Stash Session Mead - experimental

[bushpilot]

I just signed up, been lurking here a while. I like the atmosphere.

I have 3 meads in primary right now, 2 melomels (one raspberry, one currently a traditional that will have chokecherry added in secondary), and a "Stash" Session Mead, per the title. I normally brew 1 gallon batches, but the Stash is a mini-mead, one quart in a jar. It is an experiment.

To make it, I brewed Stash (brand) Raspberry and Hibiscus tea, three bags in 24 oz. I then added 1/3 cup of honey to get an OG of 1.050. I added nutrients and DAP at 1/2 the usual rate for a standard Mead. Then I topped it with 8 oz from an actively fermenting traditional (at about 1/2 sugar break, SG 1.080). The original yeast was 71B. Per my estimation, it should finish dry, 5-6% ABV.

Here is the obligatory photo, after 12 hours.

You can see there are already lees forming, I think it is because I pitched from an active ferment. The glove has a hole in one finger.

I will have to figure out how to get this off the lees when done. Syphoning this small qty might be a pain.

We'll see how this goes!

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi bushpilot - and welcome. Racking a small quantity should not really be a problem. What I might do is find some way to store your jar at an angle so that a) the lees will tend to collect more towards one end and if the lees forms a fairly solid pack you can tip the jar so that the lees are now at the higher end when you rack - or even if you rack from the same end you are likely to be able to place your siphon lower into the mead. If you can find a rigid tube to use as the bottom section of your siphon and you jerryrig a device to hold the siphon in place (both in terms of height and in terms of its position in the jar then you are going to get most of the mead out. Then what you do is pour the remainder into a narrow bottle and store that in your fridge for a few hours. The sediment will settle and you can decant the liquid and either add it to your batch or drink it... Nothing wasted.

 

[bushpilot]

Well, this ended up a foul-tasting disaster, and got dumped last night. I did say it was an experiement ....

 

[Seamonkey84]

Did you degas and cold crash it first? The gases built up during primary fermentation has a lot of foul stuff in it, plus active yeast will throw off flavor as well. Even if you want to bottle carb something, you should degas the funk out and let it produce some fresh co2 from the priming sugars.

 

[bushpilot]

I should have added more details. No, it was actually still on the lees, never left the primary. So, yes the yeast and other foulness was there up front.

The real long-term problem was the overwhelming tea flavor, and I saw no hope of saving it without dilution with other meads, and then sweetening. I didn't want to waste good mead trying to salvage this one, so dumped it.