What's on deck for 2023?

[MightyMosin]

We have a thread for meads made in 2023. How about this for what we plan on making... even if you might not get to it?

I'm planning on making the following:
3-5 gallons of a Mesquite traditional to blend with a Mesquite that I have that I screwed up and added to much Tartaric acid to.
5 gallons minimum more of a session that will become more Strawberry mead.
5 gallons of the next iteration of my Horchata inspired mead.
5 gallons of a mixed berry mead
6+ gallons of a Voigner pyment
5 gallons of a Blueberry cyser
3+ gallons of a Mango mead to blend with another one that I have too much of a chile profile
5 gallons of my Christmas mead
5 gallons of my Norwegian Tea mead

Edit: marked what has been completed

 

[Maylar]

You'd best get crackin'

I have 14 lbs. of $$$ Tupelo honey that's calling to be made into a traditional.

 

[Srimmey]

I just ordered 2 gallons of blackberry honey.

My next batch will be 5 gallons of smoked tart cherry. Also considering smoked pineapple or lapsang su chong fig mead. The fig mead will be summer time though so it could be a ways out.

 

[bushpilot]

I do all my fermenting in winter, for temperature control purposes. So, I am wrapping up for now.

What's on deck towards the end of the year, when winter rolls around again? It does on the honey and berry harvest, we'll see.

 

[Dan O]

You'd best get crackin'

I have 14 lbs. of $$$ Tupelo honey that's calling to be made into a traditional.

I just got my gallon each of Tupelo and Acacia honeys.

On the docket to be done are...

3 gallons Acacia Rose BOMM ,

5 gallons Christmas Spice BOMM ,

5 gallons Raspberry/Pomegranate,

1 gallon Macadamia bochet test batch,

1 gallon strawberry/ Rose hips test batch,

5 gallons white flesh peach melomel, to be split into 5 one gallon batches for multiple flavor profiles,

1 gallon Aussie BOMM,

1 gallon Rose Turkish delight,

3 gallons Ultimate T'ej,

5 gallons pineapple bochet,

1 gallon bananas foster bochet test batch,

1 gallon yule want more mead,

Several traditionals made with honey from Shawn Darryl Harris in Hawaii.

 

[bwible]

I got some apricot flavor from Apex recently and I tried it, dosed a glass of plain mead with it. I think I went .3% which is right in line with their recommendation.

Apricot Flavor for Beer Wine and Spirits - TTB Approved - Apex Flavors

Apricot Type, Natural & Artificial (Contains < 0.10% Artificial Top Note) was developed for use in beer, cider, wine and spirits. In most applications we recommend a starting use level of 0.20% and adjust to desired impact is achieved. In high proof spirits start at 0.50%. This TTB approved...

www.apexflavors.com

I have to say this is one of, if not the single best flavor I’ve ever had in a mead. I’m probably going to do a 3 gallon batch.

 

[bwible]

We have a thread for meads made in 2023. How about this for what we plan on making... even if you might not get to it?

I'm planning on making the following:
3-5 gallons of a Mesquite traditional to blend with a Mesquite that I have that I screwed up and added to much Tartaric acid to.
5 gallons minimum more of a session that will become more Strawberry mead.
5 gallons of the next iteration of my Horchata inspired mead.
5 gallons of a mixed berry mead
6+ gallons of a Voigner pyment
5 gallons of a Blueberry cyser
3+ gallons of a Mango mead to blend with another one that I have too much of a chile profile
5 gallons of my Christmas mead
5 gallons of my Norwegian Tea mead

Can you tell us about that Christmas mead?

 

[Ty520]

-Going to try to fine tune my root beer mead
-Plum mead
-Thanksgiving/Xmas mead
-Apple Pie Cyser
Maple Cyser
-Guava Vanilla mead
-a red wine based pyment
-playing around with a ton of braggot experiments that are top secret right now

 

[MightyMosin]

Can you tell us about that Christmas mead?

