Mead - the homebrew thread

[Jb123]

Spicing?

I don't see any reason why it would suck terribly, unless of course you hate pumpkin pie or are horrible at making mead.

It's going to be a harvest mead. Roasted pumpkin, acorn and butternut squash, molasses and clove cyser. It's something we joked about a while back and then stumbled across a pumpkin molasses cider and loved it. So why the **** not! Adding cinnamon as well, to get that cider feel. Couldn't find cider without K+ sorb.

 

[PubGrubTrub]

This will either be really good and or unique or suck terribly. It's a chance I'm willing to take.

That's kind of the beauty of all homebrewing.

 

[sliverx]

It's going to be a harvest mead. Roasted pumpkin, acorn and butternut squash, molasses and clove cyser. It's something we joked about a while back and then stumbled across a pumpkin molasses cider and loved it. So why the **** not! Adding cinnamon as well, to get that cider feel. Couldn't find cider without K+ sorb.

There's not a local cider mill in Michigan?

 

[Jb123]

There's not a local cider mill in Michigan?

Not local enough. I wanted it now. Now dammit. I can be impatient at times. I've made a cyser with this apple juice and spices and it turned out great.

 

[sliverx]

if anyone is looking for a different honey.

 

[Jb123]

Wonder what that tastes like? I want to make one with meadow foam honey sometime soon...

 

[sliverx]

Wonder what that tastes like? I want to make one with meadow foam honey sometime soon...

I bottled a split batch not long ago using meadowfoam. 3 bottles were US05, 20 ( the rest of that split) were aged on blueberries, blackberries, cherries, and raspberries. The other half of the batch was using Weihenstephan yeast trying to coax as much banana ester as possible. I should taste test those soon...

 

[doobiegoobie]

finally got my sour mead going last night. ended up doing 5 gal at 1045 OG (~6 lbs of local cotton honey). Added dregs built up from oak theory, tilquin, de garde, and NG R&D. Added 8oz of maltodextrin to get them bugs a fighting chance to do something weird and .5oz hungarian medium and .25oz american heavy toast oak for structure and mouthfeel. We'll see what happens in a few months!

 

[mjohnson171]

finally got my sour mead going last night. ended up doing 5 gal at 1045 OG (~6 lbs of local cotton honey). Added dregs built up from oak theory, tilquin, de garde, and NG R&D. Added 8oz of maltodextrin to get them bugs a fighting chance to do something weird and .5oz hungarian medium and .25oz american heavy toast oak for structure and mouthfeel. We'll see what happens in a few months!

Very interested to see how this turns out!

Curious why you decided to go for such a dry mead, with ~1.2lbs/gal? I assume you're really trying to highlight the yeast and bacteria as opposed to any residual sweetness. I don't have any experience with cotton honey, does it have any stronger flavors than say a clover? If it does I'm curious if it will be highlighted at all.

Any plans to carbonate this like a lambic/mead type drink?

I think I may have to make one of these now that you have the rusty wheels in my head turning

 

[doobiegoobie]

Very interested to see how this turns out!

Curious why you decided to go for such a dry mead, with ~1.2lbs/gal? I assume you're really trying to highlight the yeast and bacteria as opposed to any residual sweetness. I don't have any experience with cotton honey, does it have any stronger flavors than say a clover? If it does I'm curious if it will be highlighted at all.

Any plans to carbonate this like a lambic/mead type drink?

I think I may have to make one of these now that you have the rusty wheels in my head turning

Yeah, I kept it low OG for a few reasons. I didn't want to stress the yeast out so they could shine, I didn't want to deal with a bunch of nutrient additions, and I just want to drink the **** out of it when it's ready! I also figured the bugs would take it down pretty dry regardless. I'll probably end up carbing this and basically treating it like a saison. Probably add some local merlot grapes to a portion at some point too. We'll see!

Cotton honey is pretty subtle, so I'm not sure how much it'll come through, but I wanted to use local bc it's super fresh and relatively cheap. It had really nice tropical notes pre-ferment too, so I'm hoping that'll play nice with the bugs.

