MxWhiskey
Member
This is the first mead I made, and it was a hell of a start. This one is currently just over 6 months old and is bottle aging in my closet until Yule. This is going to be kind of a brewlog and my thoughts on what I've learned from this batch
God of Thunder (Oak-Aged Great Mead)
Starting S.G: 1.142
Final S.G: 1
Estimated ABV: 18%
After it fermented, I racked it off and aged it for about 2 months with 1/3 of my American Oak spiral and then racked it off into another vessel to get it off the wood and let it bulk age for another 4 months before bottling. Now it is bottle aging until Yule and will be a year old in January. When it comes to aging with oak, you seriously do not need a whole spiral unless you are scaling this to a full 5-gallon batch. 1/3 is plenty, and if you've never had an oaked wine or mead before, taste FREQUENTLY. I'm talking like once a week. Oak is a powerful flavor (although a toast is much milder than a char. I don't recommend using charred oak like you would for whiskey) and its fairly easy to overpower the mead with oak flavor. Remember, alcohol is a solvent and is used for making extracts, so while this isn't vodka or Everclear strength the alcohol present will accelerate the extraction of flavor.
Tasting notes progressed interestingly. Fresh off ferment, it was very punchy and alcohol forward. Ultimately very unpleasant from a drinking standpoint BUT green wine/mead is rarely tasty. 2 weeks into aging and its went from tasting like alcohol to tasting like mead. The oak was present but thin and didn't really lend itself to the whole drink but as a top note that faded very fast. By the time I stabilized and back sweetened, it had taken an odd turn that I both liked and didn't. The honey flavor was lightly floral and rich, the oak had matured into a slightly bitter, slightly sweet vanilla that had gone deeper into the drink (if you don't know, as alcohol breaks down the wood it converts it into sugars, which can lend a sweeter flavor), and the alcohol harshness had all but disappeared. BUT the alcohol became way hotter and started making my tongue weirdly numb. I am differentiating between "hot" and "harsh" in that I don't consider alcohol burn "harsh". Harsh means, at least to me, fusil alcohols are more present. Fast forward to bottling day and that numbing has faded out and the sweetness came back forward. It's a richer mead for sure, but still very tasty. Definitely more of a sipper than and guzzler. In the 4 months it aged after the oak, the mead took on some genuinely whiskey-esque character. The oak is much more reminiscent of an aged whiskey, albeit much less than a whiskey would actually be.
This one is going to sit in bottles for a while yet, and due to having had a gastric bypass my ability to drink is greatly diminished so I anticipate this batch lasting a long time. I'm looking forward to a glass of this by the fireplace when its 2 degrees outside.
God of Thunder (Oak-Aged Great Mead)
Starting S.G: 1.142
Final S.G: 1
Estimated ABV: 18%
- ~5.53 lbs. local raw honey (sourced from KCK and Peculiar, MO)
- 1 gallon of water
- 5g Red Star Premier Blanc
- 5.25g Go-Ferm
- 6.86g Fermaid-O
- 1/3 Medium+ toasted American Oak spiral
After it fermented, I racked it off and aged it for about 2 months with 1/3 of my American Oak spiral and then racked it off into another vessel to get it off the wood and let it bulk age for another 4 months before bottling. Now it is bottle aging until Yule and will be a year old in January. When it comes to aging with oak, you seriously do not need a whole spiral unless you are scaling this to a full 5-gallon batch. 1/3 is plenty, and if you've never had an oaked wine or mead before, taste FREQUENTLY. I'm talking like once a week. Oak is a powerful flavor (although a toast is much milder than a char. I don't recommend using charred oak like you would for whiskey) and its fairly easy to overpower the mead with oak flavor. Remember, alcohol is a solvent and is used for making extracts, so while this isn't vodka or Everclear strength the alcohol present will accelerate the extraction of flavor.
Tasting notes progressed interestingly. Fresh off ferment, it was very punchy and alcohol forward. Ultimately very unpleasant from a drinking standpoint BUT green wine/mead is rarely tasty. 2 weeks into aging and its went from tasting like alcohol to tasting like mead. The oak was present but thin and didn't really lend itself to the whole drink but as a top note that faded very fast. By the time I stabilized and back sweetened, it had taken an odd turn that I both liked and didn't. The honey flavor was lightly floral and rich, the oak had matured into a slightly bitter, slightly sweet vanilla that had gone deeper into the drink (if you don't know, as alcohol breaks down the wood it converts it into sugars, which can lend a sweeter flavor), and the alcohol harshness had all but disappeared. BUT the alcohol became way hotter and started making my tongue weirdly numb. I am differentiating between "hot" and "harsh" in that I don't consider alcohol burn "harsh". Harsh means, at least to me, fusil alcohols are more present. Fast forward to bottling day and that numbing has faded out and the sweetness came back forward. It's a richer mead for sure, but still very tasty. Definitely more of a sipper than and guzzler. In the 4 months it aged after the oak, the mead took on some genuinely whiskey-esque character. The oak is much more reminiscent of an aged whiskey, albeit much less than a whiskey would actually be.
This one is going to sit in bottles for a while yet, and due to having had a gastric bypass my ability to drink is greatly diminished so I anticipate this batch lasting a long time. I'm looking forward to a glass of this by the fireplace when its 2 degrees outside.