It's fairly close to the BOMM Christmas Mead but some ingredients have been changed based on availability and quantities are adjusted for my taste. IIRC I use SafAle S-04 in it in place of the Wyeast 1388 called for with the BOMM recipe. I also do some to taste acid adjustment with Tartaric acid and I then do a bottle carbonation. My last one was more of a petilant carbonation, while this one will be about 4.5 to 5 volumes of CO2 as the bottles I have for it can handle that.
I really enjoy this one carbonated and I want a higher level of it. I may do some in champagne bottles and bring it up to ~6 volume of CO2.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Dialing in my 3#/Gal traditional and 1#/Gal sparkling hydromel. Next up is a tart cherry of the latter as soon as a batch of the former gets done with the primary bucket.

 

[MightyMosin]

1 gallon bananas foster bochet test batch,

1 gallon yule want more mead,

The Banana Foster sounds interesting. What are you thinking for that one?

and what goes into your Yule Want More mead?

 

[MightyMosin]

I do all my fermenting in winter, for temperature control purposes. So, I am wrapping up for now.

What's on deck towards the end of the year, when winter rolls around again? It does on the honey and berry harvest, we'll see.

I have to get mine done now. My brother and wife were occupying the Meadery off and on during the winter and I couldn't really brew much while that was going on.

 

[Dan O]

The Banana Foster sounds interesting. What are you thinking for that one?

and what goes into your Yule Want More mead?

The Yule want more is a You To Brew special, by Bray Denard

Yule Want More — You To Brew

Discover the ultimate Nord Mead recipes with "Nord Mead Made Right" recipe series. This series uses modern mead making techniques and the perfect balance of ingredients for the best possible Nord meads. Enjoy delicious mead even if you've taken an arrow to the knee!

www.youtobrew.com

The bananas foster bochet is still in the planning stages. Brown sugar will be incorporated somewhere in the process. Still trying to decide what honey I should bochet, & whether I should backsweeten with a different honey or the same one.
I have many honeys on hand to choose from, so ,I have options.
I already have about 15 lbs of bananas in the freezer for it, but, from all the researching I've been doing, it takes a lot of very ripe, black bananas to get the fruit flavor to stick around.
The Rum flavor is the easy part, as is the vanilla & cinnamon, but, the walnuts is another part I'm not really sure yet how to incorporate without adding the oils from the nuts. The other ingredient I'm not sure how to incorporate is the butter.
My original thought was to toast the nuts & put them in a paper bag to absorb as much oil as possible & make a tincture from them, possibly with the Rum, (kill 2 birds with one stone).
If anybody has thoughts or ideas, I'm open to suggestions &/or ideas.
.

 

[Dan O]

-Going to try to fine tune my root beer mead
-Plum mead
-Thanksgiving/Xmas mead
-Apple Pie Cyser
Maple Cyser
-Guava Vanilla mead
-a red wine based pyment
-playing around with a ton of braggot experiments that are top secret right now

Looking forward to your changes to your root beer mead recipe

 

[bwible]

The Yule want more is a You To Brew special, by Bray Denard

Yule Want More — You To Brew

Discover the ultimate Nord Mead recipes with "Nord Mead Made Right" recipe series. This series uses modern mead making techniques and the perfect balance of ingredients for the best possible Nord meads. Enjoy delicious mead even if you've taken an arrow to the knee!

www.youtobrew.com

The bananas foster bochet is still in the planning stages.

I already have about 15 lbs of bananas in the freezer for it, but, from all the researching I've been doing, it takes a lot of very ripe, black bananas to get the fruit flavor to stick around.

If anybody has thoughts or ideas, I'm open to suggestions &/or ideas.
.

This place has hundreds of flavors they sell specifically for the alcoholic beverage industry. I’ve tried quite a few and have been happy with all of them. They do have a couple different banana flavors. They sell a 2 oz jar and you don’t need much. They tell you start at .2%. Many of them I’ve found I like .3 or .35% which works out to something like .38 oz or about 11 ml per gallon. I made a maple wine fermenting real maple syrup. Their maple flavor is incredible in that. I flavored a couple berry meads. And I’m going to do apricot next.

Flavors for Wine (By Flavor Category) - Apex Flavors

Natural extracts and flavors, water and oil soluble, for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, baked goods, foods, confections, tinctures, edibles, ice cream - Apex Flavors

www.apexflavors.com

They have a black walnut flavor but its not listed under alcohol flavors. Its under baking flavors. They are friendly, you could write them and ask whether thats usable in mead.

