Mead Journal: Bottling + pther stuff
Sep. 20th, 2008 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrix4bWell, I have all batches in the bottle now. It is time for some aging.
Strawberry:
The Strawberry Mead looks to be great, it is a bit hot. Hot as in a bit high on the alcohol content. But the sweetening worked out great. From the original recipy I did need to put in about 4 more pounds of honey and 1 pound of puree strawberry to bring it back up to sweetness. I can tell that this one will age very well. It is tolerable at the bottling and just needs some time to age. It does have a really good nose and feel to it and you can tell that it is strawberry. If it ages like I think it will then I will have an "OMFG that is good" type of mead in 6 months to a year. My friend Nathan says that most fruit flavors take a year to two to come to the fore. If that is true then this one will be amazing when that happens. Personally, I don't like to wait. But sometimes it is worth it. I am not sure if it will carbonate in the bottle. I don't think so as it was static for several weeks before bottling it.
Blueberry:
I nicknamed this one booberry as it was a bit difficult and scarry and I liked the name of that old cereal. Not may people remember it. But on to the scaryness. When I originally started it it refused to ferment, I think that it was too heavy. I tried re-aeriating it, then I dosed it with another higher alcohol tolerate/sugar tolorant yeast. Still no go, I even tried more yeast energizer and nutrient and whiped the snot out of it in the blender, a couple of cups anyway, to try to get it going. Mearly a blub or two. What finally got this one to take off was just racking it again. As if my mixing it up wasn't good enough. I racked it with just a little bit more water, a cup or two. That did the trick. Unfortunately too well. It dryed the hell out. Not acceptable. After racking it a few times and I added about 1 pound of strawberry puree and 4 pounds of honey to sweeten it, It started to get better. This was one racking past the sweetening. I checked it before bottling it, way too dry and hot still. So I racked it on to some heavily concentrated sugar water. About 4 cups of sugar and 5 cups of water. This brought up the flavor to acceptable level of sweetness. See, I don't like dry mead, I like it desert sweet. Then I stired it heavily after racking it. I then tasted..Divine taste of blueberries and sweetness. It made me think that a blueberry vanilla would be a very good batch indeed. That and I am iching to use the vanilla I got. It smells so good. Anyway, after sweetening it up I bottled it last night. I am not sure if it will cabonate but I can see that this wont hurt it. It may a little. I shall have to check if it is in a few months by openening a bottle and then recapping it. Many of the fruits I have seen that taste very good carbonated are rasberry, strawberry, and blueberry, among others. I may just go out of my way to do 1/2 of the cranberry batch as a sparkling. I think that the booberry is a success. It made 10 6-packs worth. which was about a 6 gallon batch, underestimated how much blueberry juice was in 12 pounds of frozen organtic blueberries.
Limey:
The Limey used a cup of lime juice in the primary and 2 cups in the secondary. It is palatable now. Very sweet like my Rockbitter brew but you can taste the tang of lime in it. It is good. I beleive that alongside the Rockbiter and Strawberry it is a very good success.
Watermellon or "Ned's Happy Place":
This one I am highly disapointed with. It took a lot of sweetening and is going to be "hot" still. Watermellon flavor is not very good outside of it's pulp and the like. Also there was a bit of an "off" flavor in it. It may be palatable at the end of it's aging. I did sweeten this one up A LOT. Basically, I think this may be due to using too much watermellon juice. I used the juice of 2 basket ball sized watermellons, which amounted to about 1 1/3 gallons of juice that I frigerated for a couple of weeks. I put it in the primary. It initially had a decent mouth feel but was not all that high on the sweetness. I am still wondering what could have gone wrong. This is the last time I do a batch of mead with the fruit in the primary. Also, thinking it over, I should cut back on the honey a bit if it is a sweet fruit like strawberries or equivalent. I am on the fence with this one. I may end up dumping it out. I have the feeling that it will carbonate in the bottle a bit too, though it is clear and ceared quicker that I would have guessed. Hmm, if the sweetness stays and it carbonates it may turn out to be a success but not an "OMFG that's good!!" batch. Hmm, it may be because I also used wildflower honey in it's creation, a much less powerful flavor than the alphalpha, or the two doses of yeast. Overall, I may not try this one again.
