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**seth8530** · 06-19-2011, 05:10 AM

Ok, guys and girls. I was down in Georgia (dont ask why) and i happend on a farmers market in the middle of a festival and they were selling honey for 45 bucks for the gallon.. Needless to say i walked away with 13.75 lbs of honey for 60 dollars. So i have decided to make mead. Im shooting for a gravity of 13 percent and I was wondering if their was anything i needed to know about it besided the lack of nutrients.. Should I add spices or fruit to it? any ideas?

**fatbloke** · 06-19-2011, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seth8530

Ok, guys and girls. I was down in Georgia (dont ask why) and i happend on a farmers market in the middle of a festival and they were selling honey for 45 bucks for the gallon.. Needless to say i walked away with 13.75 lbs of honey for 60 dollars. So i have decided to make mead. Im shooting for a gravity of 13 percent and I was wondering if their was anything i needed to know about it besided the lack of nutrients.. Should I add spices or fruit to it? any ideas?

Well, it depends on what it is that you're actually looking for.

Something that's very "wine like" ? If so, then a dry traditional.

Or maybe something that still shows some of the honey character? well that's also gonna be a traditional, but probably with back sweetening.

Or maybe dry sparkling ?

Or is there a local fruit that you like ? maybe you could try that or just something that's in season at the moment.....

Maybe it's something a little more "exotic" that you've got in mind, maybe like a Bochet (burnt honey mead) ?

You've plenty of choices, but you'll have to narrow things down a little as basically, you've got the start of just about anything.

If you want "easy", then google for the JAO recipe - and whatever you do, make it "as per the recipe", then you'll have a benchmark to work from. Don't doubt the presence of orange peel, pith and all. Don't over do the spices, as that can make it undrinkable. Just follow the instructions......

Hence, it's up to you what direction you want to head in.......

**seth8530** · 06-19-2011, 09:51 PM

I want a traditional mead. One that would not be odd for a viking to drink. I do plan on back sweetening it. What kind of spices would be good to use?

**seth8530** · 06-19-2011, 09:53 PM

Im also shooting for a bout 12-13 percent alcohol and i want to use my lavlin champagne yeast that i have on hand. Along with a healthy helping of nutrient.

**seth8530** · 06-20-2011, 07:03 PM

Ok, i decided on a strawberry mead. My recipe is as follows.

12 lbs strawberry in panty hose.
13.75lbs of farmers honey.
one pint of home made strawberry butter.
pectic enzyme and wine tannin.

right now the gravity level allows for an 11 percent potential. Im hoping after i let this sit over night that the pectic enzyme will go to work on the strawberrys and will raise it up to about 13 to 14 percent.

Any questions or comments? suggestions?

**seth8530** · 06-20-2011, 09:00 PM

Ok, the potential has now dropped down to about 10 percent with no fermentation. So im gona go and buy two more quarts of honey and shooting for about a 15 percent potential. I think i have about 6.5 gallons of mead ^_^

**seth8530** · 06-20-2011, 10:35 PM

ok added four and a half pints of dark honey and it seems to of brought the sugar level up to somewhere between 13.5 and 14 percent potential. im gona try and wait till tomorrow and then i will check the level before pitching in the yeast.

**fatbloke** · 06-21-2011, 08:00 PM

There's little point in quoting "alcohol potential", as that's rather meaningless. Here, and many other forums, it's mainly "gravity" readings/measurements (expressed to 3 decimal places), or maybe a "brix" measurement, as that's popular in the US and is easily converted to gravity measurements.

Champagne yeast is not really good to use, as you'll find that it does seem to blow a lot of the flavour and aroma elements straight out the airlock and the resultant mead can take a long time to recover, if ever.

You end up with a mead that's likely to be "alcohol hot" and when that flavour fades, unremarkable tasting mead that's not really very distinctive.

Most wine yeasts are good for at least 14%. D47 is popular, but really needs to be fermented in the mid 60's F, otherwise you can get a lot of fusels..... 71B is good and produces meads that can be drinkable a little quicker than might otherwise be the case. K1V is also good, has a higher alcohol tolerance and a very wide temperature range. Yes, meads can taste a little "rough" when young but it seems to age beautifully.

I'm also a fan of D21 (much harder to get in home brew sized packs though).

So, also, to get the maximum out of the strawberries, I'd suggest that you ferment the mead without the fruit to start with, then add the fruit into secondary, or even tertiary. Again, the very vigorous first part of the ferment can easily reduce the fruit flavour/aroma part, which is usually why a lot of people will split the fruit, or put it in secondary (or tertiary), because it seems to preserve more of the fruit flavour and can also help toward making the mead drinkable earlier.

As for your initial question about spices, well I'd say that the spices should match the fruit i.e. ones that have a proven link like apple and cinnamon, etc etc. Strawberries ? well if you consult anyone with a little "cheffy" type knowledge they seem to go well with, of all things, black pepper. Though I like them (well as a smoothie) with a little vanilla. Either way, it's worth heeding Joe Mattioli's advice in the "JAO" recipe about not over doing the spices, when he alludes to cloves. It's very easy to use too much and make a batch undrinkable, so with the spices, it really does seem that "less is more".

regards

fatbloke

**seth8530** · 06-22-2011, 03:31 AM

Alright, well its too late for a different choice of yeast. You think i could get more strawberry goodness by leaving these in from the primary and into the secondary? Also, i dont want it to be dominated by strawberry. I want it to be mainly mead with a strawberry flavor in it.

Also i have a 1.05 starting gravity and right now it is at 1.097

**fatbloke** · 06-24-2011, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seth8530

Alright, well its too late for a different choice of yeast. You think i could get more strawberry goodness by leaving these in from the primary and into the secondary? Also, i dont want it to be dominated by strawberry. I want it to be mainly mead with a strawberry flavor in it.

Also i have a 1.05 starting gravity and right now it is at 1.097

You might have to clarify the numbers, because 1.05(0)? is lower than 1.097

You've put the fruit in the primary, well that's fine. If you did find that there's not enough strawberry flavour, then you can always steep some in it later to increase it.

Well done getting it underway. Oh and I presume you're using the same user name over at gotmead. There is a few other places with mead forums, I try to keep my eyes open as I don't care where info comes from, just that its good.

regards

fatbloke