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I am thinking about upscaling a couple recipes I have for mead to 10 gallon batches and aging them in small new Acacia barrels. I would like to get at least 6 months of barrel time for this test, but fear this would be too long in a new barrel. I was thinking about storing water in the...

Thanks for the tips. My target FG is 1.010 using D47. The limit of D47 is 15% ABV, but could go as high as 16% under the right circumstances. I feel my current experiment should hit close to my target. After, I plan on barrel fermenting a 15 gallon batch in a new barrel and perform a Sur...

I am not an expert by any stretch, but I would say it depends on what you are looking for. I would use EC-1118 for a crisper version or D47 for a fuller flavored one, or as full flavored a weak mead would be. I personally made meads under 9% and found them too week in flavor without much...

Actually, I've found that it's not that much more expensive using maple syrup in the primary. Over the last few months, I have been keeping track of my experiments and making spreadsheets on cost for each, and if you produce 30 gallons of a show mead with a starting gravity of 1.125 and age it...

Just to make clear, after fermentation was over, I did shrink wrap the container, cut a small hole in the wrap, pumped in Argon gas, put the lid on and then shrink wrapped it again, and proceeded to taste test and punch down every two days while repeating this process each time. So, it produced...

32 days of total skin time. Wine went from a lighter mouth feel with a bit of tannin roughness right after fermentation finished, to being tough as nails in the 20s, and then rounded out to be pretty smooth with a nice mouth feel by the time I pressed. When pressing, I kept the free run and...

No I have not tried that, yet, although not sure if I will. I dont want to get too crazy with repeat oaking since I know it is an easy way to ruin a wine. Speaking of oak, yesterday I tasted practically the same wine, one store in a small 8 gallon barrel and another in a 3 gallon carboy with...

Just an FYI, I have found that the oak flavor will mellow out a bit after a month or two you rack it off of the oak. The trick is being able to anticipate how much the flavor will pull back after it is removed from the oak and over oak by just that amount. Hard skill to perfect needless to...

Went with D-47 to it good barrel fermentation and Sur Lee aging potential. If I were to make this en mass, I would barrel ferment and Sur Lee age it in a heavy toast oak barrel, so I felt that was the best call.

After a month of fermenting I finally got some updates. EC-1118: produced a crisp, albeit acidic, mead that was lighter on flavors and had a shorter finish. Due to this, it had a pronounce alcohol flavor showing throough. I feel this would be best for lighter crisper summer time drinks where...

So I am trying to simulate the effects of an Acacia wood barrel on a couple of different meads, but I can not find any Acacia wood cubes for home wine makers like with oak. So I found a few Acacia pen blanks and plan on toasting them myself. I am just wondering if doing this in the oven would...

So I found a reputable local honey farm about an hour outside Philadelphia (Swarmbustin' Honey if you live nearby and are interested) and picked up 51 pounds of honey from them this week. They sell a Spring wildflower, Autumn wildflower, a black & gold (3:1 mix of Spring and Autumn) and...

I'd be afraid it would be get stuck and break when you tried to remove it. As the barrel sits, water is going to evaporate out through the wood and create a middle suction.

After just three days, I am getting fairly different smells (I typically ferment in open containers for the first week or so). No clear winner yet, but 71B, QA23 and BM4x4 are smelling nice. RC212 smells like pure alcohol at this point. I did not have high hopes for that yeast anyway since...

Thanks for the advice; I did not realize mead needed this much nutrients. I just added 0.5 grams to each quart, except for the RC212 and BM4x4 where I added 0.6g and 0.75g respectively. I plan on adding an equal dose tomorrow, plus maybe an extra half the day after. This should bring me up...

It was 2 gallon mix and I added in 1.25 grams of Fermaid O before splitting them up. I will be feeding them two more times over the next two weeks.

Taking the time to perform a test this winter of Lalvin yeast, which I have decided to use as my brand of yeast going forward due to the lack of any volatile sulfur issues with my ferments. I just mixed up a basic mead using wild flower honey ending up with a OG 1.120 and divided it into 7...

Anyone have any experience adding tannins to mead to give it more mouth feel? Would rose petals or other flower petals do the trick? If so, how much per gallon would you add?

I am thinking about getting a new French oak barrel for next year, and the options seem limited for small barrels. I found one company that sells a variety of sizes of French oak barrels with medium toast out of CA called Artisan Barrels. Anyone ever buy from them? See below for a link to...

Thanks for the advice. I did a test run with ascorbic acid and copper sulfite, and the smell cleared up pretty quickly. I treated the wines yesterday with 0.08g/gal of ascorbic acid and will add in the Reduless on Saturday.