In other news, I managed to convince them at the honey store to give me the bulk rate with out a wholesaler's liscence. Yeah, this turns a 5 gallon batch in to about $86 for a 5 gallon batch, glass included which accounts for $24 of it. This is bought in 42 pound buckets for a cost of $70.98+$4 deposit fee on the buckets. Now that is cheap for really good honey. If I include the deposit that is $1.78 a pound for high quality alphalfa honey. I have found that the alphalfa honey makes for a nice "Honey" base. I may switch in the future if the fruit character of other meads is more important. So I have 126 pounds of honey, enough for 6 batches all ready. I just need to figure out how to dish it out in proper measurements. Plan on starting the primary sometime next week. As it will take about 2 weeks of the primary going before I need the fruit. Honey enough for 6 batches and 5 carboys all but one needing to be cleaned today. What to make! Well, I have plans for them.
2 batches of Rockbiter, as insisted by my wife. She said it was so popular that it will go over again. I may also have one batch sold already for a freind to give out as gifts.
1 batch of Vanilla Almond: as stated using the Vanilla. I have about 2 cups of sliced almond and I was planing on putting 4-5 vanilla beans in it to make it a very vanilla batch. I may get away with using 3-4 though. Using the new vanilla I just got--Yeah!
1 batch of Pear Nutmeg. I have to check the amount of pear juice I will need. I may just buy juice concentrate for it if I can find it frozen and organic. Oh, and I have 1/2 of a whole nutmeg to crush and put in. The other half in the next batch below.
1 batch of Pumpkin spice. For this I plan on getting the pie making pumpkins that are smaller that the big ones. Many of the recipies I saw online use 3 pounds of raw meat or use 3 8 oz cans of pumpkin pie stuff. I think that the 3 pounds is for a 1 gallon batch. Hmm, need to check. But to put in it as well, I have 2 3-inch cinamon sticks and the afore mentioned 1/2 of a whole nutmeg. Not sure if I should toast the pumpkin meat or not. But that would be the batch, Thinking on still pureeing the pumpkin and putting it in my fruit bag in the primary. This may be another 6 gallon batch and sounds so wonderful. Many people I mentioned the plans of this batch to say "Hmm, not sure but it sounds interesting" Over all I think that it will work well dispite the fact that pumpkins do not have much "juice"
Tenetive Plans for the Spring/summer batches.
Strawberry Vanilla.
Cherry Vanilla. Need to check seasons or use frozen concentrate
Orangecicle: Kinda of an orange cream using orange concentrate and vanilla
Hmm, need to check fruit types availale in summer and my past posts to see what is in season for the other batch.
Tentive Plans for next year's Fall batches:
Cranberry
Peach (ginger or nutmeg or maybe even allspice
Chocolate mint
Pickly Pear: I see lots of recipies for this and it may turn out well.
I may get the repirement to do another Rockbiter brew
I may also try a cyser
Plans subject to change. Ofcourse NONE of the batches I plan on using the fruit in the primary.
So a few general questions besides the wanted suggestions and coments and other experieces from other people's makings.
I saw a lot of recipies that include spanish moss. About a teaspoon or so in a gal batch.
What does spanish moss do in a mead batch? I am confused as to what good it is.
What does Prickly Pear juice really taste like, tart, sweet, comparable flavor? Is there a concentrate or do I need to hunt them up?
Because I like desert quality mead, I have been using 20 pounds in a batch. Do people recomend I use less and then back sweeten? Test the alcohol content as it is fermenting and stop fermentation with calcium carbonate? Or some combination?
I have been just trying to cool the must with chilled water and some Ice and just letting it take time, covered up to cool. I have been thinking about an emersion chiller. Any ideas? I am not sure I need it but if it will improve the quality of the mead it may be worth the investiment. Anyone do side by side compairisons?
Lastly, anyone know if there is a law about how much alcohol one can make in a year or store in one's own house with out needing some sort of liscence? I know that I can't sell it unless I get a liscence to do so but I don't know if that is something that states an amount or what not. Not sure what City/County/State/Fed Laws apply unless I plan on really distrubiting or selling my mead. Again, no big plans on this as I would like to get a stock of mead up and running and aging to have for parties and such when I get older. When I have kids, I shall have to lock up my stuff too. I know that when I was young and dumb and curious I nicked some alcohol from my parents. Almost enough to be noticed. I would notice ANY loss in mead, especially if I am making it. Best to paln in advance that it may be stolen by my pre-teen or teenager, when I have a kid. No luck yet on that front but I anticipate with in the year, or going to greater lenghts to knock up my wife after that year. My wife wants kids badly and I like the idea too, many of our friends have kids (three groups of friends have over 2 or second on the way). I think that it should happen before I turn 40. I am going to be 38 on the 24th of september. Arg, I feel Old. Ok, I have diverged from my original intention of a post. Laters.
