Tasty list

Due to unforeseen travel plans this winter, I have decided to give mead as gifts. For that I need a little list of which batches I think are good enough to give away.Bold is what I'm happy to serve to somebody else.

Alexis plain: nice sack mead
Alexis with strawberry syrup: haven't tried yet
Brynn: need to taste this
Caelan: carbonated, bit dry. Nice
Drake: need to taste this
Ehle: still in demijohn
Fennah: spicy heavy/sweet mead [ran out!]
Gwyllion: elderberry port. Suppose I could pull open a bottle and see how this has turned out
Halle: Quince mead - very nice! [ran out!]
Imre: sourish fresh apple wine. Not sure about this as a gift.Maybe as a second bottle of 'hey, try this' and not as the main gift.
Jove: still in demi
Keir: recently bottled
Lisidh: still in demi
Merryn: heavy, sweet, not as spicy as I had expected. Very nice.
Nuggan: heavy, sweet, very nice

finally an update

Okay, so this was long overdue. I haven't been in the mood to mess with brewing and thankfully it doesn't really hurt any to just leave it for a while. Today I got around to it though.

Jove (apple mead)
SG 1000, 14% alcohol
Very dry. Racked and added 300 gr honey

Keir (raspberry mead)
SG 1004, 16.5% alcohol
Not sure how thrilled I am with this, but I bottled it. It was a little fizzy, and I'm beginning to wonder if that's just what certain types of fruit do? Back when with Caelan (blueberry) and Drake (strawberry) the fizz never quite went away. (Keir is raspberry). I bottled into champagne bottles. See how that turns out.

Lisidh (sack mead)
SG 1002, 8.5% alcohol
Fed this 500gr honey. I'm not sure if there are still yeasties around to eat it though. That's one disadvantage to taking a year-long break..

Nuggan (2l batch, sack mead)
SG 1026, 18% alcohol
Small batches go faster - this one proves it. SUPER nice heavy sack mead, and it's only half a year old. Which is awesome. Shame that the 2l vessels are an absolute pain to work with (my siphon doesn't fit) and then you only have 2 litre of the very nice stuff. Bottled this.

Merryn (2l batch, oranges/cinnamon/clove/allspice)
SG 1030, 19%
The only reason this isn't rocket fuel is because it's so heavy. Haven't done a proper tasting, but it seemed promising. Bottled it.

Ehle (cacao mead)
SG 1000, don't think I tested alc vol.
Last time I touched this is a full year ago. (Ehle was started in august '09) I think it might be slightly more palatable, but not exactly drinkable. Still keeping this stuff around in the vague hope it'll turn drinkable at some point. Maybe the 4th year will be the charm?

Racking

Lisidh:
pale yellow and cloudy, typical plain mead still in active progress, though the primary fermentation is mostly done. Has almost completely stopped bubbling the waterlock (maybe once a week, maybe less), but still quite fizzy when racked - too fizzy to get an accurate SG measuring.
Somewhere between 1018 and 1032 SG is the best I can say. About 14% alcohol.
This one might be headed for champagne bottles. I can't figure out why some meads stop bubbling and go still, and others stop bubbling and stay fizzy.

Keir:
Has completely fallen clear and is a beautiful raspberry red. Smells good, a sourish sort of fresh. Less than a bubble a week now, and only very slightly fizzy.
SG 1020, alcohol 15.5%

Jove:
Dark cloudy yellow. Bubbles a couple of times a day. Very fizzy, SG approx 1018, alcohol impossible to measure at this point.

Pix or it didn't happen:

Introducing

Jove
- 1300 gr honey
- 1 litre homemade Elstar apple juice
- 50ml fresh lemon juice
- 1 tsp pectine enzym
- 1 tsp yeast starter
- 1/2 tsp yeast ('aromatic')

Keir
- ~1800gr honey
- 0.5l homemade raspberry juice
- 1 tsp pectine enzym
- 1 tsp yeast starter
- 1/2 tsp yeast ('aromatic')

Lisidh
- ~1800gr honey
- 1 tsp yeast starter
- 1/2 tsp yeast ('aromatic')