I'll keep you updated!

 

[mjohnson171]

Cotton honey is pretty subtle, so I'm not sure how much it'll come through, but I wanted to use local bc it's super fresh and relatively cheap.

The holy grail for mead makers.

I like the idea of trying this with a cherry mead too, a la kriek style. Or Framboise.

 

[doobiegoobie]

The holy grail for mead makers.

I like the idea of trying this with a cherry mead too, a la kriek style. Or Framboise.

Oh yeah! If this turns out, there'll be a lot more of these in my future.

 

[Jb123]

Officially puzzled how schramms gets their mead so sweet. I've heard they aren't back sweetening but man. I use 4# a gallon. 10lbs of fruit and still no where near the sweetness level.

I think my next mead _____ I will ferment with no fruit for one month.
Add ten pounds of fruit and more
Honey. Maybe 2 more lbs?

My blueberry mead, racked for the third time last night taste good. Little to no burn but I'll be damned if there isn't a ton of blueberry flavor for using 5 primary and 5 in secondary.

 

[FTowne1]

Officially puzzled how schramms gets their mead so sweet. I've heard they aren't back sweetening but man. I use 4# a gallon. 10lbs of fruit and still no where near the sweetness level.

I think my next mead _____ I will ferment with no fruit for one month.
Add ten pounds of fruit and more
Honey. Maybe 2 more lbs?

My blueberry mead, racked for the third time last night taste good. Little to no burn but I'll be damned if there isn't a ton of blueberry flavor for using 5 primary and 5 in secondary.

This is why I've held off on trying my hand at making mead. If I end up with 5 gallons of "meh" beer I'm only out $20-$30 in ingredients. Honey and fruit are expensive! I don't feel confident enough as a homebrewer to try making mead as of yet.

 

[Jb123]

This is why I've held off on trying my hand at making mead. If I end up with 5 gallons of "meh" beer I'm only out $20-$30 in ingredients. Honey and fruit are expensive! I don't feel confident enough as a homebrewer to try making mead as of yet.

Do a gallon batch. That's all I do. Until I make something that wows me, there is no reason to increase batch size. A gallon cost me about 50$? Tops!

 

[Beerontwowheels]

Officially puzzled how schramms gets their mead so sweet. I've heard they aren't back sweetening but man. I use 4# a gallon. 10lbs of fruit and still no where near the sweetness level.

I think my next mead _____ I will ferment with no fruit for one month.
Add ten pounds of fruit and more
Honey. Maybe 2 more lbs?

My blueberry mead, racked for the third time last night taste good. Little to no burn but I'll be damned if there isn't a ton of blueberry flavor for using 5 primary and 5 in secondary.

My last batch was 2 gallons (~24lbs) of honey for 5 gallons of mead, so almost 5 lbs of honey per gallon. Fermented with 20lbs of tart cherries in primary, right from day 1. The fruit adds a whole lot more sugar for the yeasties to play with.

If you want to end around where Schramm's does, you need to figure out your yeast's ABV tolerance. Lavlin 71B-1122 is right around 14-15% abv. Beyond that, they stop eating the sugars to produce the alcohol. Hello body and sweetness.

If you are looking for a finishing gravity of 1.024 or higher (pretty sweet), then add enough sugar beyond that to make 1.024 your gravity when the yeasties **** out at 14-15%. There are calculators out there that will tell you what your OG target will be.

 

[Jb123]

Yeah that's kinda what I was figuring just adding honey after 14-15% is achieved. I know that the fruit adds sugar for yeast but dammit I feel like a lot of the fruit flavor is lost during primary. I'm not sure. I like to complain to you guys on public forums. I'll get there. In 20 years prob

 

[Beerontwowheels]

Yeah that's kinda what I was figuring just adding honey after 14-15% is achieved. I know that the fruit adds sugar for yeast but dammit I feel like a lot of the fruit flavor is lost during primary. I'm not sure. I like to complain to you guys on public forums. I'll get there. In 20 years prob

I think blueberries are just a fickle bitch like that...not all fruits will romance you and then leave you with......



blueballs.

