Meads

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Adam

Meads

Post by Adam » Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:05 pm

Now that i have glass demijohns i feel like i can make a long term project like this.

Recipes as follows:

Mead (straight)
1275 grams honey
4 litres water
champagne yeast
citric acid

Mead (Cyser)
1275 grams honey
2 litres apple juice
2 litres water
champagne yeast
citric acid

are there any obvious flaws?

smiles
adam

CyberPaddy66

Re: Meads

Post by CyberPaddy66 » Sat Mar 15, 2008 8:55 pm

Adam wrote: Mead (straight)
1275 grams honey
4 litres water
champagne yeast
citric acid

Mead (Cyser)
1275 grams honey
2 litres apple juice
2 litres water
champagne yeast
citric acid
Not much from what I can see :D

Small suggestions I will make is that you up the honey content on both of them and maybe use just apple juice and not water in the 2nd one, from experience I've found mead with water to be a bit thin unless you add body to the brew with either more honey or raisins and the like.

I've read of mediaeval recipes that had as much as 4-5 pounds of honey per gallon and there are many more I've not researched yet :lol:

Oh and the Champagne yeast will probably make your mead a bit on the dry side if you don't kill it early, maybe a good ale or wine yeast would be better and would leave you with some residual sweetness (obviously this is all a matter of personal taste) :wink:

Are you planning on boiling the honey (as per historical documents show was the norm) because if it's natural "farm" honey it will need boiling or are you using modern "jar" honey that's already pasteurised and doesn't need boiling?

The reason for asking is that the more you boil the honey the more flavours are driven off and the longer it will need to be left to mature before the flavours become noticeable :wink:

Adam

Post by Adam » Sun Mar 16, 2008 5:00 pm

i got another 226 grams of honey to drop into both... i know its not a lot but i went out to buy honey, sugar and water on the way back from the cinema.

If i don't end up making this today i will definitely consider upping the honey and apple... or maybe on the next batch : }

I tend to prefer dry and i've liked everything off of champagne yeast so far. Thanks for the advice though... all helps know where to go with the next brew.

I'm gonna boil the water to mix the honey in... will try to keep this as quick as possible.

Its cheap jar honey... this is in the nature of a low cost attempt to make something i tried and like... it also takes care of my desire to do a honey apple drink for a while.

Thank you

smiles
adam

Adam

Post by Adam » Sun Mar 16, 2008 10:52 pm

Had a go at the meads today in the big brew.

Recipes as follows: (small amendments)

Mead (straight)
1275 grams honey
+ 229 grams of blossom honey
4 litres water
champagne yeast
citric acid
Yeast Nutrient
OG 1.080

Mead (Cyser)
1275 grams honey
+ 229 grams of blossom honey
2 litres apple juice
2 litres water
champagne yeast
citric acid
Yeast Nutrient
1.090

both should hopefully beat the 10% mark

smiles
adam

Adam

Post by Adam » Fri Mar 21, 2008 8:34 pm

The mead is looking like this:
Image
And the Mead Cyser:
Image

smiles
adam

CyberPaddy66

Post by CyberPaddy66 » Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:20 pm

Looking good and so btw does your blog :D

Only time will tell if you've got it right, oh and don't be put off by the tastes after a short time, some of mine were foul until about 6 months in when they started to get better, of course by then I didn't have many bottles left :oops:

Adam

Post by Adam » Sat Mar 22, 2008 11:37 am

have my fingers crossed, this stuff will hopefully be drinkable by the return to school after summer holidays around about September.
Will of course try it before then.

Have thoughts in my head about making up another one but with more honey... have a wedding to go to tonight so i won't be in a fit state to brew until at least monday and the honey itch may have gone by then.

Smiles
adam

Adam

Post by Adam » Tue Apr 22, 2008 6:45 am

mead and cyser cleared after about a month and i bottled on Sunday. They both taste of just alcohol right now but i am hoping that 6 months of rest or so should sort that out... can i wait until September or even Halloween?

Its frustrating that i won't know how this experiment worked for so long that i can't doa big batch for Christmas if they are nice.

smiles
adam

smok3y666

Post by smok3y666 » Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:54 am

Getting my first batch of Mead on the go after breakfast.

CyberPaddy66

Post by CyberPaddy66 » Tue Apr 22, 2008 2:25 pm

Adam wrote:Its frustrating that i won't know how this experiment worked for so long that i can't doa big batch for Christmas if they are nice.
Ah but just imagine how NEXT year will go :wink:

JohnJeye

Post by JohnJeye » Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:13 pm

Just a few questions as I'm planning my first mead in time for xmas in the next couple of weeks. I was going to use a recipe based on Adams Cyser with the apple juice but there was 2 things I wanted to change / add but not sure about

1) Raisins - I wanted to add these, planning to just boil them up with the honey and plop them into the FV.

2) Citric Acid - Not sure what form this was added in and what purpose it serves. Can I just add orange juice or something into the boil !?


Apart from that, was planning on boiling it all up, putting it into a smaller FV bucket I have and leave it for up to 3 weeks or until its looking pretty clear so I can bottle it.

mysterio

Post by mysterio » Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:23 pm

There was an interesting podcast on Basic Brewing Radio about mead couple of weeks back, well worth checking out. A good trick seems to be staggered nutrient additions during fermentation, advice echoed by mashweasel on this thread:

viewtopic.php?t=6511&highlight=mead

http://www.basicbrewing.com/index.php?page=radio

CyberPaddy66

Post by CyberPaddy66 » Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:30 pm

JohnJeye wrote:Just a few questions as I'm planning my first mead in time for xmas in the next couple of weeks. I was going to use a recipe based on Adams Cyser with the apple juice but there was 2 things I wanted to change / add but not sure about

1) Raisins - I wanted to add these, planning to just boil them up with the honey and plop them into the FV.

2) Citric Acid - Not sure what form this was added in and what purpose it serves. Can I just add orange juice or something into the boil !?


Apart from that, was planning on boiling it all up, putting it into a smaller FV bucket I have and leave it for up to 3 weeks or until its looking pretty clear so I can bottle it.
Couple of things...

Raisins, from everything I've read they just get washed and cut into two before being thrown in the fermenter, I suppose boiling wouldn't hurt as long as you use the cooled liquor as well.

Citric Acid, I use a teaspoon of the powdered stuff last time and I didn't notice any difference from the Orange or Lemon juice with regards to brewing time, but Orange and Lemon do add a little zing to your brew :D

Boiling, unless your using fresh organic honey DO NOT BOIL as all you do is drive off all the nice honey flavours which may never come back, almost all honey in the shops today is pasteurised and therefore usable immediately with only a little warming to make it runny.

Lastly if your brewing now for this X-mas you'll probably be a bit disappointed with the results, any mead will benefit from a minimum 6 months maturation but some require at least 1 year before the flavour of the honey returns to the bottle!

Some meads will continue to improve up to 6 years after it was bottled but it's a bit hit and miss with what ones need what time IMHO.

JohnJeye

Post by JohnJeye » Fri Jun 20, 2008 8:57 am

Thanks for the responses, been trying to listen to the pod cast the last few days but having a quite day at work so will do it today.

Much good advice there though, will remove the boil as I planned to get the honey from the supermarket and it seems sensible to not rush into it and plan the mead for not this christmas but next. Thats a much longer maturing period.

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