What's your mead taste like?

[Maylar]

For those of you who make traditional mead, what do you experience when tasting it out of primary? Think clear mead, before oaking or sweetening. What are your expectations?

 

[Maylar]

@MightyMosin no comments?

 

[Miraculix]

For those of you who make traditional mead, what do you experience when tasting it out of primary? Think clear mead, before oaking or sweetening. What are your expectations?

Tastes like a bad white wine to me. Not much flavour, depending on the abv, it might have some burn to it.

This will change big time over time of course. But young mead is usually undrinkable to me. Even with best practice.

 

[MightyMosin]

The comments by @Miraculix are pretty good and I have a few additional thoughts.

Usually bland-ish, though if it has a nice aroma, it tend to push me toward seeming like it is less bland. I would say that you will know if you added to much Fermaid-O, but you said clear mead and that should have dropped out excess Fermaid -O; You would taste DAP though if you had too much.

I typically don't expect a whole lot right out of fermentation. It used to bum me out a bit when I first started, so I started to play with Melomels and such; as I suspect many others have done. When I was having issues with reproducing good mead, I went back and focused only on Traditional for a while and that taught me some patience... especially when an early, garbage high abv, mead was incredible after ~18 months with a ton of honey character.

Honey and water selection/quality are your number one items to consider with a tradition, whether you will back sweeten or not. A Mesquite mead straight out of the fermenter, once cleared, is pretty tasty even when it is young.

I do a Buckwheat-Orange Blossom (B.O.B) mead that is OK-ish out of the fermenter but by the time it clears naturally the flavor is palatable. Like a lot of traditional meads, give it 6 months and then the honey decides to show up and its a different beast.

 

[Maylar]

Thanks guys. My Tupelo traditional has been sitting for a few weeks and is ready to be racked onto oak. It's cleared nicely with Bentonite, so I gave it a taste. Not impressed. I guess I was hoping for a bit more from a mead that has cost $250 so far. I'll give it 3 months on Xoakers and see where it is then.

 

[MightyMosin]

I haven't done a Meadowfoam traditional yet, but I imagine that fermentation would need to be kept at a low temperature to keep it slow so that all those delicate flavors aren't obliterated. I imagine that some honey may be best for back sweetening to maintain complex aroma and flavors. Tupelo may be similar, but I have never had that honey to play with.

In my Marshmallow mead I do ferment some Meadowfoam (about 36% of total honey) as I expect *some* of that character will come through the fermentation. Other good honey, but cheaper, are my main sugar sources. All back sweetening is Meadowfoam in this instance.

I'd give it 6 months before deciding if you need to add more Tupelo to add character or sweetness. But do periodically check your Xoaker flavor so you don't over do that,

What ABV are you at?

 

[Miraculix]

Thanks guys. My Tupelo traditional has been sitting for a few weeks and is ready to be racked onto oak. It's cleared nicely with Bentonite, so I gave it a taste. Not impressed. I guess I was hoping for a bit more from a mead that has cost $250 so far. I'll give it 3 months on Xoakers and see where it is then.

My personal opinion on oak:

DON'T!!!!

It is so easy to overdo and the benefits of the right amount are little if you ask me. I've only made meads worse with oak. Never improved it.

3 months in oak is very likely destroying it. Remember, your cannot undo oaking.

If you insist, split the batch and keep 2/3 without oak.

 

[MightyMosin]

My personal opinion on oak:

DON'T!!!!

Kind of funny and I sort of agree.

Xoakers are kind of nice but if you over do the oaking, you need to start playing with more honey, batch blending etc.

The part that is funny for me is that I haven't really had an oaking problem while using these ~ 6.5 gallon barrels; only with oak additions that have been left too long in the carboys. The bochet's seem to lend themselves to the oaking quite nicely as does a Mesquite traditional. Same with the BOB mentioned above.

My red pyments always (at this point) go into a barrel as that just seems to give a much more complex flavor than the alternative.

 

[Miraculix]

Kind of funny and I sort of agree.

Xoakers are kind of nice but if you over do the oaking, you need to start playing with more honey, batch blending etc.

The part that is funny for me is that I haven't really had an oaking problem while using these ~ 6.5 gallon barrels; only with oak additions that have been left too long in the carboys. The bochet's seem to lend themselves to the oaking quite nicely as does a Mesquite traditional. Same with the BOB mentioned above.

My red pyments always (at this point) go into a barrel as that just seems to give a much more complex flavor than the alternative.

To me barrel and oak cubes/spirals/chips/whatnots always tasted differently. I can live with barrel aged oaked beer for example. Never had a mead from a barrel, but my guess is that it would be fine as well. With oak cubes however.....

 

[MightyMosin]

To me barrel and oak cubes/spirals/chips/whatnots always tasted differently. I can live with barrel aged oaked beer for example. Never had a mead from a barrel, but my guess is that it would be fine as well. With oak cubes however.....

I think the difference is the charring vs toasting.

I wonder if torching Xoakers would change their effect?

 

[Miraculix]

I think the difference is the charring vs toasting.

I wonder if torching Xoakers would change their effect?

Yes,I thought the same. Don't know about the xoakers though....

 

[Maylar]

Well, I oak just about everything I make. I like it. Bray Denard (loveofrose) posted a thread here a couple years ago where he attempted to mimic the effects of an oak barrel using other methods. He concluded that 4 medium + American oak Xoaker spheres and 3.7 ml of liquid vanilla tannin per gallon for 3 months was as close as you can get.

People don't realize that wine oak is an art and science. You can't just take a chunk of oak off your wood pile and char it on your grill. Ryan Carlson has a podcast about that at Gotmead that's really interesting.

Bray's mimic thread: Oak Barrel Mimic

 

[Maylar]

What ABV are you at?

Somewhere around 12%. Still has the 1.005 final gravity, and I will not change that until I taste it again.

 

[MightyMosin]

Well, I oak just about everything I make. I like it. Bray Denard (loveofrose) posted a thread here a couple years ago where he attempted to mimic the effects of an oak barrel using other methods. He concluded that 4 medium + American oak Xoaker spheres and 3.7 ml of liquid vanilla tannin per gallon for 3 months was as close as you can get.

People don't realize that wine oak is an art and science. You can't just take a chunk of oak off your wood pile and char it on your grill. Ryan Carlson has a podcast about that at Gotmead that's really interesting.

Bray's mimic thread: Oak Barrel Mimic

I've read that post and found it interesting.

For myself, I have been lucky enough to get these ~6.5 gallon barrels that were previously used for spirits and I have some space for them. I like the effect of the barrel oaking and it doesn't usually add an oak flavor like I've found with other methods.

 

[Miraculix]

I've read that post and found it interesting.

For myself, I have been lucky enough to get these ~6.5 gallon barrels that were previously used for spirits and I have some space for them. I like the effect of the barrel oaking and it doesn't usually add an oak flavor like I've found with other methods.

Used oak has already lost a big portion of the stuff that dissolves into the liquid. It is like smoothing the whole thing out. That is probably one of the reasons why it is not so easy to overdo it this way.