Mead and High Alcohol Content vs Taste

[fatbloke]

Well it's easy enough to make a higher alcohol level mead, as we're aware, champagne yeasts will go to about 18% and there's a few yeasts floating around that will go to 20/21% with careful fermentation management.

In any case, the alcohol level isn't really an issue, because any "alcohol hot" flavours will invariably mellow out over time, or they can be masked with a little back sweetening and/or acid additions (to taste of course).

Personally, I find that I like my meads "medium" with a final gravity in the 1.010 to 1.015 area, above that and I find them too sweet to my taste i.e. honey character and a little honey sweetness, but not too much.

Either way, except the gravity numbers grading used in competitions to work out dry, medium-dry, medium, medium-sweet, sweet and dessert, there's no real standard for meads. So you can only really judge it yourself as to whether you enjoy a brew made a certain way, with the available ingredients.....

As long as the maker likes the results, then sod anyone else's opinions.....

 

[ghost2vp]

Good day to you all.

This is my first post and to inform you all, I am very new to mead making but I do have a few years experience in standard wine making (non-honey wine). I have only made 2 batches now, and both were a sweet mead. I now have caught the mead bug and have fallen in love with the time-old drink.

To describe myself a bit, I am 24 years old and an ex-military man that served in Afghanistan, so yes I am young. Although I am young, my following comments are not to acquire a new means to get "loaded". I am simply trying to develop a drink that will cater to my tastes that include my hobby of wine making.

As I described above, I have only made 2 batches of mead and both were of a sweet mead. They were using a wildflower honey with no spices or fruit. I have tried the spiced and fruit mead's and I prefer the original mead flavor the best.

Now I have come up with a plan to create the best mead (for me) that I could think of. It would be a strong, dark, sack mead (sweet) using a rare honey that a local bee keeper harvests. The base honey would be a Buckwheat honey, which is naturally dark and rich in anti-oxidants and aromas. I think this is a great starting place for my dark mead.

The yeast that I would use is actually an ale yeast and not a wine yeast. It is made by White Labs and it is their liquid WLP099. It is capable of an ABV up to 25% (This is not how high I would like to go). With this yeast it requires lots of oxygen and lots of nutrients (twice as much). There for, after speaking with White Labs themselves, it is recommended that I use an air pump with a dry filter to add oxygen while aerating over the first 5 days of the fermenting process. It is also recommend that I start with a lower gravity must and add to it as I aerate the must over the first 5 days. This way it does not put a lot of strain on the yeast. So, pitching 3-4 times the amount of yeast is recommended but over the 5 day period.

I was also going to use a little bentonite to make the dark mead crystal clear. Also a little acid blend and grape tannin to maintain the body and crispness of the mead.

I do believe this will need to age for more than a year, but for an amazing mead that fits me perfectly, than it is worth the wait.

Any opinions, comments, help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[huesmann]

If your "rare honey" is the buckwheat you mentioned, buckwheat isn't all that rare. If your rare honey is something else really rare (blueberry, avocado, meadowfoam, whatever), the buckwheat will probably overpower the flavor profile of your rare honey--it's a pretty strong flavor.

 

[TheBrewingMedic]

"rare" is relative. strongly influenced by geography. My girlfriend right now is up in Maine, she went to a bunch of early season farmers markets and besides forgetting to check out maple syrup prices she kept texting me about how excited she was about the abundance of blueberry honey, thats all that was at all of the markets. Up until recently she thought honey was just honey so finding something different than we have around here which is mainly clover and wildflower was fun for her.

 

[wil440]

Just read this post and decided to register and reply or though the last post of 2008 is a little old so maybe no one is interested.

First off i'll intro myself, i'm Neil and I'm in England, pretty much right in the middle, been brewing on and off for maybe 35 years (52 now) yeah I started young, might have something to do with living in England and Tax.
I've done kit beer, all grain beer, cider from our own trees, wine from kits and mead, I do kit beer at the moment as I don't have the time due to building my own house so just need to brew fast, and usually I'm that tired after work and house that any old beer will do.

Any way on mead, it's actually not that easy to ferment honey, well it is but it's not malt, pitch yeast into malt at the right temp and it's off, honey might not start so well.
I aim for around 20% but I add less than 1/2 of the honey at the start, dissolve the honey in hot water in the brew bin, I add very strong brewed tea like 8 tea bags and a bottle of lemon juice, I've also tried a brew enhancer but it only contained tannin and citric acid.
As the brew starts off I watch it carefully and as it starts to slow I add more honey I keep doing this until the alcohol content stops the fermentation, this ends up as a sipping drink which is sweet ( I like sweet drinks) if it was stopped a little short by not adding quite so much honey it would end up dry

The point of this post is not to try and add all the honey for a plus 20% mead right at the start as the yeast will be shocked and die

 

[wil440]

apologies, now I'm registered I can see newer posts.

