MxWhiskey
Member
*This is copy/paste from a different forum so I can continue the discussion here*
Starting S.G (measured by hydrometer): 1.100
Target ABV: 13%
Yeast Tolerance: 14%
Must:
This isn't Strawberry Wine.
I decided to make a melomel instead. The above is the recipe I used. I ordered raw Orange Blossom Flower Honey from Florida and my wife and I picked 6 pounds of strawberries at an awesome local U-Pick. I bagged and froze 5 of those pounds and promptly left them in my freezer for almost 2 months, as my 29 weeks pregnant wife ended up going into labor and delivering our son at 30 weeks. He has a heart defect that needs surgery and has been in the NICU since birth (and will probably be for another month at least).
All that to say this was supposed to be done by now BUT I just now started it. The plan for aging is to age with a third of a spiral of medium toast French oak for at least 2 weeks and then a half of a vanilla bean pod for a couple of days. The goal is for a fairly sweet, summer strawberry jam mead. Hope this turns out well.
Side note, Mangrove Jack's is tough to find out here, but I'm excited to see how the CR51 does. It says it's good at making summer fruit flavors really stand out so we shall see.
UPDATE August 6, 2024:
Mead has been racked and is now aging with some medium toast French oak. I thought it was interesting how vigorous it fermented, and the mead fermented out to an S.G. of about .997, so slightly drier than water. I thought that was super neat. I do intend on this being a fairly short age, so this coming Friday I'll be tasting to determine if I'm going to let it go longer. After that it'll get a couple of days with a half of a vanilla pod and then back sweetened before clarifying and bottling.
I think next time I make a fruit mead I'm going to use a brew bag though. Trying to syphon it all and not grab fruit matter was really tough, and I just don't want to mess with that next time.
Thoughts so far:
Welp, I'm not sure how I feel about this mead. I'm not sure if the oak aging I tried was a good idea to begin with, and to me the mead tastes like rubber/plastic. I've learned that it could be 1 of 2 possibilities: brettanomyces (brett) infection or a side effect of fermenting with whole fruit because of the strawberry seeds. It agitating, but I am letting it bottle age as I've read that flavor can and does age out (and so far it has lessened). I'm not giving up on strawberry mead though, so I'm going to try something different next season. Instead of freezing and then thawing and mashing the berries I'm going to sanitize in starsan, quarter them, freeze them, and THEN let them sit with pectic enzyme for a day before I ferment. No mashing, blending, nothing. Minimal processing and letting the yeast and enzyme do the work.
Also, I am DEFINITELY using a brew bag next time. The amount of loss I had without it hurt my heart.
Starting S.G (measured by hydrometer): 1.100
Target ABV: 13%
Yeast Tolerance: 14%
Must:
- 3.5 lbs Orange Blossom Honey
- 5 lbs Strawberry
- ½ tsp Pectic Enzyme
- 1.5 Campden Tablets
- 4g Mangrove Jack’s CR51
- 8.7 g Fermaid-O (2.2g/addition, 2.1g at final addition), ⅓ sugar break @ 1.067
This isn't Strawberry Wine.
I decided to make a melomel instead. The above is the recipe I used. I ordered raw Orange Blossom Flower Honey from Florida and my wife and I picked 6 pounds of strawberries at an awesome local U-Pick. I bagged and froze 5 of those pounds and promptly left them in my freezer for almost 2 months, as my 29 weeks pregnant wife ended up going into labor and delivering our son at 30 weeks. He has a heart defect that needs surgery and has been in the NICU since birth (and will probably be for another month at least).
All that to say this was supposed to be done by now BUT I just now started it. The plan for aging is to age with a third of a spiral of medium toast French oak for at least 2 weeks and then a half of a vanilla bean pod for a couple of days. The goal is for a fairly sweet, summer strawberry jam mead. Hope this turns out well.
Side note, Mangrove Jack's is tough to find out here, but I'm excited to see how the CR51 does. It says it's good at making summer fruit flavors really stand out so we shall see.
UPDATE August 6, 2024:
Mead has been racked and is now aging with some medium toast French oak. I thought it was interesting how vigorous it fermented, and the mead fermented out to an S.G. of about .997, so slightly drier than water. I thought that was super neat. I do intend on this being a fairly short age, so this coming Friday I'll be tasting to determine if I'm going to let it go longer. After that it'll get a couple of days with a half of a vanilla pod and then back sweetened before clarifying and bottling.
I think next time I make a fruit mead I'm going to use a brew bag though. Trying to syphon it all and not grab fruit matter was really tough, and I just don't want to mess with that next time.
Thoughts so far:
Welp, I'm not sure how I feel about this mead. I'm not sure if the oak aging I tried was a good idea to begin with, and to me the mead tastes like rubber/plastic. I've learned that it could be 1 of 2 possibilities: brettanomyces (brett) infection or a side effect of fermenting with whole fruit because of the strawberry seeds. It agitating, but I am letting it bottle age as I've read that flavor can and does age out (and so far it has lessened). I'm not giving up on strawberry mead though, so I'm going to try something different next season. Instead of freezing and then thawing and mashing the berries I'm going to sanitize in starsan, quarter them, freeze them, and THEN let them sit with pectic enzyme for a day before I ferment. No mashing, blending, nothing. Minimal processing and letting the yeast and enzyme do the work.
Also, I am DEFINITELY using a brew bag next time. The amount of loss I had without it hurt my heart.
