Barrel fermenting for break-in...Mead?

[the_rayway]

Thanks Seth! I'll definitely check them out.

Just think of it this way: someone's gotta make show meads. Just so long as it isn't us!

I am familiar with their nutrient feeding schedules. It seems like a natural progression to me in a person's evolution as a wine/meadmaker to learn to listen to your yeast and make sure it has what it needs. I also find that most wines, once you start getting into different yeasts, etc. really need nutrient step feeding (in one way or another) anyway. Gotta keep the yeasties happy!

Some of those samples sound very interesting. I'm interested to hear what you will make with them! Pumpkin Honey huh? I wonder how that would go in the Pumpkin Hazelnut Mead recipe I'm thinking about...

 

[seth8530]

Ha, I guess ya got a good point eh? Well, these honeys are only in the 2lb format so I really would not be able to make much with them.. Except honey buttered biscuts.... mmmm it is godly lol. But back to the pumpkin honey, I found it had a really creamy kind of taste sort of like how meadowfoam has a marshmellow taste to it. I was actually surprised by how similar they tasted.

 

[SouthernChemist]

Yeah, looks we are on the same page. Infact, one of the reasons why I am making mead is because I have yet to find a commercial mead this is anything more than a gimmick or an overly sweetened honey pot. So, I feel your pain.

Sadly, some of the bad examples I've come across almost scared me away from mead.

I've been trying a couple experimental batches (a traditional and blueberry melomel) with the honey that my father got from his bee's this year, and I've meant to make a post on them in the Mead Forum. His honey is pretty nice and aromatic though its not a varietal honey by any means.. He's a bit skeptical of the 'mead' thing, though, so I'm making an effort to show him I have not wasted the 6lbs or so that he gave me. So far things look promising.

 

[the_rayway]

Ooooh, that Pumpkin honey sounds GOOD Seth! I think that really would go well with roasted pumpkin and sweet potato. Add a little hazelnut extract that I've made and it sounds like dessert!

My Mom used to make these amazing butter biscuits, and we slathered them with butter and honey. Wow, that's totally making me hungry! Lol.

Southern - the only commercial mead I've had was Lindisfarne mead, and it had been a wedding present for my husband's parents. Then forgotten about for 30 years until they divorced. We popped it open as a housewarming for his Dad. Was interesting, but not what I had expected. I'm sure your Dad will be very impressed with yours - how can he not when he supplied the honey!?

I should really check out the mead from a local orchard that is now in the Liquor stores. Sounds really yummy! Rigby Orchards, and they have a Cherry, a plain, and one other. Darn it. Now I'll have to pop by the LC today and check them out again.

 

[seth8530]

Sadly, some of the bad examples I've come across almost scared me away from mead.

I've been trying a couple experimental batches (a traditional and blueberry melomel) with the honey that my father got from his bee's this year, and I've meant to make a post on them in the Mead Forum. His honey is pretty nice and aromatic though its not a varietal honey by any means.. He's a bit skeptical of the 'mead' thing, though, so I'm making an effort to show him I have not wasted the 6lbs or so that he gave me. So far things look promising.

I feel it, you are fortunate however, to have a honey supply. I think one of my biggest challenges with making mead is that I do not know what it should taste like.. Thus, when I am adjusting it I feel like I am taking a shot in the dark..

 

[SouthernChemist]

My Mom used to make these amazing butter biscuits, and we slathered them with butter and honey. Wow, that's totally making me hungry! Lol.

Southern - the only commercial mead I've had was Lindisfarne mead, and it had been a wedding present for my husband's parents. Then forgotten about for 30 years until they divorced. We popped it open as a housewarming for his Dad. Was interesting, but not what I had expected. I'm sure your Dad will be very impressed with yours - how can he not when he supplied the honey!?

Ah...butter and honey. Fewer combinations exist that are greater in this world...

My dad is solely a beer drinker, though he sort of shocked me this past year when he tried some of a Chardonnay I've made. He didn't say much about it, but I noticed he drank the whole glad. He had never heard of mead before until I told him about it. I think the awesomeness of making an alcoholic beverage from his honey is what won him over in the end. You can definitely tell a difference in quality between his honey and anything you can buy in a store.

I've tasted some fairly old wines and have an idea of how they can change. I can't imagine how much a mead can change over 30 years.

 

[SouthernChemist]

I feel it, you are fortunate however, to have a honey supply. I think one of my biggest challenges with making mead is that I do not know what it should taste like.. Thus, when I am adjusting it I feel like I am taking a shot in the dark..

It is difficult to have an idea of what you're shooting for when there are few examples of what it should be (and they vary widely). I missed the honey extraction by a couple of weeks, but I did get to help inspect a couple hives that belonged to a friend of my dad's. Quite an interesting experience, and a frame full of honey is a lot heavier than you think it might be at first glance. The more amazing thing was seeing all the bees and realizing that they were not too terribly concerned with what we were doing.

