The "wow" factor

[GalConway]

Hello, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, just to preface this. Ive been making mead for about 3 years now, which mean si have finished 3 meads, lol. A "generic" orange blossom, a pumpkin spice, and a cyser. they're all good, drinkable. the people ive shared them with enjoyed them a lot. I didnt. they were good dont get me wrong but I dont do things by hand for "good."

I'm about to start a cherry mead, slowly acquiring the needed items paycheck by paycheck. I am here for help because I honestly dont know what I'll do with myself if this one is also just on the good side of decent.

What I have so far is a freezer full of lalvin D47 and 3 gallons of R.W Knudsen's "just Tart Cherry" juice (from concentrate.) There are a lot of apiaries near me which is where I get my honey. Cherry's are just coming into season now so I'm still waiting for the local stores to start selling them.

I'm here asking is there anything I can do that will give me that just like, this is it, feeling when I drink it? a different yeast, a different juice, should I use vanilla beans or add chocolate? Or, alternitivly was there a recipe anyone reading would be willing to share that had that, "im never going to top this" feel to it?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi GalConway - and welcome. I am certain that others on this forum will leap in with their recipes to answer your question but the secret has nothing to do with recipes. Great mead - one that you are never going to beat is not made because of any secret ingredient (singular or plural). Great mead is all about method. And method is developed when you focus on making traditional meads. A trad mead is a mead that is made with honey, water, yeast and nutrient. Trad meads are naked. There is no fruit or spices or gimmicks that hide or disguise flaws. When you can make a great trad mead then you can make any mead.
If you don't understand how to balance acidity, sweetness, flavor and alcohol content, if you don't understand what's going on when you pitch the yeast; if you don't understand aeration and degassing; how to feed the yeast; the effects of temperature on the fermentation then you can copy recipes from meaderies that charge more than $100 a bottle and you can use their sources to buy your ingredients* but your mead will still be meh.
Now, IMO, some honeys work best as vehicles for other ingredients - those are honeys as spear carriers: wildflower, clover. Other honeys - many of the varietals can hold the stage on their own. Those might be the honeys with which you want to learn to make a great mead. Apple blossom, Eucalyptus, Raspberry, Avocado, Tupelo, Meadowfoam - all have unique flavors and aromas. When you can successfully bring out the flavor from Tupelo or Meadowfoam then you know you are on the right track - and at that point you don't need a recipe. But I am a contrarian. And I offer no apologies for that.
Last point: brewers view 5 gallon batches as the minimum volume to brew. But in my opinion, though , as they claim, it is just as easy to make 5 gallons as it is to make 1 it is far harder to swallow 5 gallons of meh than it is to swallow 1 and even harder to give away any of those specimens so until you are making incredible meads my suggestion is that you practice your mead making by making single gallons.
* Store bought cherries are not likely to be properly ripe because they need to be picked before they are fully tree ripened if they are to be shipped and are to have any shelf life in stores. Moreover, store bought cherries are usually sweet cherries and that makes a great cough syrup flavor when fermented with a yeast producing lots of phenols.

 

[doug293cz]

I don't do meads, or know much about them, but you might get more helpful comments from more experienced folks if you can describe what you think is missing from your current meads. Or describe anything you consider an off-flavor. The more specific you can be, the better the chances that someone may be able to help you.

Brew on

 

[biochemedic]

If you don't understand how to balance acidity, sweetness, flavor and alcohol content, if you don't understand what's going on when you pitch the yeast; if you don't understand aeration and degassing; how to feed the yeast; the effects of temperature on the fermentation then you can copy recipes from meaderies that charge more than $100 a bottle and you can use their sources to buy your ingredients* but your mead will still be meh.

There are certain things I don't always 100% agree with in bernardsmith's posts, but this is right on the money...mead is about fermentation management. Proper pitch rates, proper staggered nutrient additions, good aeration (I would actually say oxygenation) in the beginning, and degassing on the ongoing fermentation (which is part of pH control), temperature control. Finally, having the appropriate acidity to balance sweetness is super important... As I implemented each of these things over the years, products kept getting better and better...

