More mead ideas

 I have dried pine tips that smell delicious and I think I'll make tea of that and then brew with it

I have dried hibiscus flowers

I am considering lapsang suchon tea mead

All Rise Up (Again) - update

 I actually did the degassing and feeding for this batch in the first weeks! It's much less scary in a bucket with some headroom, if I do that in a carboy I get a fountain. 

The batch has been ticking along and SG was at about 1008 this morning, which is definitely too dry and it's likely to still be fermenting a little. So after some calculations I caramellised  another 2 kilo of honey and mixed it in - we're now at 1030. That's usually about where I like it, but we'll see how that turns out. If it ferments off a bit more it may need more backsweetening. 

It can stay in the kitchen until I start tidying up before christmas, then hopefully it'll have dropped the worst of the lees and can go into the carboy

All Rise Up (Again)

 All Rise Up (Again)

In january 2017 on the day before the US inauguration we dreaded, bestie Sess and I made a mead and called it All Rise Up. A quince bochet. It turned out a lot better than all the political stuff. 

Now on the day before the 2020 US elections I am making that mead again. Maybe the yeasties will eat the stress and the dread and make something beautiful again. 

5 gallons. 

8 kilo well-caramellised cheap-ass Lidl honey
~16 liters quince juice, part from last year and part new
mead yeast. 

It's going to be living in the bucket on my tiny kitchen counter for a week or two until it's dropped a good deal of its sediment (bochet has a lot). I made a little extra to account for the loss.