 

[Dan O]

This place has hundreds of flavors they sell specifically for the alcoholic beverage industry. I’ve tried quite a few and have been happy with all of them. They do have a couple different banana flavors. They sell a 2 oz jar and you don’t need much. They tell you start at .2%. Many of them I’ve found I like .3 or .35% which works out to something like .38 oz or about 11 ml per gallon. I made a maple wine fermenting real maple syrup. Their maple flavor is incredible in that. I flavored a couple berry meads. And I’m going to do apricot next.

Flavors for Wine (By Flavor Category) - Apex Flavors

Natural extracts and flavors, water and oil soluble, for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, baked goods, foods, confections, tinctures, edibles, ice cream - Apex Flavors

www.apexflavors.com

They have a black walnut flavor but its not listed under alcohol flavors. Its under baking flavors. They are friendly, you could write them and ask whether thats usable in mead.

Cool, thanks for the link. They do have an impressive number of flavorings! I'll look into them for sure

 

[MightyMosin]

the walnuts is another part I'm not really sure yet how to incorporate without adding the oils from the nuts. The other ingredient I'm not sure how to incorporate is the butter.

What I think will likely work well is to chop the walnuts to expose as much surface are without crushing them and creating a powder. Put them in a large bag and when you bochet your honey, keep the temperature low and put the bag of walnuts into the honey and continually stir. You should pickup the walnut flavors in your honey and I am guessing that extra oils will likely get caught up in the foamy scum on top that you will scoop away.

If you keep the temperature below 200 you can probably have a long bochet time to get the walnut in there without scorching your honey and creating burnt flavors.

 

[Dan O]

What I think will likely work well is to chop the walnuts to expose as much surface are without crushing them and creating a powder. Put them in a large bag and when you bochet your honey, keep the temperature low and put the bag of walnuts into the honey and continually stir. You should pickup the walnut flavors in your honey and I am guessing that extra oils will likely get caught up in the foamy scum on top that you will scoop away.

If you keep the temperature below 200 you can probably have a long bochet time to get the walnut in there without scorching your honey and creating burnt flavors.

I was thinking about bocheting the honey in a sous vide bath, that way I can be precise with temperatures & still be able to keep it low enough to avoid any weird flavors. If I do that, I won't have the scum to scoop away, but, that's not to say I can't add the bag to one of the jars.
One thing for sure, is it will definitely be interesting.....& well documented
Thanks for the advice.

 

[MightyMosin]

The immersion circulator will work nicely...almost like melting chocolate for fondue.

For myself, I've found the stovetop works well when I start with ~ 1/8 cup of water per pound of honey heated in the pot prior to adding the honey. It seems to help prevent scorching and a good candy thermometer allows you to creep up on your target temperature and the water will evaporate out.

 

[Dan O]

The immersion circulator will work nicely...almost like melting chocolate for fondue.

For myself, I've found the stovetop works well when I start with ~ 1/8 cup of water per pound of honey heated in the pot prior to adding the honey. It seems to help prevent scorching and a good candy thermometer allows you to creep up on your target temperature and the water will evaporate out.

I use my sous vide machine to decrystalize my honey all the time, (as well as cook food with it), but, I never gave it much thought to try to bochet honey that way, until recently. I have seen several posts of people doing it with success. I may try doing the walnuts the way you described & just putting that in one of the jars of honey & see if I can taste any changes. If there's a bunch of oil floating @ the top when it's done, I suppose I could just put a sanitized cloth on top to absorb it out of the honey before trying to use it.
I love this hobby!

 

[crazyjake19]

Currently have a blueberry melomel, a bochet cyser, and a Viking Blood just about ready for bottling to free up some fermenters.

Planned for this year are a campfire mead (still formulating the recipe), another blueberry melomel (local blueberries again), a strawberry-jalapeno mead (with homegrown jalapenos), and something spiced for the holiday season.

 

[MightyMosin]

What I think will likely work well is to chop the walnuts to expose as much surface are without crushing them and creating a powder. Put them in a large bag and when you bochet your honey, keep the temperature low and put the bag of walnuts into the honey and continually stir. You should pickup the walnut flavors in your honey and I am guessing that extra oils will likely get caught up in the foamy scum on top that you will scoop away.

