Rackings

Seraph (date syrup)
1010 / 17%
Sharp. I don't know what to think. Let's age it and see what happens

Tai
1000 / 17%
Added 500gr honey

Ruby
1000 / 16%
Added 650 gr honey
Not very nice, but orangey, so we'll see what that ages into

Noon - fig
1022 / 18%
Tastes 'winey'. Nice. Yeast-stopped

Paloma - raspberry
1000 / 17%
Obviously dry/acicidic
This might be a good one to make carbonated wine with?

Kearney
1030
Spicy, the cacao is still acidic. This is gonna need time.
Bentonite to clear it

Many Meads

Full to capacity! Only thing I have empty is a 5L and a 10L bottle to make racking easy. 

Uriel

Uriel - 19L/5 gallon plain mead

19 liter! 19!
Starting SG ~1102

6.5 kilo honey
mead yeast

Decided to do this plain and I can split it out to flavour it in secondary or something.

Tai

Tai - 10L

250 gr cacao nibs and 1 box of Bengal Spice chai boiled in a couple of liter water
~3500 gr honey
Mead yeast

Starting SG ~1100

I exhausted the nibs and the teabags by pouring off the tea and then putting in new hot water. Might still add more in secondary if it needs it.
The stopper for this carboy is allllmost in too deep and I am Concerned. MUST get it out when I replace the blowoff tube with an airlock, can't just jam in an airlock or the stopper will end up inside the carboy. Use some kind of hooked thingy through the stopper's hole to yank it out.

update: got the stopper out with a clotheshanger. 

Seraph

Seraph - date (5L)

1500 gr honey
300 gr date syrup
sherry/mead yeast

Starting SG 1100

Date syrup has an interesting flavour, fruity but with a hint of salt, almost like zwart wit/salmiak powder. Maybe I should have added it in secondary, I don't know.

Racking

Lane - ginger/apple/hibiscus tea

SG 1032
18%

Smells amazing - appley! Tasting both the apple and ginger, not sure if I get the hibiscus. good sweetness. Aftertaste is a bit hot. Currently in the fridge to cold crash.

Wait, did I put yeast stop in this? I've been thinking about doing a carbonated batch and this would work for it. Shit, my notes don't say. Though even if I didn't, I think this is too fermented out to get going again. Might try it a second time with this tea though, I like the result.

Moragh - coffee

SG 1012
19% ?
Was a bit scared to try this but it's not bad. Mostly dry. Smells of coffee for sure. Taste is a bit acidic from the coffee and maybe I just don't like black coffee... but meh. Added yeast stop + 125 gr honey, cold crashing it. IDK if I'll ever want to drink this. Maybe if I age it?

Noon - fig

SG 0.999
17%
+350 gr honey to SG 1022
No taste notes. Kinda too early to tell anyway.

Kearney - cacao + bengal spice 

SG 1030
17%
Oh this smells SO GOOD. Taste is more mellow than the peppery hit of Chai, but very nice. Wish there was a more pronounced cacao flavour but I think it's there. More nibs for the big batch I plan to make (10L). Or make cacao nib tea?

Added yeast stop & bentonite

Ode - strawberry & apple

SG 0.999
14/15% alc

+ 275 gr honey & yeast stop
No taste notes. Kinda too early and too dry to tell anyway.

The Bottling

Sess came to help me and we bottled 40 liters of mead. Go us! My basement storage is suddenly full again.

Hild - 5L - bochet

SG 1040
Alc 15%

Very dark and beautiful colour. Good sweetness with enough complexity. Fruity caramel aftertaste.

bottles:
4 x 0.75
1  x 0.5
3 x 0.33
1 x 0.25

June - 10L - Cacao/Maple

SG 1034
Alc ~19? I think that's probably not right.

Beautiful dark red-brown colour. Currently not tasting the maple.  Right now it has that 90% cacao chocolate aftertaste - the acidity needs to mellow out and then I think this will be wonderful. I might try a little bottle by Christmas, but I think this needs at least a year. It tastes of potential, so I have hope and will make patience.

