Strawberry Mead

[WVMountaineerJack]

We have never been a fan of lightly fruit flavored meads, the weak fruit flavor does not do it for us so we like to push in as much fruit as possible, substitute honey for the sugar and backsweeten with honey so we know we can get the honey taste in there also, maybe equally beside the fruit or in the background but still easily being able to tell this is a mead.

40 pounds of strawberries, Sams Club, steamed
1.25 gallons of Thistle honey, this is a very light honey, its only been strained and no other heat or chemical treatments, from our local beeman
Maybe 25 grams toasted oakmor just for a little oak flavor
Fermaid at the start and Femtocel P halfway through for nutrients
Pectinase for the strawberry juice, let that work overnight
Add some bentonite to take out the proteins in the honey and add a good strong yeast starter to get things rolling.
I think I am going to treat this like a white wine and do it all under airlock to seal in our those strawberry flavors.
We probablly wont chapatalize with more honey since its a very light fruit.

Hope to start this next weekend after we get our new hives painted.

Crackedcork

 

[Deezil]

Another thing that might help retain some of the fruitiness is if you ferment it a little cooler than normal & seeing how meads generally take longer to ferment anyways... As long as its not too cold, i think you'd be alright and wouldnt face the fermentation stalling.

Just a thought.

Will you be adding the honey in all at once or in stages?

 

[mmadmikes1]

Don't try to ferment mead cooler, it stands a good chance of getting stuck. Step feeding honey is good but saving 15 pounds of the strawberry's to add at end is "The Bomb". BY step feeding honey you conserve a lot of the honey flavor. The recipe you posted is perfect in my opinion

 

[Deezil]

I wasnt meaning anything any cooler than about 68, room temp. Which would put a fermenting must in the 69-71ish area, provided theres step-feedings and it cant get carried away. But thats opposed to a room temp of 75ish.

What temp would you ferment meads at mike? By no means am i perfect, i imagine you've made a few more meads than me

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

We do our fermentations in our basement, if its really cold out I put them in the basement bathroom with a radiator heater and keep it at 75, when its not cold out or we want to do something white we leave it out in the big rooms where its about 68. I was planning on doing this cooler like a white since we are steam juicing them. I dont want to drive the alchohol to high by chapatilizing this batch but we are going to backsweeten with thistle honey. I did bomb a port I made this year with some strawberries, I think that is going to add some nice nose to it in the end and I might do that if I have room in the big carboy I make the primary in leaving the berries whole. We add fermaid to our meads at the beginning, and then spike them with some fermocel P or something like that to carry them through tough ferments, as long as they are warm enough we havent had anything get stuck for years.

Crackedcork

 

[mmadmikes1]

I never go below 70 with mead. Correction I did twice and both got stuck. CC I make high ABV mead to avoid adding chemicals to preserve and protect. If I want lower AVB I use a lower tolerant yeast. Am using am ale yeast in my new one. I hope it turns out like cream soda

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

I see that a lot, I understand what the chemicals are for and how to use them so its not a problem. I like to use winemaking yeast to get the job done, we also like to feed them well. We stir in the honey with a degassing drill attachment to get things off to a good start. I have also read that honey throws off the TA measurment so we usually measure the TA before adding the honey and adjust the must based on the fruit, and since we use a lot of fruit I usually dont have to adjust unless I am using elderberries. I think our meads are more like honey wine than beer mead, you wouldnt have a hard time guessing that there is a lot of fruit in there but you also would notice a nice taste of honey behind it. We have sent some meads to mead comps, they are very strict about their definition of meads but I like mine better, wine with all the sugar coming from the honey or fruit. Cracked

 

[mmadmikes1]

The Ale yeast I am using is the first time I have tried it. It has an ABV tolerance of 8%. I am going for a soda pop kinda drink this time. This is a first try. Every other time I have used a wine yeast. I have had to adjust PH when ever I make pure honey mead because honey is neutral (7). But your right, enough berries will solve that every time. Good luck with the strawberry.