Mead weekend with Sess

 Racked:

Fern

SG 1028. I made this with the precious heather honey. It smells delicious. It's bitter. To my senses, very in your face bitter before I even get to any sweetness. So disappointing! I don't know what to do with it either, acidity only made it fresher and bitter. 

 Dorian

SG 1060. Cacao. This is coming along. Still some acidity. Also some haze. Racked it out of the big glass jug so I can retire that (I keep seeing reddit posts about them breaking). It still has cacao haze.

Imrahil:  

plain honey 2.5 kg. Starting SG 1150. Final SG 1070. Heavy and sweet. Trying to decide what kind of spice to add to this. Put in bentinite to clear it.

January:  

plain honey 3 kg, Starting SG 1180. This was more of an experiment than a place. It only fermented to 1140, far too sweet to be palateble. Am now trying to see if I can get a port yeast psyched enough to take over but I don't think that's very likely. I can just brew something really dry to mix with it I guess.

Kiryandil: 

2 kg honey, 500 ml elderflower syrup (~335g sugar) Starting SG 1155. Final SG 1092.
This tastes okay! Bit too heavy for my tastes. Might need another flavour to lift it. Maybe elderberry? Added bentonite.

Landroval: 

Plain honey 2.5kg. Final SG 1080. Heavy and sweet. Trying to decide what kind of spice to add to this. Put in bentinite to clear it.

 

Bottled:

Eglentine

SG 1050. Nice and sweet, apple and hibiscus, the ginger didn't really develop sadly. 

Hasufel

A sweet pear mead that has amazing notes of cinnamon and caramellisation even though that didn't happen to it.  Only about 3.5 liters left of this. Bottled it mostly in small bottles because it's amazing and precious. 

 

Planned:

A large batch of bochet with pear juice

 

 

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.

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.

New: Dorian, Eglentine, Fern

 Dorian

On the principle that chocolate mead takes so long that by the time it tastes good I am forever regretting not making more, a 20 liter chocolate mead.
Well, started at 24 liters in the big bucket. You tend to lose a bunch as the cacao drops, and I can put excess in a separate demi.
starting gravity  1130 (!)

10 kilo honey
600 gr cacao
Mead yeast
Yeast activator
Fermaid o

Eglentine
18 liter apple/ginger/hibiscus mead
Had a box and a half of this now sadly discontinued tea and figured I should use it before it goes stale. Brewed the tea to bring out the ginger (This is the third time I make this one; first was seeped tea, the second just had the tea put in in secondary and that doesn't work, you don't get the ginger heat)

~30 teabags seeped in near-boiling water
~7.5 kilo honey
Mead yeast & activator

No starting gravity because we made it directly into the demijohn and I could not be arsed to stir sufficiently and then draw up a sample. Laziness

Fern
Ten liter Heather honey mead
Received this honey as a gift after an unpaid internship years ago and I've been doing the 'what if I ruin the good art supplies' thing. I could probably make it go further if I used some plain honey to start with, but decided to Just Go For It.

3.9 kilo Heather honey
Yeast activator
Mead yeast
Fermaid o

Again, no starting gravity because we made it directly into the demijohn and I could not be arsed to stir sufficiently and then draw up a sample. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