If you keep the temperature below 200 you can probably have a long bochet time to get the walnut in there without scorching your honey and creating burnt flavors.

I'm going to try the nuts in the honey bochet soon for a peanut butter and jelly mead. That will go into primary, fruit in secondary, with added nuts in tertiary.

 

[bushpilot]

You guys are hardcore!

 

[Dan O]

I'm going to try the nuts in the honey bochet soon for a peanut butter and jelly mead. That will go into primary, fruit in secondary, with added nuts in tertiary.

Damn, I almost forgot about my PB&J mead!
My plan is to boil roasted unsalted peanuts, chopped, then rack the cooled water from under any of the oil, & use that to make a raspberry melomel, & add PBFIT to tertiary, along with round 2 of fruit.

 

[Dan O]

You guys are hardcore!

I wouldn't say quite hard-core, for me at least. For me, I see it as a world of possibilities of endless flavors & combinations of flavors. Problem with that is with every batch I create, I come up with 3 or 4 new flavors/combinations I want to try.🫤
That said, I've never been big on wine, of any kind, dry, semi-sweet, or sweet, no matter the flavors, be it grape or other fruits. But, mead, that's a different story.
For my palate, wine can't be paired with any flavor, but honey on the other hand, can be paired with just about anything, which is where the endless flavors come in, for me. My palate is not quite as refined as some folks, but, the people who try my meads tell me it's better than store bought stuff, & that's as refined as I need it to be

 

[bushpilot]

I wouldn't say quite hard-core, for me at least. For me, I see it as a world of possibilities of endless flavors & combinations of flavors. Problem with that is with every batch I create, I come up with 3 or 4 new flavors/combinations I want to try.🫤
That said, I've never been big on wine, of any kind, dry, semi-sweet, or sweet, no matter the flavors, be it grape or other fruits. But, mead, that's a different story.
For my palate, wine can't be paired with any flavor, but honey on the other hand, can be paired with just about anything, which is where the endless flavors come in, for me. My palate is not quite as refined as some folks, but, the people who try my meads tell me it's better than store bought stuff, & that's as refined as I need it to be

Oh, I'm right there with you! I enjoy refining the process, sampling results, experimentation, etc. as much as the final product!

I especially enjoy it when I can use my own honey, mixed with berries or fruit we grew or foraged, to make something really special.

 

[Ren06]

I wouldn't say quite hard-core, for me at least. For me, I see it as a world of possibilities of endless flavors & combinations of flavors. Problem with that is with every batch I create, I come up with 3 or 4 new flavors/combinations I want to try.🫤
That said, I've never been big on wine, of any kind, dry, semi-sweet, or sweet, no matter the flavors, be it grape or other fruits. But, mead, that's a different story.
For my palate, wine can't be paired with any flavor, but honey on the other hand, can be paired with just about anything, which is where the endless flavors come in, for me. My palate is not quite as refined as some folks, but, the people who try my meads tell me it's better than store bought stuff, & that's as refined as I need it to be

Very well said, I heard the same from even professional brewers.

 

[RumOnTheDocks]

Let's see now, I have some noble plans for 2023, including;

-An actual palatable mead
-Kiwi Melomel per request
-Banana Melomel (due to my inexplicable obsession with the idea)
-Spruce tip mead
-2023's batch of my winter mead (still need to see how last years batch turned out after a year.)
-Elderflower mead
-Elderberry mead
-A braggot mead
-A bochet mead

 

[bushpilot]

I really want to try a bochet, but can't until after honey harvest. Probably will do it in the fall, after the temperatures are starting to drop.

 

[MightyMosin]

I really want to try a bochet, but can't until after honey harvest. Probably will do it in the fall, after the temperatures are starting to drop.

I did a buckwheat and mesquite bochet that once it was oaked and backsweetened, it came out incredible.

I'd try a blend of honeys.

 

[Dan O]

Over the weekend, I added a second round of tart & sweet cherries, along with toasted cocoa nibs & a couple of vanilla beans for Shawn Darryl Harris to my chocolate/cherry/ vanilla/ pomegranate mead . Only 24 hrs after additions, it was totally magical. If it was that delicious that soon after additions, I can't wait to see what it will be like in a year. I do believe I'll be making another batch of that very soon, possibly even a 6 gallon batch.