What I did for/with Mead today

[MightyMosin]

Tasted the Vionier pyment. It's tasting good, but needs more time on the oak.

 

[LudovicoManin]

Racked 1/2 gallon of blueberry/ lemon /vanilla off of the Hungarian medium toast oak cubes. Wow, is that tasty!
I will be backsweetening that & several others this weekend, then to bottling.

PM me your recipe please

 

[Dan O]

PM me your recipe please

To those requesting the recipe, I will post my notes this weekend.
This was a 2 gallon batch of blueberry melomel that I split for different flavor profiles.

 

[Dan O]

To those requesting the recipe, I will post my notes this weekend.
This was a 2 gallon batch of blueberry melomel that I split for different flavor profiles.

My blueberry melomel, 3 different ways.... I was wrong, batch size was 2.5 Gallons

Ingredients for the base blueberry melomel....

3.25 gr Goferm with 5 gr of QA23 yeast rehydrated with warm water & a shot of blueberry juice from the thawed berries
13 lbs wild frozen blueberries ...(7 lbs for primary & the other 6 for secondary after stabilizing)
Brew bag big enough to hole all that fruit
5 Gal Food Grade Bucket
2.5 lbs my local wildflower honey
1/2 lb Clover honey
2+ tsp pectic Enzyme
2.6 gr Potassium Carbonate, one time addition @ must creation
2.5 gr Fermaid K, one time addition @ must creation
1 gr Booster Blanc, one time addition @ must creation
1 gr Opti-red, one time addition @ must creation
2.7 gr Fermaid O EACH addition, @ must creation, 24 & 48 hrs
OG 1.116
FG 1.000
Started 2/1/23, Stabilized with KMeta & KSorb on 3/7 23

Split into.......

1.5 Gal for blueberry cobbler w/ vanilla bean, graham crackers, nutmeg, Ceylon cinnamon
.5 Gal for blueberry/vanilla w/Medium toast American Oak Xoaker
.5 Gal for blueberry/lemon/vanilla w/Medium toast Hungarian Oak cubes

blueberry/lemon/vanilla...
4/16/23...Added 1/2 vanilla bean, split, not scraped, zest of 1/2 lemon
5/2/23....Removed lemon zest
5/6/23.... Added 6 gr medium toast Hungarian Oak cubes
5/12/23....Removed Vanilla bean
9/6/23....Removed Hungarian Oak

I have not back sweetened any of these yet, but the sweet spot for me is between 1.012 & 1.018. I have a lot of different honeys in stock that I can choose from, so not too sure yet which one (or a blend of honeys) I will use. Part of me wants to bochet some & back sweeten with that to do something different.
I hope this helps those that asked about it & others that were curious to, but didn't.
Happy meading

 

[Apis Mellifera]

Do y'all have any good sources for someone looking to get a crash course on mead making? Youtube link, thread here, etc.? The only kind of brewing that I really have done is with Apfelwein that I'm still waiting on. Other than that I'm clueless.

I still have a good bit of honey leftover from my hives earlier this year and figured why not make a drink.

 

[Dan O]

Do y'all have any good sources for someone looking to get a crash course on mead making? Youtube link, thread here, etc.? The only kind of brewing that I really have done is with Apfelwein that I'm still waiting on. Other than that I'm clueless.

I still have a good bit of honey leftover from my hives earlier this year and figured why not make a drink.

Here's a good resource

https://www.youtobrew.com/mead-making-101

 

[Rish]

More from Dr. Denard. Some of it is more advanced/detailed than ^ but very good source. Good luck!

https://denardbrewing.com/

 

[Apis Mellifera]

Thanks!

The more I read up on mead making, the more I realize I’ll need to learn some patience.

I’m hoping to get a batch or 2 going soon. A traditional to establish a baseline and something maybe more “fall-like” involving apple. I guess while I’m at it I need to look further into December as well.

 

[Dan O]

Thanks!

The more I read up on mead making, the more I realize I’ll need to learn some patience.

I’m hoping to get a batch or 2 going soon. A traditional to establish a baseline and something maybe more “fall-like” involving apple. I guess while I’m at it I need to look further into December as well.

