipes, your learning curve will likely be less aggravation.

As for adding vanilla? It extracts best in alcohol so if you made a traditional batch to the strength you desire, then stabilise and back sweeten to a level you enjoy, then just split a vanilla pod along its length and chuck it in while its aging, then just have a tiny taste every couple of weeks then when its to your personal taste you can remove the vanilla pod......

 

[merhlyn]

I have kens charms book, but could you also point out where I could see example of traditional meads. Any suggestions to make the first time enjoyable as well as learning would be appreciated.

Michael

 

[drawdy10]

This is a great video and I followed their recommendations with great success on my first batch. I think the only thing you are missing on your recipe is the nutrients which they talk about in the video Episode 21 of BrewingTV:
http://brewingtv.com/episodes/2010/10/8/brewing-tv-episode-21-making-mead-with-curt-stock.html

Cheers

 

[Shooter]

Yeah, Schramm's book is good, but even he admits his processed has changed somewhat. He now uses a staggered addition of nutrients over the first few days to speed up the process. I believe Curt Stock uses a staggered addition in that Brewing TV episode as well.

 

[merhlyn]

Could decide on a single recipe. So I decided to make two of them. I made a 3 gallon Apple Mead and 1 gallon Blueberry Mead.

Wish me luck

 

[fatbloke]

Well the fruit additions should help greatly - both get some nutrient from the fruit.

Equally, it's worth thinking on what it is, flavour-wise, that you want from your brews. Think about the difference between an unfermented grape juice and a wine (type irrelevant). It's the difference. ....

Do you want a fermented fruit with honey notes or something that retains more of the original fruit flavour ?

I'm alluding to this because some put all the fruit in primary, some do secondary and some, like me, try to do both.

I generally take a fruit wine recipe for guidance, then either put 1/3rd fruit in primary and 2/3rd in secondary (after ferment completion and stabilising).

Also, I notice you've used some gallon sized glass jugs. There's nothing basically wrong in that, just that as you learn about this game, you'll find that fruit batches can be more volatile from a foaming POV. So that if you do get an eruption, the shape of the fermenter is a ready made jet to aim the eruption upward (ceiling paint doesn't come clean and often needs re-coating).

Hence fruit batches are safer started in buckets (even the JAO recipe suggests plenty of expansion room until its calmed down - after a week or two, before carefully topping it up to the bottom of the neck). That way i.e. buckets, you can manage the liquid quantity better so that once you're clearing and/or aging, you have a full gallon and no air space to worry about oxidation longer term......

 

[merhlyn]

Thanks for the advice,

 

[thgirwa]

gotmead.com is a great reference for mead recipes (you have to pay to get all of them but you can still see some if not a member), and Charlie P's book Complete Joy of Homebrewing has an appendix on mead as well. Good luck!