I'm glad you liked the mead. My OB mead has been bottled since May and I'm looking forward to tasting it in a couple of years. We have a local winery that makes an OB mead and mine was a very close match, maybe a bit sweeter.
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Orange Blossom Honey
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I racked it to the secondary on 9/25/2007 and bottled it 5/2/2009. I cleared it on March 1. Originally this was started to top off my son's graduation mead, so I started with 1 1/2 gallons. Shockingly we only needed 1/2 gallon to top off his. In case anyone is interested mango, papaya, and pineapple can throw off a LOT of lees. He still has enough to make 3 gallons of wine but is not interested in battling the mush. Maybe we can steam juice the rest?
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I don't know why either. Most everyone likes it when they taste it. Perhaps there is a preconceived notion its honey so its going to be sweet. Plus for meads to be really good you need to just forget about them for a while. Yours is great now but give it a couple and it will be awesome. We have 2 local wineries that make mead. One of them is the OB mead and its fantastic along with all their wines. I'm trying to convince them to make both a cranberry and a lime mead. The other place is just awful and they pedal it at the Renaissance Fair. I've had it several times and its just off balance and way too young. I think that is just their style because all of their wines taste off.
For those that have never made any mead. Make some and then put it away for a few years. It's addicting.
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For those that have never made any mead. Make some and then put it away for a few years. It's addicting.
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It is also a good idea not to lose your wine/mead making journal. I lost my 2006 winemaking journal. When I tasted the mead after bottling, it tastes good but is a bit watery/thin tasting (even though I used fifteeen pounds of honey). I just remembered that I was supposed to acid test the mead and forgot to do that. I'm going to add some acid blend to a glass and see if it makes a difference. This is the first batch of mead where I followed Ken Schramm's advice not to add acid until after fermentation because an accurate acid reading cannot be obtainedprefermentation in a honey must. I know that I wrote down in my notes to do such a test, but missed that step. I think an acid adjustment would have improved this batch. Live and learn.
I've completely forgotten about that as well. I've started just adding it in any way at the start.
Years ago my hard drive crashed and we lost everything. Most of it could be duplicated but it was time consuming. After that I became as my family puts anal about backing everything up. I usually make about 4 backups plus 2 DVD copies. We have a yahoo group family site and I keep a back up of my wine and mead notes there as well.
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Years ago my hard drive crashed and we lost everything. Most of it could be duplicated but it was time consuming. After that I became as my family puts anal about backing everything up. I usually make about 4 backups plus 2 DVD copies. We have a yahoo group family site and I keep a back up of my wine and mead notes there as well.
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You could always buy a new carboy. At least that's the excuse I using to buy 2 more 5 gallon & 2 more 3 gallon carboys soon. I think I'll even surprise my husband with them. After all its hard to return something if its already full.
gaudet
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I have two empties right now that are reserved for 12 gallons of muscadine wines as I pitched yeast yesterday. I might buy a couple more but I really would be stretched for space without renovating my wine closet. I want to get two 3 gallon carboys since there are a bunch of limited editions I'd like to try.
We aim to please! BTW the key lime honey was flavored - not the direction I wanted to go. But I found some coconut water during one of my "lets see how many health food stores we have around here trips." So my new game plan is to use the coconut water with key limes and "put de lime in de coconut, and drank 'em bot' up" Eventually! I have everything but the limes and an empty car-baby.
Still need to pick up a couple more carboys but I am not in a hurry since I am not ready to start the ABC mead until fall - or maybe for Mead Day (the first Saturday in August).
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Still need to pick up a couple more carboys but I am not in a hurry since I am not ready to start the ABC mead until fall - or maybe for Mead Day (the first Saturday in August).
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gaudet
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Got off my duff and washed and sanitized some bottles this morning in anticipation of bottling this mead. I had to drive out to the LHBS to get some more corks since I was out. When I got home I proceded to rack this one straight into the primary bucket for bottling. Once it was in, I got my bottles set and started that familiar process. I added 1/4 tsp k-meta for good measure. When all was said and done there was still a good bit left in the original carboy so I bottled it and placed it in the fridge for consumption in the near future. I got 29 and 1/2 bottles, not counting the 1 whole bottle that had the lees in it. I think that one will probably yield a half bottle of mead. After backsweetening it with 3 pounds of orange blossom honey, it rested with a final SG of 1.014. A small glass was tasted and I think that it is way too early to tell how this will be. I don't want to open a bottle for at least a month. But I'm sure I will open one in the next few weeks.
This was started in Oct/Nov 2008 so I would expect it to come of age after October.
This was started in Oct/Nov 2008 so I would expect it to come of age after October.
