What I did for/with Mead today

[SoberEwe]

This week I started my very first batches. Left will be a sweet mead, green tag will be semi to dry I think.
Recipe yielded 1 1/2 gallons, green tag water was added to make a full gallon. Last night, left hardly had any noticeable activity, so more yeast was added. This morning, steady activity. Looking forward to seeing the fruits of my efforts with these.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Packaged 2 tall necks of the dragon’s eye for a competition and shipped it today.

 

[JimRausch]

Busy Mead day for me:
1. Bottled a1G Acerglyn started back in March.
2. Started a 1 G Peach Melomel
3. Went to my LHBS and bought a 1 gallon Cabernet kit, which I will eventually use to make a 2G Pyment.

 

[MightyMosin]

Sanitized(2) previously sanitized kegs.
Racking (2) five gallons of cold crashed session mead to kegs for carbonation.
CO2 on kegs in refrigerator.

and clean (2) 5 gallon carboys.

Racked about 2.75 gallon Pinot Noir pyment from oak barrel to carboy for bottling soon.
Filled that oak barrel with about 7.25 gallons of Cabernet Sauvignon pyment.

 

[MightyMosin]

Bottled about 2.5 gallons which yielded (25) 375ml of Pinot Noir pyment.
Cleaned carboy that held the pyment.

 

[Dan O]

Forgot to put this in here the other day. Went to my LHBS to get some fresh yeast so I can get back into the mead barrel. Got some Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale Yeast & some 71B.

 

[Ren06]

Kegged 2 gallons of grape blueberry, and bottled the rest . Also bottled 2gallons of my strawberry banana, and lastly bottled 1gallon of dragonfruit mango.

 

[MightyMosin]

About 1 year and 8 months from starting it, I a finally bottled my Buckwheat Orange Blossom (BOB) traditional. This was about 4.5 gallons that went into 750ml flip top bottles.

Bottled ~3.125 gallons of my Horchata mead. I ended up with (30) 375ml bottles... carboy cleanup is tomorrow and maybe racking another mead into a keg for carbonation.

 

[007]

Drank one bottle.

 

[MightyMosin]

Adding finings to my Christmas mead. It's had more than 6 months to drop stuff from suspension and its not up to my desired clarity level. I would have normally cold crashed it to get more to drop, but my mead refrigerator is occupied with two kegs carbonating and I feel the need to get this moving along.

I'll likely rack it through a 5 or 10 micron gravity filter in a few weeks and then decide if it needs any acid adjustments.

 

[MightyMosin]

I ran 4 cased of 12oz beer bottles through the dishwasher on its sanitize setting without ant any detergent. These had been cleaned previously and I was really mostly just getting any dust off the bottles and any that might have worked its way into the upside down bottles.

Work looks like it might be light tomorrow, so I'm going to try and get two 5 gallon kegs bottled. These bottles will certainly get a Star San or Iodophor treatment prior to bottling.

 

[nashiora]

Read The Compleat Meadmaker for an hour and researched yeast instead of sleeping last night, considering doing it again.

 

[MightyMosin]

Read The Compleat Meadmaker for an hour and researched yeast instead of sleeping last night, considering doing it again.

Here's some info for your down time
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/my-yeast-notes.703752/

 

[MightyMosin]

I bottled (2) 5 gallon kegs of carbonated session mead.
The first one was a bit too carbonated and foamed a bit, but the second one was perfect.

As I'm about 19 days into 30 days of no alcohol, I won't get to enjoy the tiny bit at the bottom of the kegs that the siphon tube leaves; but these will be sitting ready to enjoy after that.

With the garage refrigerator empty of those two kegs, a keg of Chile Mango will now go into the refrigerator to cool and tomorrow I'll likely hit it with my homemade quick carbonator and then leave it a week or so on CO2 to bottle the following weekend.

Now I'm off to get these kegs cleaned up.

 

[MightyMosin]

Busy day.
Quick carb of the Mango Chile mead and back into the refrigerator to sit on CO2 until next week and likely bottling. Cleaning, rinsing and sanitizing of that quick carb will happen tonight too.

Racked 5 gallons of a lemon ginger session that I made in 2022 and got it into a 5 gallon keg. Into the fridge to cool. I forgot about this carboy sitting back there, but I'm in the process of trying to get most items bottled or kegged over the next 2 months before I get into winter mead making.

Racked 3 gallons of V2 of my Marshmallow Mead... I love how it smells. I bottled this and ended up with (32) 375ml bottles.

