IPA Mead Recipe please

[YeastieBoys]

I haven't tasted the Funky Monkey yet. No one near me has it on the shelf. I'll have to pick up a bottle next time I'm at B Nektar (I'm lucky enough to live near by). I'd still be interested in your recipe if you could post it.

B Nektar doesn't have Funky Monkey anymore. The last.time.I saw.it was about.two years ago. You must be close to Ferndale though.

 

[igliashon]

So, I've been thinking of making an IPA mead for a while, too. I'm gluten-free and haven't been very impressed with the whole rice and sorghum extract thing, but I love me some mead. Here's what I'm thinking of doing--please give me some feedback, as a lot of the techniques I'm planning here I've never done before!

3 gallon recipe:

Ingredients:
6 lbs wildflower honey
0.25 oz Millenium hops (pellet, 17.4% AA) at 60 min
1 oz Simcoe hops (pellet, 13% AA) at 15 min
1 oz Simcoe hops at 1 min
1 oz Czech Saaz hops (whole-leaf, 4.5% AA), dry hop
8 oz maltodextrin
Buckwheat honey, to taste

US-05 dry yeast

Boil:
Do a 60-minute boil with water, maltodextrin, and Simcoe hops. Add honey at flame-out. Ferment completely, racking as necessary, and add dry hops for 1 week after the final racking. Back-sweeten/prime with buckwheat honey to taste, then bottle in 22-oz bottles. Reserve enough to fill 2 plastic soda bottles (use first and last runnings from the bucket). When the soda bottles first begin to feel tight, open the first one to check carbonation. If adequately carbonated, pasteurize (on the stove) all the remaining bottles to kill the yeast. If not, give another day or two and then check the second one, and then pasteurize if satisfied. Refrigerate and enjoy some sparkling, sweet, IPA mead!

Now, questions:
1) I expect this to come out to about 8% ABV, so is my use of ale yeast okay?
2) Do I need to add nutrients? If so, how much, and when? Seems like staggered nutrient additions wouldn't be necessary given the low gravity, but I'm no expert.
3) How much buckwheat honey would you guys estimate as a good starting-point for back-sweetening? I don't want an overly-sweet mead, but I also don't want it to be as completely dry as it probably will be at this low gravity. I'd want it probably about as sweet as an American double-IPA.
4) Is my plan of adding honey post-fermentation to both prime AND back-sweeten sensible?
5) What's a realistic turn-around time for a sparkling low-gravity mead? 3 months? 6? If I brew this tomorrow, could I be enjoying it by Christmas, or will it take longer?

 

[YeastieBoys]

So, I've been thinking of making an IPA mead for a while, too. I'm gluten-free and haven't been very impressed with the whole rice and sorghum extract thing, but I love me some mead. Here's what I'm thinking of doing--please give me some feedback, as a lot of the techniques I'm planning here I've never done before!

3 gallon recipe:

Ingredients:
6 lbs wildflower honey
0.25 oz Millenium hops (pellet, 17.4% AA) at 60 min
1 oz Simcoe hops (pellet, 13% AA) at 15 min
1 oz Simcoe hops at 1 min
1 oz Czech Saaz hops (whole-leaf, 4.5% AA), dry hop
8 oz maltodextrin
Buckwheat honey, to taste

US-05 dry yeast

Boil:
Do a 60-minute boil with water, maltodextrin, and Simcoe hops. Add honey at flame-out. Ferment completely, racking as necessary, and add dry hops for 1 week after the final racking. Back-sweeten/prime with buckwheat honey to taste, then bottle in 22-oz bottles. Reserve enough to fill 2 plastic soda bottles (use first and last runnings from the bucket). When the soda bottles first begin to feel tight, open the first one to check carbonation. If adequately carbonated, pasteurize (on the stove) all the remaining bottles to kill the yeast. If not, give another day or two and then check the second one, and then pasteurize if satisfied. Refrigerate and enjoy some sparkling, sweet, IPA mead!

Now, questions:
1) I expect this to come out to about 8% ABV, so is my use of ale yeast okay?
2) Do I need to add nutrients? If so, how much, and when? Seems like staggered nutrient additions wouldn't be necessary given the low gravity, but I'm no expert.
3) How much buckwheat honey would you guys estimate as a good starting-point for back-sweetening? I don't want an overly-sweet mead, but I also don't want it to be as completely dry as it probably will be at this low gravity. I'd want it probably about as sweet as an American double-IPA.
4) Is my plan of adding honey post-fermentation to both prime AND back-sweeten sensible?
5) What's a realistic turn-around time for a sparkling low-gravity mead? 3 months? 6? If I brew this tomorrow, could I be enjoying it by Christmas, or will it take longer?

Us-05 might poop out before you hit 8%. You might be able to get it to 7%. I would start at 1/4 lb honey for backsweetening and test it.

 

[WIMARIPA]

Us05 can go to 12%

 

[snazzy]

I just tried Evil Genius this weekend and I have to try making it also. Still working on a recipe.

I tried getting some info out of the owner but he said he wasn't giving me much more info than the hop list (which is on the web site).

At 6% I don't think too much aging will be involved. and yes us05 will ferment a mead pretty dry to 11 or 12% in my expeience.

 

[PattyM]

...for what it's worth (since I don't know if you were able to measure your sample) the FG of room temp flat Evil Genius is 1.038. Much sweeter than most of their other offerings. I hope this info helps to clone this.