Meadings

Sess came and we did a bunch!

Fern
The ten liter heather honey mead I was so sad was bitter. I think the bitterness already improved a bit. SG 1.030. Somehow I thought it was sweeter so did not consider upping the sweetness to counteract the bitter - I figured that would just make it sweet AND bitter. At 1030 it was worth a try. We mixed it with about two liters of January (finished too soon and much too sweet) and that levelled it out to very drinkable. What a relief!

Result: Fernuary
Fern + 2 liters of January. This worked perfectly. Still heathery, but now tastes earthy/herby instead of bitter. The heather nose remains strong (yay). Like walking past a heath in bloom.
SG 1.050, no starting gravity for Fern but approx alcohol level 12%?



Very belated realisation that batches I(Imrahil) J(January), K(Kiryandil) and L(Landroval) all somehow stopped fermenting much too early. They were all much too sweet and on calculating, nowhere near alcoholic enough to warrant the yeast just packing it in. Not sure what happened there.


January:
SG 1125 (!) and on calculation maybe 7.5% vol.
2 liters mixed with Fern. Rest mixed with spiced rum, bottled, then on reconsideration unbottled to clear it.


Imrahil:
SG: 1070. 10.5 % alcohol, but it's just way too sweet. Repitched with port yeast.


Kiryandil:
SG 1092 approx 7.5% alcohol.
Added juice and pulp of 4 oranges + zest of half one. Repitched with port yeast.


Landroval:
SG1080. approx 7.5% alcohol. Repitched with port yeast.

Fennah II
SG 1042. Alcohol ~13%

A throwback to my 6th ever mead batch.
Tasted, heartily approved of and bottled. Lovely and minty, almost green-tasting. Not green like freshly mown grass, but sitting in a field of grass. Summery.

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.