3 carboys and 1 keg have gone on to the carboy cleaner for PBW wash, rinse and sanitization. I also purchased a small transfer pump with 3/8" connections and have been using it with the carboy cleaner to push the above clean, rinse, sanitize through my transfer tubing. I should have done that a while ago as it makes it so much easier and I can do other things while it cleans.

I was going to label what I bottled on Friday but I just found out that I am out of my labels, so that will wait until I get some new ones in.

I think that is it for today.

 

[Dan O]

Racked 3 gallons of V2 of my Marshmallow Mead... I love how it smells. I bottled this and ended up with (32) 375ml bottles.

Still looking forward to this recipe

 

[MightyMosin]

Still looking forward to this recipe

I already placed a V2 bottle next to the V1 bottle that is set aside for you.

In a few weeks, I'll taste the V3 to see how it is doing. I didn't add any Cacao Nib tincture to it yet. That will be a bit of a bench test.

 

[Dan O]

I already placed a V2 bottle next to the V1 bottle that is set aside for you.

In a few weeks, I'll taste the V3 to see how it is doing. I didn't add any Cacao Nib tincture to it yet. That will be a bit of a bench test.

I'll have to come up with another good one to send you. The chocolate/ cherry/ vanilla/ pomegranate aged on cherry wood is still yours. Have to go through what I have already bottled for the other.

 

[MightyMosin]

Yesterday and today I did the boring job of sorting left over wine bottles, getting rid of ones that were too oddball sized or had funk that didn't get properly rinsed once empty. This worked out nicely in helping me locate the 375ml bottles that I knew I had but wasn't sure exactly where they were at. I'm using these more and more compared to 750ml.

I also located about 24 flip top bottles spread across many boxes and got them consolidated. While boring, I cleaned a variety of bottles and soaked them externally in a PBW mix to loosen the adhesive and then scraped the labels off and cleaned up the bottles for future use.

The strength of the adhesive used is amazing in how much it varies from place to place. Lagunitas beer bottles are great in that a ~10 minute PBW soak has the labels falling off on their own and a quick scrub of the bottle clears the adhesive away quite fast. Elysian brewery bottles are apparently attached with sovereign glue that never lets go and I just chuck those into the recycle.

 

[Dan O]

Lagunitas beer bottles are great in that a ~10 minute PBW soak has the labels falling off on their own and a quick scrub of the bottle clears the adhesive away quite fast.

I find Grolsch bottles are the same way.....quick soak in hot soapy water, they come right off. I wish all labels came off so easy.

 

[MightyMosin]

Today I bottled a 5 gallon keg of a Chile Mango mead... carbonated.

Should it have been carbonated? I don't know, but I let the spouse make that choice as this one is for them and not me.

I also opened a 750ml of my first Cabernet Sauvignon pyment made in 2022.

 

[Ren06]

Forgot to add 2weeks ago that I bottled 6gallons of a stout based braggot 14.3% abv! No burn but smooth and delicious.
Tomorrow I should be bottling 5.5 gallons of my coffee mead and then 4.5 gallons of a spiced cyser.

 

[Ren06]

Today I bottled a 5 gallon keg of a Chile Mango mead... carbonated.

Should it have been carbonated? I don't know, but I let the spouse make that choice as this one is for them and not me.

I also opened a 750ml of my first Cabernet Sauvignon pyment made in 2022.

That cab sauv sounds good!!

 

[Ren06]

Checked the gravity on my 21 gallons of sweet potato mead. Its moving slow and steady and smelling great!

Also stabilized 2 days ago on my “garbage braggot” then backsweetened today. Also dry hopped with willamette.

 

[Agent]

This may be sacrilege, but today I whipped up some invert sugar to cut my melter honey. My batches with straight melter honey are not to my liking.

One little pound of rich goodness to 4lbs of inverted cane sugar.

And this stuff still tasted like those dark honey sticks you get for a quarter.

 

[MightyMosin]

While it won't be strictly for mead, I started a 2x fold bourbon vanilla extract today.
3oz of Madagascar vanilla beans split long way into ~420ml of Forty Nine Mile Bourbon (45%).

I've marked my calendar a year from today. The remainder of the bottle is for drinking.

 

[Ren06]

Finally bottled my coffee mead and waxed it, and also bottled my traditional too.

 

[Ren06]

Bottled 5gallons of “cyserglin” lol.

 

[MightyMosin]

The glory of peeling labels from bottles was accomplished today.

 

[MightyMosin]

I opened up a 375ml of one of my Pinot Noir Pyments. I had about 1/2 the bottle and it was very enjoyable.