Lots of workings

 Sess came over to help and we did loads of racking and final prep for bottling. 

Aella - rosemary honey mead
Nice rosemary kick! Good mid sweetness. I might bring some to wasteland. Bottled

Xanthe - pine mead
This was already done and we drank some at christmas. It has since settled to be less of a slap in the face with a wet pine branch and more mellow piney woodsy. Pretty strong in alc but hard to measure with all the rest sugar. I'd guess at least 15%. Also might bring this to WW. Bottled. 

Zaqar 

Previously backsweetened with ~450 gr thyme honey. Good sweetness and the thyme flavour has turned up. Planning to make this fizzy and bottle it in champagne bottles. It's ready to go for that

Whaitiri

tea with ginger, lemongrass and Kawakawa. A bit more astringent than I enjoy but Sess likes it a lot. Was already done with bentonite but did not clear, so trying it with superclear. Prepared for bottling and ready as soon as it falls clear. 

Yaffe  (lapsang souchon tea)
Pretty nice. Mellowed out a lot. The orange zest really works for it. Added superclear. Ready to bottle as soon as it falls clear

Calliope (cacao bochet)
There's a heavy bochet flavour going on, that specific kind of acidity. Definitely nowhere near ready for bringing to wasteland. I'm not sure if it needs backsweetening or mainly just time.

Bronwyn (Coffee bochet)
The Tia Maria effect is gone. Vanilla pods helped balance it out some but this still has the heavy acidity of the bochet process. 

 

Fern - heather honey mead

Coming along. The heather honey is noticeabe, very nice spicy nose to it. Planning to sweeten this up with about 1 kilo heather honey. 

 

Dorian - chocolate mead

Not fermented completely dry but too dry anyway - sg about 1010.  Backsweetened with 3 kilo honey.

I didn't really do anything with the mead I just racked

 Calliope (cacao bochet)

What with big renovation and all, this stayed in the bucket far longer than intended. Finally racked it and it's acidic as fuck, but there's more chocolate taste to it than anything made with nibs has ever given me, so there's hope. There's no headroom to add honey right now so I figure I'm letting it clear more first. 

 

Bronwyn (Coffee bochet)

Heavy sweet coffee, drinkable but kind of on the oversweet side. Not quite sure yet how to fix that. Oak extract?

Zaqar 

Previously backsweetened with ~450 gr thyme honey. Not a very distint flavour unfortunately but otherwise drinkable. I could make this one fizzy? 

Aella: 

backsweetened with 900 gr rosemary honey. Not as distinct a rosemary flavour as all-rosemary-honey attempts have been, but pretty good, and drinkable.  

Fennah II: 

Just acceptable plain mead right now. Gonna add fresh mint  

 

Whaitiri

tea with ginger, lemongrass and Kawakawa.

Xanthe (pine tips)

This one is tricky, I think the sweetness is right, there is pineyness, but man that bitter slash isn't gone. I added some pine honey, even though that is definitely not the same. I might be stuck adding honey and acidity until this loses that note. I hope the nose doesn't disappear though.

Yaffe  (lapsang souchon tea)
Smokey! Pretty nice? Good nose and front end, a bit meh on the back end. Thought a fresh note might help and added a tiny bit of orange zest

 

Vercopa

10 liter blackberry mead 

 This is surprisingly light. I think it might be nice fizzy, but I don't know if I'll get enough fermentation kicked off to get it carbonated

 

Upkeep

It was fun having a whole bunch of new batches going at the same time - the sounds of the airlocks were really nice. Like I had a jacuzzi in my living room :-D

Today I slightly belatedly added the thyme honey to Zaqar and the rosemary honey to Aella. Since there wasn't enough headroom, I combined their deplaced volume in a 1 liter bottle:

Diminutive - which I added a couple of spoons of yuzu marmelade to, a splash of yuzu juice, and a big spoon of the pine honey that has that surprising same-sensation-as-date-syrup flavour. Not for any real reason than that it was the only easily accessible jar of honey I had around, the rest of my current stash is in the bucket.

New brewings

 I seem to have lapsed on actually naming batches - the lapsang and pinetips batches still don't have names. Lots of plans to start new things this week so I really should think of some.

New:

• Zaqar 1750 gr honey / mead yeast / to be backsweetened with the ~450 gr thyme honey I've had standing around for the past century
  
  
• Aella: 1500 gr honey / mead yeast / to be backsweetened with the 900 gr rosemary honey I've had standing around for the past century
  
  
• Fennah II: 2000 gr honey / mead yeast / to be flavoured with fresh mint in secondary.  

Here's the rest of the planning list: