mead weekend 24/25 February 2024

 Sess came over and we did SO much. 

Racked:

Doriana: 4 liter, cacao & cristalised ginger
This was the overflow of Dorian (cacao mead) at the first racking from bucket to carboy. At that time we added cristalised ginger but didn't add further sugar. Update: SG 1000, completely dry. dusty ginger smell. Chocolate nose. Surprisingly little flavour at this point. Back sweetened with 500g honey to SG1040

Dorian: (20 liter, cacao)
Ohhh, this is going somewhere. SG 1060, very nice. Light but present chocolate flavour. Yeast stopped and super cleared, though uncertain if this worked.
Could definitely use more time, but promising and already quite good. Smells less like chocolate than Doriana, but tastes more chocolate. Might want to bring this to Wasteland depending on how it develops.

Fennah II: (5 liter, mead with mint leaves)
SG 1022. Racked off the mint. It was on there too long and there's some serious flavour, but this was always Sess's thing and they like it. Back sweetened 250g.

Fern: (10 liters, heather honey)
Much heather. Slightly bitter aftertaste. SG 1008. Racked. I gotta go pick up about a kilo of heather honey to backsweeten this.

Eglentine (18 liters, apple/ginger/hibiscus tea)
Nice acidity/sweetness balance w ginger notes. SG 1018
Backsweetened with 2kg honey to 1055

Hasufel: (5 liters, pear juice)
 Smooth pear, slightly acidic. SG at 1065. Less young tasting than Gwahir. Perfect at this sweetness, so yeast stop added.

Bottled:

Gwahir: (5 liters with apple juice)
Fizzy, young, very apple-y. Cider smell. SG 1080 but carries it well. Shockingly drinkable at only about 4 months since pitching. I guess sweetness covers a lot of sins? It was still active so we put in champagne bottles to hopefully get a sparkling sweet apple mead.

Yaffe (3 remaining liters, lapsang souchon tea)
I like this one a lot, evidenced by it having been kept in the dining room and occasionally pouring a glass straight from the carboy. Unfortunately it never fully cleared
 

Pitched:

Imrahil:  (5L)
plain honey 2.5 kg , w/nutrition. Mead yeast. Starting SG 1150

January:  (5L)
plain honey 3 kg, w/nutrition. Mead yeast. Starting SG 1180. Will it start? (answer: yes, by evening it's bubbling away)

Kiryandil: (5L)
2 kg honey, 500 ml elderflower syrup (~335g sugar) Starting SG 1155

Landroval:  (5L)
Plain honey 2.5kg. spices to be added after racking.