 

[wiltznucs]

I reckon I'll join in....

I've got two batches going currently.

Triple Black - black currant, black cherry and blackberry with orange blossom honey. Aged on toasted oak and vanilla beans.

Acadiana Chupacabra - A Tempranillo pyment with honey harvested from the Atchafalaya Basin of Louisiana. Aging on French Oak with cacao nibs, ceylon cinnamon and ancho chiles.

 

[Jb123]

I reckon I'll join in....

I've got two batches going currently.

Triple Black - black currant, black cherry and blackberry with orange blossom honey. Aged on toasted oak and vanilla beans.

Acadiana Chupacabra - A Tempranillo pyment with honey harvested from the Atchafalaya Basin of Louisiana. Aging on French Oak with cacao nibs, ceylon cinnamon and ancho chiles.

Those sound promising

 

[Jb123]

I will ask, what the **** is up with these designer gourmet cinnamons? Like really there that big of a difference!? Consider me naive .

 

[wiltznucs]

I will ask, what the **** is up with these designer gourmet cinnamons? Like really there that big of a difference!? Consider me naive .

The issue with cinnamon is the coumarin content. Coumarin has been linked to liver damage. It's actually regulated in some areas of Europe. In addition to differing flavors some of the cinnamon varietals have more coumarin than others. Ceylon cinnamon has the least coumarin and so I choose to use it.

To be sure, we're taking about huge amounts of cinnamon needed to be harmful but Ceylon has a wonderful aromatic character so it's a great choice.

 

[Jb123]

The issue with cinnamon is the coumarin content. Coumarin has been linked to liver damage. It's actually regulated in some areas of Europe. In addition to differing flavors some of the cinnamon varietals have more coumarin than others. Ceylon cinnamon has the least coumarin and so I choose to use it.

To be sure, we're taking about huge amounts of cinnamon needed to be harmful but Ceylon has a wonderful aromatic character so it's a great choice.

Didn't know that..

 

[Beerontwowheels]

15 lbs of organic cranberries were purchased yesterday at Whole Foods. The customer was later seen walking out of Whole Foods bow legged as if he had just been bent over and brutally ASSaulted.

 

[rcubed1]

15 lbs of organic cranberries were purchased yesterday at Whole Foods. The customer was later seen walking out of Whole Foods bow legged as if he had just been bent over and brutally ASSaulted.

Were you also charity shamed?

 

[mjohnson171]

Just added 22 vanilla beans to a 5 gallon batch of Orange Blossom.



Also, I'm an idiot for not thinking of doing this before, but I started using a bottling bucket for my final fermentor. It makes getting a clean mead so much easier b/c no final racking and bottling above the trub!

 

[Beerontwowheels]

Were you also charity shamed?

No sir, I was not. The clerk did try and convince me to buy four more bags of cranberries so that I could take advantage of their case discount (10%). I politely declined.

I should mention that I'm also not very excited to process 15 lbs of cranberries this weekend. I saw that picture Naegerbomb posted in the Schramm's AMA and I guess I need to cut each cranberry in half? Fughhhhh!

 

[Beerontwowheels]

Just added 22 vanilla beans to a 5 gallon batch of Orange Blossom.

You can go ahead and sign me up for a bottle...

 

[Jb123]

Adding some brown sugar toasted pecans to my pumpkin gourd mead. It actually taste alright as is. Taking it to a whole new level today

 

[Naegerbomb]

No sir, I was not. The clerk did try and convince me to buy four more bags of cranberries so that I could take advantage of their case discount (10%). I politely declined.

I should mention that I'm also not very excited to process 15 lbs of cranberries this weekend. I saw that picture Naegerbomb posted in the Schramm's AMA and I guess I need to cut each cranberry in half? Fughhhhh!

Dude. Food processor. Please don't slice each one exactly in half. Wash them and give them a rough chop into pieces. Then freeze/thaw if you want or if your schedule permits. And for the love of mead, next time please buy pre-sliced IQF!