Bottling day!

So I should have done this about 8 months ago but who cares, it's finally done:


Wuluwaid:
Heavy, syrupy sweet but with enough green/spiciness to make it interesting. In hindsight just a touch of acid might have lifted it a little.
SG 1060, alcohol 18%

Bob Ross (The Happy Accident)
Wild yeast, so you never know what you're gonna get. This was originally a honey syrup so should have ended up somewhere like Wuluwaid (I thought) but instead it's dry, still very sweet and weirdly 'thin'. Almost like the sweetness you get from stevia, sweetness without body, as it were. Weird stuff.
SG 1002 (??) and alcohol 17%

Yngvi
Not as blueberry-tasting as I'd hoped, but very drinkable
SG: 1020, alcohol 18%

Undine
Thyme honey mead. This is delicious and there's a distinct thyme profile that adds but doesn't overwhelm. Sweetness is exactly right; the sweetness level people expect from mead without being syrupy.
SG 1030, alcohol 16%

Veritas
Sage honey mead. Sweetness adjustment worked. This is very flavourful and the sage honey brings an interesting but not overwhelming profile to it.
SG 1030, alcohol 17%

Xenia
Orange & spice mead. A little underwhelmed with the spice at first taste, but it's mainly just hard to taste because the alcohol percentage is so high. It tastes very hot. Hopefully it'll mellow out some. 
SG 1015, alcohol 20%

Zephyr - racked
Quince mead. It's been sitting on its sediment for ages and you can taste it, but that will age out. Pretty happy with the sweetness level. 
SG 1015, alcohol 17%

Racking time

I'm not a lazy brewer, I just like slow mead. 
No, I'm totally lazy. I feel like doing brewing stuff only a couple times a year, because making space in my oddly laid-out house and sanitising everything is such a giant pain. So my meads spend up to half a year in primary, and then in secondary pretty much until I feel motivated to go through the process of collecting and cleaning labels off of enough bottles. 

But this past week somebody gave me 5 kg of quince, and I remember how nicely the Halle batch of quince mead turned out. So I borrowed a steam extractor and chopped fruit and... got a lot of quince juice. Like... a LOT. 8 liter in total. 

Halle was made with 1.5 liter juice, though I expect a lot of this juice will be weaker than that was. So maybe I'll just up the juice ration in the new batch. I need to think about doing some more medium-dry meads, since I'm not brewing for my own tastes - I hardly drink it.

But first I racked the batches I had standing: 

Wuluwaid  - a 2 liter 'heavy' 
Eucalyptus honey and you can taste it, heavy sweet syrupy but with enough depth from the Eucalyptus.
SG 1060
18% - bang on what I expect from my 2 liter batches of heavies.
Added yeast stop and a few drops of oak extract

Undine 
The Thyme honey one. As expected super dry. Taste note: 'Not bad just dry' (which is saying something coming from me, I don't like dry meads) but in need of a bit of sweet.

SG 1004
15% alcohol
Added yeast stop and 450 gr thyme honey. Still considering some thyme leaves.

Yngvi
Blueberry mead. Taste note: A little jetfueley but not bad, sweet enough, just needs to age
SG: 1022
18% alcohol (whoa, did not expect that) 
Added yeast stop

Veritas
Sage honey mead. Much like Undine - you can smell and taste the sage (mmm spicey) but it's too dry. 
SG: 1002
14% alcohol
Added yeast stop and 450 gr sage honey

Xenia 
Orange mead. I'd never tried this so my taste note is 'Not sure if like?' then I saw the alcohol percentage and understood why it was hard to tell.
I was concerned about it not clearing but it's cleared beautifully. Pecto enzym magic. Of course, I lost a liter of volume from all the pulp. Ah well. 
SG: 1020 (happy!)
21% ¿¡!? alcohol. Whoa. 
Added yeast stop, a small piece of cinnamon and a single clove.

Undine
900 gr thyme honey
450 gr flower honey
Mead yeast

I need to cycle to the beekeeper sometime soon and buy maybe another 900 gr thyme honey - it's pricy but if I'm going to brew with it we should be tasting it. I'm also considering brewing thyme tea and introducing some of that. Or maybe just some thyme leaves?

Veritas
900gr Sage honey
450 gr forest honey
mead yeast

Same thing with the added honey. Adding 450 gr is not enough - 1800 gr honey is too dry for me on a 5 liter batch. Not sure about adding sage leaves. Raw sage doesn't smell very good to me, so I think I'll leave that and just get some more of the honey

Wuluwaid (2 L) -  Australian rainmaker
900 gr Eucalyptus honey
mead yeast