Strawberry:
The Strawberry Mead looks to be great, it is a bit hot. Hot as in a bit high on the alcohol content. But the sweetening worked out great. From the original recipy I did need to put in about 4 more pounds of honey and 1 pound of puree strawberry to bring it back up to sweetness. I can tell that this one will age very well. It is tolerable at the bottling and just needs some time to age. It does have a really good nose and feel to it and you can tell that it is strawberry. If it ages like I think it will then I will have an "OMFG that is good" type of mead in 6 months to a year. My friend Nathan says that most fruit flavors take a year to two to come to the fore. If that is true then this one will be amazing when that happens. Personally, I don't like to wait. But sometimes it is worth it. I am not sure if it will carbonate in the bottle. I don't think so as it was static for several weeks before bottling it.
Blueberry:
I nicknamed this one booberry as it was a bit difficult and scarry and I liked the name of that old cereal. Not may people remember it. But on to the scaryness. When I originally started it it refused to ferment, I think that it was too heavy. I tried re-aeriating it, then I dosed it with another higher alcohol tolerate/sugar tolorant yeast. Still no go, I even tried more yeast energizer and nutrient and whiped the snot out of it in the blender, a couple of cups anyway, to try to get it going. Mearly a blub or two. What finally got this one to take off was just racking it again. As if my mixing it up wasn't good enough. I racked it with just a little bit more water, a cup or two. That did the trick. Unfortunately too well. It dryed the hell out. Not acceptable. After racking it a few times and I added about 1 pound of strawberry puree and 4 pounds of honey to sweeten it, It started to get better. This was one racking past the sweetening. I checked it before bottling it, way too dry and hot still. So I racked it on to some heavily concentrated sugar water. About 4 cups of sugar and 5 cups of water. This brought up the flavor to acceptable level of sweetness. See, I don't like dry mead, I like it desert sweet. Then I stired it heavily after racking it. I then tasted..Divine taste of blueberries and sweetness. It made me think that a blueberry vanilla would be a very good batch indeed. That and I am iching to use the vanilla I got. It smells so good. Anyway, after sweetening it up I bottled it last night. I am not sure if it will cabonate but I can see that this wont hurt it. It may a little. I shall have to check if it is in a few months by openening a bottle and then recapping it. Many of the fruits I have seen that taste very good carbonated are rasberry, strawberry, and blueberry, among others. I may just go out of my way to do 1/2 of the cranberry batch as a sparkling. I think that the booberry is a success. It made 10 6-packs worth. which was about a 6 gallon batch, underestimated how much blueberry juice was in 12 pounds of frozen organtic blueberries.
Limey:
The Limey used a cup of lime juice in the primary and 2 cups in the secondary. It is palatable now. Very sweet like my Rockbitter brew but you can taste the tang of lime in it. It is good. I beleive that alongside the Rockbiter and Strawberry it is a very good success.
Watermellon or "Ned's Happy Place":
This one I am highly disapointed with. It took a lot of sweetening and is going to be "hot" still. Watermellon flavor is not very good outside of it's pulp and the like. Also there was a bit of an "off" flavor in it. It may be palatable at the end of it's aging. I did sweeten this one up A LOT. Basically, I think this may be due to using too much watermellon juice. I used the juice of 2 basket ball sized watermellons, which amounted to about 1 1/3 gallons of juice that I frigerated for a couple of weeks. I put it in the primary. It initially had a decent mouth feel but was not all that high on the sweetness. I am still wondering what could have gone wrong. This is the last time I do a batch of mead with the fruit in the primary. Also, thinking it over, I should cut back on the honey a bit if it is a sweet fruit like strawberries or equivalent. I am on the fence with this one. I may end up dumping it out. I have the feeling that it will carbonate in the bottle a bit too, though it is clear and ceared quicker that I would have guessed. Hmm, if the sweetness stays and it carbonates it may turn out to be a success but not an "OMFG that's good!!" batch. Hmm, it may be because I also used wildflower honey in it's creation, a much less powerful flavor than the alphalpha, or the two doses of yeast. Overall, I may not try this one again.