 

[Maylar]

This ^^^

As both of these guys have said, it's the protocol and processes that you use that makes the difference between meh mead and great mead.

Here's a place to start: http://gotmead.com/blog/making-mead/mead-newbee-guide/the-newbee-guide-to-making-mead/

 

[RPh_Guy]

Thanks for the link Maylar. I was going to ask for some good resources to learn the best practices.

The JAOM I made last year I think is "excellent" (I give it 4.75/5 stars) even though it's a bit sweet for my taste, but like the OP I'm on a quest for "amazing".

I'm a bit of a perfectionist, just to preface this. Ive been making mead for about 3 years now, which means I have finished 3 meads, lol.

I laughed at this and I'm the same way. Constantly met by disappointment even though the stuff I make is typically pretty good.

1 gal batches are definitely the way to go although when you do make something awesome it disappears quickly.

 

[johnnyseko]

Glad to see this as well. I just picked up 6# of local honey today and am ready to start 2 gal BOMMs...tomorrow? Ingredients ready. Just doing a bit more research to make certain the procedures are correct.

Funny when you find yourself driving over an hour into the country to find the 'good stuff'. Returning with a newfound source of honey and another 5 gal of cider. Hoping the effort pays off with some 'wow' at some point!

 

[GalConway]

it's the protocol and processes that you use that makes the difference between meh mead and great mead.

Here's a place to start: http://gotmead.com/blog/making-mead/mead-newbee-guide/the-newbee-guide-to-making-mead/

thank you for the link! I've been working pretty exclusively off books I must have picked up when Borders was going out of business. I hadn't thought about trying to do smaller batches, the books are always 5 gallons this, 5 gallons that.

as a follow up, I do really enjoy cherry wines (and chocoate wines but I feel like I shouldn't jump into a chocolate mead when I've only had barely satisfactory results form the mead I've already made) so, if "fresh Cherries" are a poor choice for cherry mead, should I then use frozen?

thank you all for your feedback.

 

[bernardsmith]

It's not really ONLY about fresh vs frozen: store bought cherries are sweet. You want sour cherries for wine. If you can find those fresh or frozen then go for that. As a second order point, fresh fruit sold in supermarkets is sold unripe and most fruit picked before they are ripe does not ripen on the shelf. That's why wine makers who make wine from varietal grapes use a refractometer to determine when to harvest them. If you have a refractometer you can use that to measure the amount of sugar in a drop or two and you can see how sweet (ripe) the fruit is. The more ripe the more sugar (even sour cherries have lots of sugar when ripe but no unripe fruit has all its sugars available as fructose or sucrose etc. (chew bread for a minute and the carbohydrates (complex sugars) change to simple sugars because of the enzymes in your saliva and what was savory becomes sweet- something similar happens as fruit ripens).

 

[KTbrew]

Here's a couple videos from guys who make killer fruit meads. They are awesome guys and I have contacted both of them for advice. Ken Schram's book on mead is good as well but some of the info and methods are kind of next level and tends to overwhelm some new mead makers. If your not using a staggered nutrient addition I would definitely start. Fruit juices can make fine mead but usually don't make "wow" mead. Fresh cherries are great but be advised that dark sweet cherries often yield a flavor that people aren't expecting. Tart cherries tend to be the flavor that most mead makers are after. I recommend trying the 71B or Narrbone strain of yeast. D47 is a bit of a picky fermenter.

Now for the depressing news. Three meads worth of knowledge probably won't be enough to consistently make "wow" mead. Even the most awarded mead makers make meads which are just OK sometimes. Just keep experimenting and learn from every batch that you make. I recommend smaller batches for the purposes of experimenting and learning. Go ahead and make a mead for your juice. Chances are it will be pretty good. After learning from that one you may want to put down the money for a bigger batch with a ton of whole tart cherries.

consequently, my fourth or fifth batch of mead remains the best one I ever made to this day.