I wouldn't use ale yeast, I use Gervin GV4 which says on the packet it's a high alc wine yeast but saying that I've just done a beer and pitched the same yeast

I do agree that the honey is added in stages

 

[fuelish]

<edit> nevermind, didn't realize his post was necro'ed

 

[technogeek001]

Old thread I know
Just curious... anybody experimented with ice filtering like is used in making applejack?
It tends to remove off tastes and concentrate good flavors and does increase the alcohol content a bit.

 

[Frognostic]

Nothing wrong with wanting to make a high alcohol mead, whatever floats your boat.

I can see the attraction of having a high-alcohol batch, people pay good money for fortified wines in the 20% range, after all, and they don't tend to be college-kids (just) looking to get intoxicated but older people with a bit of spending cash. The same goes for top-of-the-range spirits such as brandies and whiskies which aren't your cheap student vodka.

Most of my meads have been between 10% and 14% abv range which is more mid-range I think, so not really high-alcohol.

The available high-alcohol (wine) yeasts I can think of are the Champagne yeast Lalvin EC-1118 and the Montpellier yeast Kv-1116.

I have only used EC-1118 in a Wine Expert Cabernet Sauvignon wine kit and the abv of that was (only) 12% and I think it tasted and smelled pretty good. I have heard that EC-1118 can compromise subtle honey flavours and aromas, though, so it might not be the best to use if you want to retain that honey taste.

I did use KV-1116 on a mead back in March, if I remember correctly, although I have not tasted any and intend to age it for at least a year in the gallon glass demijohn. That was one of the higher abv meads I made, I think.

EDIT: wow, I just realised this thread is 7 years old.

 

[edues]

I found around 13% is best it high enough to kill most bacteria but still don't kill the flavor. I think the point most ppl are trying to say here is cause honey isn't cheap and the time for a mead to come of age is almost for ever even with lower abv%s is it worth it. Unless your making it for a special day 5 to 10 years from now and you have the time. I did a melomel for that reason. But if that's what you want. The lavin 1118 yeast is your best bet. But just don't add your honey all at ounce. Do your best to keep your SG below 1.100

 

[bernardsmith]

I found around 13% is best it high enough to kill most bacteria but still don't kill the flavor. I think the point most ppl are trying to say here is cause honey isn't cheap and the time for a mead to come of age is almost for ever even with lower abv%s is it worth it. Unless your making it for a special day 5 to 10 years from now and you have the time. I did a melomel for that reason. But if that's what you want. The lavin 1118 yeast is your best bet. But just don't add your honey all at ounce. Do your best to keep your SG below 1.100

I think that it is a myth that mead needs to age for years for it to be drinkable. Or rather, if you use honey to make rocket fuel then it does need to age for years but if you ferment the honey at low temperatures (about 70F ) and you use a yeast that is in fact aligned with honey (say 71B ) and you don't start with a gravity that is off the charts - (that is to say above 1.100 ) then you can enjoy the mead when it has aged the same amount of time that any wine needs to age (about 9 -18 months). If - IF - you need to age your mead longer then that says that you are doing something wrong.

 

[xtein69]

+1. Sorry if the reply offended you but as Craig said, there are a lot of high school kids that stop by here looking for an easy way to get drunk. Good luck in your endeavors but please, and no insult is intended, can you tell me the attraction you have for high alcohol meads? It just seems that that there's much more interest in high alcohol meads than there are in high alcohol beers and wines and I truly don't understand it.

There are certain wine styles, such as Port, and certain beers, such as barleywine, with high alcohol content but there aren't any specific mead styles, at least commercially or even traditionally, that are designed with a high alcohol content in mind. Yet people continually want to make them and it seems that, particularly, new mead makers want to jump right in and make a mead with 20% alcohol content that likley won't be ready to drink for years.

Please, anyone else feel free to chime in here.

I find that trying to understand someone else's motivation or desires is extremely difficult if not borderline impossible. Just keep in mind that everyone has opinions on things and they are usually differ from yours. I myself like a strong mead. I like the warm feeling high alcohol contents give. There is also a distinct aroma that a high alcohol mead will have I find. My favorite thing about strong mead is I only need 3 or so glasses and I am properly adjusted lol. In my limited experience strong meads tend to be semi sweet and that to is my preference. I'm just trying to shed some light on why people seek out a more robust mead with a high ABV.