Search results

I just tasted a mead made with spring honey that I have sitting in a 12 gallon Acacia barrel. The flavor is real nice already; I am getting notes of apple, pear, honeysuckle, butter and cream. It is taking on a wine-like flavor but still obviously mead. Still a ways from being finished...

RC212 for normal fermentations. D254 for barrel fermentation and sur lee aging.

Thanks for the replies. I am thinking about doing this with a Saison yeast to give a funky flavor. Also, I plan on mashing at 154F for more non-fermentable sugars, hoping to offset the loss in body from the honey being 100% fermentable. Of course, I am assuming a saison yeast would be just...

What do you mean by film at 11?

Will adding sulfites to a weaker braggot (around 7% ABV) protect it like with a drier 10+% wine/mead? I do not want to boil the honey, which would destroy the flavor, and would add it after the wort cools down. My concern is that, unlike wine or mead, a fair amount of complex sugars from the...

Wine is an over saturated market with strongly defined regional palates. The differences in variations tend to be small, and introducing something experimental can be a hard thing to do. For example, in America, breakfast pastries have sweet fruit fillings. In Cuba, they have savory pork...

If you do an Youtube search on the following two phrases you will find a couple of interesting videos on this subject. "Can I Age With Different Woods? Lets Test It!" "Assessing The Wood Experiment" I would post the videos directly, but this guy's hobby is not wine making and not something...

Well salt, like acid, is a flavor enhancer and preserver.

Hello Group, I recently filled a couple of barrel with unfiltered water not knowing issues that could develop from any chlorine my city put in the water. I did acidify the water and added 260 PPM of SO2 after filling the barrels. Should I concerned here? Should I remove the water and fill...

Most Acacia for barrels comes from France and is actually Black Locust, the nominal name, and very invasive. It is not really a rare wood, only very hard and, as such, not easy to saw or mill. If you know what Locust bark looks like, you see it all over the eastern seaboard. It is very...

I tend to disagree. I think a decent amount of sugar does get through the still and into the final product after distillation. My wife and I are both photographers and she had a project last year at a bourbon distiller in NJ. They do not add anything to the product after distilling, but they...

Just to add to this, I have read that wood for wine barrels needs to be at a higher level of quality then for whiskey barrels for a couple of reasons. First, the char of a whisky barrel acts as an activated filter helping to filter out not so pleasant chemicals in the wood. These means that...

I picked up five 10 gallon barrels from a local cooperage this past Monday, two Romanian Oak (M & M+ with LT heads), on American Oak (M+ with LT heads), one Acacia (LT) and one Frankenstein with Acacia (LT) shell and oak (LT) heads. Both types of oak are seasoned 3+ years and the acacia 2+...

When using an yeast with a competitive factor active, like EC-1118 and D-47, I have been foregoing sulfating the must before fermentation with the opinion that the active commercial strain will kill most of what else is in there. As soon as fermentation is over, I would sulfate the wine/mead to...

Certainly not looking to do any YOLO experiments, but trying to find a way to force carbonate before bottling on a small scale is what I am thinking.

Is it possible to carbonate bottled Mead that is on the sweeter side of semi-dry, say around 1.010? My feeling is that traditional bottle conditioning would eat through all of the sugar, making it dry and over-carbonated (possibly leading to exploding bottles). But is there another way of...

Bread flavors in a Show Mead & Acerglyn is what I am concerned about as well, however I feel it would work with a Bochet. That being said, the Show Mead I am doing will be aged in a Frankenstein barrel with Acacia sides and oak heads, so that could help with keeping the bread flavors at bay.

What are the opinions on Sur Lee aging meads? I have a few barrels coming next month and I plan on making a few different styles of mead I have been working on for the last half year. I am thinking about Sur Lee aging some of them. I kind of feel that it would help with a Show Mead and...

Anyone know how the taste of Acacia change with different toast levels? A local cooperage offers barrels all their barrels with all levels of toast and char, so I was kind of wondering. I have only every read Acacia being light toasted and it giving floral flavors. Just wondering how that...

I actually read that they give a floral note with a bit of spiciness, albeit less intense flavor then oak. I am interested in how it would work with a mead.