In other news, I managed to convince them at the honey store to give me the bulk rate with out a wholesaler's liscence. Yeah, this turns a 5 gallon batch in to about $86 for a 5 gallon batch, glass included which accounts for $24 of it. This is bought in 42 pound buckets for a cost of $70.98+$4 deposit fee on the buckets. Now that is cheap for really good honey. If I include the deposit that is $1.78 a pound for high quality alphalfa honey. I have found that the alphalfa honey makes for a nice "Honey" base. I may switch in the future if the fruit character of other meads is more important. So I have 126 pounds of honey, enough for 6 batches all ready. I just need to figure out how to dish it out in proper measurements. Plan on starting the primary sometime next week. As it will take about 2 weeks of the primary going before I need the fruit. Honey enough for 6 batches and 5 carboys all but one needing to be cleaned today. What to make! Well, I have plans for them.
2 batches of Rockbiter, as insisted by my wife. She said it was so popular that it will go over again. I may also have one batch sold already for a freind to give out as gifts.
1 batch of Vanilla Almond: as stated using the Vanilla. I have about 2 cups of sliced almond and I was planing on putting 4-5 vanilla beans in it to make it a very vanilla batch. I may get away with using 3-4 though. Using the new vanilla I just got--Yeah!
1 batch of Pear Nutmeg. I have to check the amount of pear juice I will need. I may just buy juice concentrate for it if I can find it frozen and organic. Oh, and I have 1/2 of a whole nutmeg to crush and put in. The other half in the next batch below.
1 batch of Pumpkin spice. For this I plan on getting the pie making pumpkins that are smaller that the big ones. Many of the recipies I saw online use 3 pounds of raw meat or use 3 8 oz cans of pumpkin pie stuff. I think that the 3 pounds is for a 1 gallon batch. Hmm, need to check. But to put in it as well, I have 2 3-inch cinamon sticks and the afore mentioned 1/2 of a whole nutmeg. Not sure if I should toast the pumpkin meat or not. But that would be the batch, Thinking on still pureeing the pumpkin and putting it in my fruit bag in the primary. This may be another 6 gallon batch and sounds so wonderful. Many people I mentioned the plans of this batch to say "Hmm, not sure but it sounds interesting" Over all I think that it will work well dispite the fact that pumpkins do not have much "juice"
Tenetive Plans for the Spring/summer batches.
Strawberry Vanilla.
Cherry Vanilla. Need to check seasons or use frozen concentrate
Orangecicle: Kinda of an orange cream using orange concentrate and vanilla
Hmm, need to check fruit types availale in summer and my past posts to see what is in season for the other batch.
Tentive Plans for next year's Fall batches:
Cranberry
Peach (ginger or nutmeg or maybe even allspice
Chocolate mint
Pickly Pear: I see lots of recipies for this and it may turn out well.
I may get the repirement to do another Rockbiter brew
I may also try a cyser
Plans subject to change. Ofcourse NONE of the batches I plan on using the fruit in the primary.
So a few general questions besides the wanted suggestions and coments and other experieces from other people's makings.
I saw a lot of recipies that include spanish moss. About a teaspoon or so in a gal batch.
What does spanish moss do in a mead batch? I am confused as to what good it is.
What does Prickly Pear juice really taste like, tart, sweet, comparable flavor? Is there a concentrate or do I need to hunt them up?
Because I like desert quality mead, I have been using 20 pounds in a batch. Do people recomend I use less and then back sweeten? Test the alcohol content as it is fermenting and stop fermentation with calcium carbonate? Or some combination?
I have been just trying to cool the must with chilled water and some Ice and just letting it take time, covered up to cool. I have been thinking about an emersion chiller. Any ideas? I am not sure I need it but if it will improve the quality of the mead it may be worth the investiment. Anyone do side by side compairisons?
Lastly, anyone know if there is a law about how much alcohol one can make in a year or store in one's own house with out needing some sort of liscence? I know that I can't sell it unless I get a liscence to do so but I don't know if that is something that states an amount or what not. Not sure what City/County/State/Fed Laws apply unless I plan on really distrubiting or selling my mead. Again, no big plans on this as I would like to get a stock of mead up and running and aging to have for parties and such when I get older. When I have kids, I shall have to lock up my stuff too. I know that when I was young and dumb and curious I nicked some alcohol from my parents. Almost enough to be noticed. I would notice ANY loss in mead, especially if I am making it. Best to paln in advance that it may be stolen by my pre-teen or teenager, when I have a kid. No luck yet on that front but I anticipate with in the year, or going to greater lenghts to knock up my wife after that year. My wife wants kids badly and I like the idea too, many of our friends have kids (three groups of friends have over 2 or second on the way). I think that it should happen before I turn 40. I am going to be 38 on the 24th of september. Arg, I feel Old. Ok, I have diverged from my original intention of a post. Laters.