Eventually, you'll wind up like the most of us

 

[Dan O]

@bushpilot , am I wrong?

 

[bushpilot]

@bushpilot , am I wrong?

I see some empty buckets there, just sayin'.

 

[Dan O]

I see some empty buckets there, just sayin'.

Gotta have something to rack into

 

[Ren06]

first rack of my traditional show mead and first rack of traditional cyser and stabilized both

 

[LudovicoManin]

First rack of my Lemon Cakes, 2nd rack of my Candy Cane

 

[Phish_on2k]

Oh man..."Lemon Cakes"?! Sound great...share recipe?

 

[LudovicoManin]

Scaled this up for a 5 gallon batch:

To make this lemon mead, collect the zest and juice of 6-8 lemons. Fill a gallon carboy halfway up with spring water. Add 2.5-3 lbs of your favorite honey, a handful of organic raisins (15 or so), black tea that’s been made from 3 teabags steeped and cooled (optional for tannin balance), and your activated yeast. Add your lemon zest and juice, and if you used organic lemons, toss some of the peels in as well (I put some lemon slices on top so my mead would look pretty for my pics – you can do that too).

After 10-14 days, whenever fermentation slows, rack off into secondary. Taste it, and if the lemon flavor isn’t prominent enough for your liking, add more zest and juice. Same goes for every racking you do.

 

[Dan O]

I got to feeling a little crowded with my piles of honey adding up here & there...sooo, I added a honey shelf to my mead room, aka the basement.
I still haven't consolidated all of my honey to the shelf yet, but it's getting pretty crowded already. Man, I gotta make more mead!

I finally managed to get it all on there...phew

 

[Ren06]

Racked/stabilized 5 gallons cranberry melomel and same with 5 gallons Cherry Melomel

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Preparing meads started this past summer, dandelion and honeysuckle for packaging. Dandelion seemed flabby so I’ve added some acid blend also K-sorbet will back sweeten lightly the flower is barely there. The honeysuckle smells wonderful and the flavor seems pretty good so just a light sweetness is all it needs. Competition is later this month. I have a berry mead out there that will be judged next weekend.

 

[Agent]

I picked up my biennial supply of melter honey yesterday. 88 lbs at $1.50/lb.

I swear I'll make a proper bochet from it some day, but my knuckle-dragger dark mead is so easy!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Pitched D47 into small amount of blueberry juice with blueberry blossom honey.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Assembled my first cyser. Had a couple jugs with crystallized dregs, shook them clean with some fresh cider. Ended up at 1.088.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Gave it a swirly again, and a bit of nutrient.

 

[MightyMosin]

Next is an electric swirly

 

[MightyMosin]

Today I sort of organized all my empty bottles and in the process I found that I have a case of 12oz Honey Crisp mead. I thought that I had killed all of those.

It was a nice surprise.

 

[Ren06]

Bottled up 1.75 gallons of Blueberry &Maple syrup mead aged on bourbon oak staves.

 

[Dan O]

Today (and over the last 4 days), I processed 12 pomegranates (approx. 8 lbs of arils) & 8 bags (approx. 5 1/2 lbs) of cranberries & froze them for upcoming batches.

 

[CKuhns]

Put together a couple of five gallon batches:
- Lemonade Session Mead.
- Faux Ice Cider / Cyser

And... the waiting begins!

 

[Dan O]

- Faux Ice Cider / Cyser

This sounds intriguing
Could you explain the faux ice cider, please?
Thank you, in advance, if you do reply.
Happy meading

 

[CKuhns]

Hello @Dan O

Faux Ice cider

This sounds intriguing
Could you explain the faux ice cider, please?
Thank you, in advance, if you do reply.
Happy meading

I posted the recipe in the Cider recipe thread. - Also included is my last batch run notes for reference.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/faux-ice-cider.730008/
One additional note - I just started using Nutrients for this recipe (Included in the recipe) I have done the same recipe without using nutrients and it worked well. The addition often requires cold crashing to stop the ferment at the target FG then rack and clarify - Be sure to pasteurize immediately after bottling.

Edit
- I have used Cranapple juice and just recently Pink Lemonade in place of the 2 gallons of apple juice. Still used FAJC - Both turned out very well.