Freeze Concentrating (Fortifying) Mead

[Lookin4space]

Okay Guys, I'm a bit of an experimenter when it comes to mead. I've made good batches and BAD batches, but this is a little new for me:

I started a batch of mead in December flavored with Korean barley tea, hops, lemon, molasses, and a few other things. The idea was to make a strong honey ale of sorts. Well, six months and a few rackings later, I've decided to rack it into a bottling bucket and put it in the freezer this morning. I'll check on it tonight and start skimming off ice crystals as they form until it stops producing them. Then I think I might tke it out and age it for a few months with oak chips, then a little longer to create a fortified mead (honey jack).

Any thoughts?

 

[Midnight]

Of sounds awful! I'd suggest bottling it all up and send it to me...I'll disposition of it for you. lol

 

[kennywd]

Okay Guys, I'm a bit of an experimenter when it comes to mead. I've made good batches and BAD batches, but this is a little new for me:

I started a batch of mead in December flavored with Korean barley tea, hops, lemon, molasses, and a few other things. The idea was to make a strong honey ale of sorts. Well, six months and a few rackings later, I've decided to rack it into a bottling bucket and put it in the freezer this morning. I'll check on it tonight and start skimming off ice crystals as they form until it stops producing them. Then I think I might tke it out and age it for a few months with oak chips, then a little longer to create a fortified mead (honey jack).

Any thoughts?

Very interesting, I would lie to hear how this turns out... I like to experiment as well, always wanted to use the freeze method... What abv percentage are you looking for? I believe you can only get so much With the freeze method, but than again I have never done it..

 

[Gothnet]

I've done this.

I had a spiced mead with an OG of 1.129 at a volume of 18 litres. It was flavoured with oranges, ginger, vanilla, coriander and a couple of other things. I left it to ferment for six months before adding another ~400g of honey to try to carbonate. Unfortunately the yeast had obviously given up somewhere before finishing the job and it's still very sweet and n ever fizzed up.

BUT - at bottling I used 650ml bottles, so I took aside five times this much for a couple of experiments. By the freezing and scooping method I made a double and a triple honeyjack to get two and three volumes of mead (respectively) down to about one.

Both came out really delicious, but particularly the triple. It's smooth, delicious and full of flavour. Somewhere along the line it also seemed to lose some of the 'kick' that the unconcentrated mead had when it was young.

Well worth a try if it's legal in your area... and you have mead to spare. In fact it's so much nicer than the base mead that I'm thinking of cracking another three bottles and giving it another go.

 

[Gothnet]

Oh, and just as an assurance that it was actually good, my friends didn't say "erm, yes, quite nice" like they do with the dodgy batches, they drank it. All of it!

 

[Lookin4space]

Well, I tried it. I took 5 gallons of mead and concentrated it down to 1. This batch had a pretty high alcohol content before I started (used the old fashioned method to test ABV), now it's considerably higher.
Kind of rich and sweet now; reminds me of a port. Much darker too. I took the batch out of the bottling bucket and into a 1 gallon jug with an airlock after warming it up to room temperature. It took all day! Water gets to 32 degrees, freezes, and doesn't get much colder, but other things just keep getting colder, including alcohol. I'm putting it into my cellar for a while then I'll try it again.

Note: I plan to do this again with an elderberry melomel I plan to make when they ripen in late July-early August. I made a 1 gallon batch last year and it was incredible even young (and quickly consumed). HOWEVER, I think I would be better off doing this around December to February when we often get daytime highs below freezing so that I can do this outside, the way they probably did it in the olden days. I think if you want the strongest brew possible, white meads are probably the best. freeze-concentrating concentrates whatever is tinting your brew as well, so a dark mead will become even darker and might require further clarifying.

BTW: This is freeze-concentrating, not distilling... not illegal. HOWEVER, I live in the Ozarks (backwoods), and there's plenty of moonshiners around here that brew for family, friends, and even for a "small donation." The local po-po is much more interested in pot and meth and leaves them alone. The law is a little arbitrary around here, and that's the way we like it.

 

[Lookin4space]

Friends finally tried the stuff- All of them liked it and said it reminds them of port (though it is dark brown)

 

[Penguinetti]

I've never heard of this before. Do you mind going a little more in-depth as to what this does?

 

[kennywd]

I've never heard of this before. Do you mind going a little more in-depth as to what this does?

I believe their is a forum some where on here here that goes into depth on it.

In a nut shell u freeze the beer and the alcohol won't freeze, u just scoop out beer.. Bam what's let is a higher avb.

 

[Penguinetti]

cool. I'll have to try this.

 

[roadymi]

here https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/freeze-concentration-experiment-324124/ is how i did my applejack.

 

[Newsman]

Reviving an old thread here... I bought a bottle of Honey Liquer the other day... VERY thick and VERY alcoholic. I think it was probably either distilled mead or freeze concentrated mead. I would NOT want to suggest anyone violate the law by distilling at home. I will say the stuff made an absolutely fantastic adjunct to a glass of cider. Gave it a real kick!

 

[bernardsmith]

How sweet was it? I wonder if this liqueur is made by using alcohol to extract the flavor from the honey - thus rendering the liqueur "thick" (because the honey is not diluted enough for it to be fermented, and sweet (because the sweetness of the honey was not removed through fermentation). My bet is that you could replicate this without any distillation simply by diluting a pound or two of honey in a pint or so of water and adding this to a fifth of vodka; agitate the container every day and after a month you will have honey liqueur. In any event, you have given me something to try. Thanks

 

[Newsman]

Well, it was slightly less thick than pancake syrup, but still somewhat syrupy. Kinda like sugar-free pancake syrup. Thicker than water, but thinner than maple syrup.

 

[Newsman]

Also, it was sweet, but not syrupy sweet.

 

[thm57]

Probably not distilled mead. I have a local distillery that does vodka, gin, and liqueurs from a honey wash, and their stuff is just like normal, but has some honey flavour on the finish. I bet that it was made more like what Bernard was talking about.

 

[bernardsmith]

I was thinking that this may be a US version of the old Scottish liqueur Drambuie - which is made with whisky but I believe the recipe is secret and I don't know if Drambuie distills the honey or simply extracts the flavors and sweetness from the honey using the alcohol from the whisky. It includes unnamed herbs and spices which may be heather, nutmeg and anise with some lemon peel. But it should be a relatively easy liqueur to make - perfectly legally - by simply adding some honey to some whisky (or vodka) with the addition of herbs and spices and allowing the solution to age a month or so... The honey will make the viscosity of the alcohol much greater, much sweeter and the herbs and spices will make the flavor far more complex.
Not sure that I would necessarily use an expensive single malt but you might want the added flavors provided by a good malt although a Talisker or Laphroig might hit the mark