Bottles:
1 x 1L
8 x 0.75
2 x 0.5
5 x 0.33

Edain - 5L - Lemon Vanille

SG 1052
Alc 17%

Surprisingly not acidic at all - the tannin must have done its job slowly. I wish I had waited to backsweeten until I'd given the tannin some time because I would have liked this better a touch less sweet. It's a little on the over-sweet for me now, the vanilla comes out more and surprisingly the lemon mellowed way down. It's unexpectedly flowery with lemon aftertaste. Very summery.

Dale - 5L - pomegranate and vanille

 SG 1052
Alc ~20%? I don't think that's right

Same thing as with Edain - the tannin must have done more than expected, because the acidity is way down and it's lost that typical sour-dry-bitter mouthfeel.  Very sweet (a bit too much, again) fruity, very drinkable.

Idria (Gaia + Idris) - 13 liter - apple bochet

SG 1030
Alc 13%

Beautiful deep dark colour. And oh, this is GOOD. There's a bit of appelstroop to it, caramellisation is noticeable but not overpowering. Sweetness is just right. Very very drinkable and I'm excited to have 13 liter of it. 

Bottles:
4 x 1L
8 x 0.75
1 x 0.5
8 x 0.33

Ruby - blood orange mead

Ruby - 10L

3 kilo honey
3 liters blood orange juice
port yeast
bit of tannin
bit of enzym

Orange rind (lots!) to be added in secondary to hopefully get a good orangy flavour to it.

10 liters so may end up splitting this out for secondary and do half with cacao and half with rosemary

Quasi - Lemon & Thyme mead (to be)

Quasi - 5L

1150 gr honey
Champagne yeast

Intending to add lemon zest and backsweeten it with thyme honey 

Might be a good candidate to try carbonating?

Mead to-do list

 Fix in primary:

• Bengal spice and cacao - again, long aging
• Bochet with vanilla
• Blueberry juice. Like, a LOT of it. I just finished a bottle of Yngvi and that had no colour at all.  Shame
• Lapsang Sauchong tea mead
• Nettle-rosemary tea mead

  Fix in secondary:

• Lemon (just zest, not juice) and thyme (honey? Or herb?)
• Orange (rind, not juice?) and cacao - note long aging time
• Dates. Or date syrup?
• Rosehip. I have a bag of dried rosehip
• Speculaas spices. 
• Mint? Lemon and mint?
• Cinnamon and mint? 
• Something something rosemary
• A fizzy mead!

Free right now:
5 L  Plain primary, add lemon zest & backsweeten with thyme honey
5 L  Lapsang tea
10 L Bengal spice tea
10 L - orange: split later into half + cacao and half + rosemary
19 L - something accessible. Plain with spices in secondary

Paloma ?

Paloma

~1 kilo of raspberries. End-of-market-day-sale stuff so carefully picked out the bad ones and the bad pieces, but decided to cook to mush and then juice just to make sure I'm not putting in any Ick
1 cup of brewed black tea. Forseeing the tannin issue again with such an acidic fruit so seeing if the tea will help me get ahead of that.
~1650 gr honey
port yeast

Starting SG 1105

Ode

Ode

This looked completely inactive once in the carboy so I checked it this afternoon.

SG 0.999
Alc 12%

No wonder the yeast wasn't doing anything anymore. I added about 400gr honey. Wanted to add more but no more headroom. There's gonna be a lot of sediment so next racking I'll lose some volume and add more honey.

Ode de-bucketing

The worst of the fermentation storm has passed (it has been really hot here so I'm expecting this will need a lot of aging) so I put this in a glass carboy. Couldn't seem to siphon it off the strawberry pulp so ended up pouring it through the funnel with a filter in it. More aerating than I wanted to, but ah well. It's early enough that maybe the yeast will like that. Who knows.

Ode - apple-strawberry mead

Ode
1 kilo strawberries, because it's the season
3.5 l homemade apple juice
Sherry yeast (I think it's the same strain as mead yeast anyway)

Starting gravity ~1080.
Cooked the strawberries to mush in the apple juice. The whole thing is in a bucket to avoid repeating the foam disaster I had with Noon.

Noon - fig mead

Noon
1600 gr honey
6 fresh-frozen then briefly stewed figs
1 dried fig
port yeast