Hops in my Mead? I think so!

[digdan]

A couple years ago when I was an avid beer brewer I dabbled in meads. One mead I made had a light lavender mix with a slight hop flavor. This was very tasty and I spent a many drunken night at my back patio by my table fire pit drinking this stuff.

But I brewed a straight mead, kinda dry, with a good amount of Saaz hops. This one struck me well, and I invited some friends over to give it a swing. It was a giant success with everyone. They still ask for it to this day.

Well here is my problem. I sold most of my brewing equipment when I found that this hobby was making me gain insane amounts of weight (that must mean I was a successful brewer?). Now that I have recently moved I've found I've had enough equipment to make mead, and I want to recreate that mead.

My question is this... does ANYONE have experience with hopping mead? I have long since lost my logs (physical notebook lost in move). And I'm going to try to recreate the batch, but I do not want to do too little or too much hops.

Also, please don't call hopped mead a Braggot or a Tej, its just a metheglin, plain and simple

Thanks in advance folks!

 

[Brandon O]

I have some experience and I can tell you less is more and more is possible after a taste test.

You can get the aroma from hops with out any sort of boil, just dry hopping.

So my advice is start with 1oz during fermentation of some saaz if you are doing a 5 gallon batch.

Taste it when it is done fermenting and dry hop as needed.

Be sure to use some nutrient additions over time and you will get good tasting mead.

Nutrients make better tasting basic mead.