 

[brewski09]

It is difficult to have an idea of what you're shooting for when there are few examples of what it should be (and they vary widely). I missed the honey extraction by a couple of weeks, but I did get to help inspect a couple hives that belonged to a friend of my dad's. Quite an interesting experience, and a frame full of honey is a lot heavier than you think it might be at first glance. The more amazing thing was seeing all the bees and realizing that they were not too terribly concerned with what we were doing.

I like the idea of not really having a framework. It allows for creativity and experimentation. It also removed the "X meadery's is better" issue when people are tasting it.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Buy a bottle, drink it, and then tell yourself you can make it better. At least taste some before giving advice on how to make it Seriously though, there are some good ones and some bad one, mostly the bad ones taste watery and with little body. You can fix that easily enough by adding more honey, stabilizing and backsweeting with a little more honey. The other kind of sort of bad mead (of course everyone wont agree) is one that is way oversweet but not balanced, kind of like drinking a honey cocktail. We are lucky, we have Orchid cellars, a meadery near us, they make this awesome Polish mead, its sweet and so well balanced, and they age it in oak so I know Rays stuff will be good going thru her barrel. Find yourself a beekeeper nearby, offer to help out and learn a little about bees and you might find yourself a great supply of local raw honey and get in touch with the local varietals. Its hard to make a good mead if you are measuring honey by the teaspoon, you need to be willing to really put some in there!

ps I have to not agree with you on GM site, the forum is very good, the rest of the site looks like it was started with a big band and fizzled, but hoepfully with new people like you making more meads there will be more interest.

WVMJ

I feel it, you are fortunate however, to have a honey supply. I think one of my biggest challenges with making mead is that I do not know what it should taste like.. Thus, when I am adjusting it I feel like I am taking a shot in the dark..

 

[seth8530]

Buy a bottle, drink it, and then tell yourself you can make it better. At least taste some before giving advice on how to make it Seriously though, there are some good ones and some bad one, mostly the bad ones taste watery and with little body. You can fix that easily enough by adding more honey, stabilizing and backsweeting with a little more honey. The other kind of sort of bad mead (of course everyone wont agree) is one that is way oversweet but not balanced, kind of like drinking a honey cocktail. We are lucky, we have Orchid cellars, a meadery near us, they make this awesome Polish mead, its sweet and so well balanced, and they age it in oak so I know Rays stuff will be good going thru her barrel. Find yourself a beekeeper nearby, offer to help out and learn a little about bees and you might find yourself a great supply of local raw honey and get in touch with the local varietals. Its hard to make a good mead if you are measuring honey by the teaspoon, you need to be willing to really put some in there!

ps I have to not agree with you on GM site, the forum is very good, the rest of the site looks like it was started with a big band and fizzled, but hoepfully with new people like you making more meads there will be more interest.

WVMJ

It would seem in my area that their is actually a bigger issue with uber sweet meads than their are the meads which are too thin. I have tried a couple commercial meads in the past and I have not liked them way too much because they were way sweet. From these experiences of tasting uber sweet meads I have endeavored to make a good mead which is more on the off dry to semisweet side. That and my own personal expeirence with making a mead that was quite a bit too sweet....


Perhaps I was a little harsh with my thoughts on the GM forums. I believe that the GM forums has a lot of very useful information on it, but I feel like it lacks the life that this forum has in it.. However, I also wish that the GM forum succeeds and that mead eventually becomes an easy to find viable drink much like cider has become recently.

BTW, I hope I have not portrayed myself as a mead making expert. I realize that other people on this board might have more experience than me, but I felt like from my mistakes that I had something worth putting forward.

 

[brewski09]

Buy a bottle, drink it, and then tell yourself you can make it better. At least taste some before giving advice on how to make

WVMJ

Okay, the point I was trying to make was that the area the OP was trying to create has few commercial examples and that I like styles such as this because it's really your own, not just a clone of an existing product. I like working in styles like that without many examples.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Sorry Brewski, I should have made it more clear I was replying to Seth who we want to encourage a strong sense of experimentalism. Your post was spot on, we do this all the time, try entering one of these in a winemaking comp, we have had them removed from the correct category I put them in, recategorized because the judges couldnt figure out what it was supposed to taste like, even though they thought it was a good wine, so didnt feel they could judge it and so even though it was good stumbled on a decision about putting an award to it. I thought that would happen when I entered, the comps should have a category for experiment wines that their little brains have never imagined before WVMJ

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Seth, you got a nice smile and cool hat, you would make a good pic on a mead label! GM is specific in one area, WMT is much more general, you wouldnt expect to compare traffic between the sites. Like you I make a lot of different things so here is a great place to. A well balanced uber sweet can be good, an unbalanced one like they just dumped some honey in at the end. What is suprising is a dry one, can have some sweetness and body even though its dry by a hydrometer scale, must be those unfermentables that remain to the end. WVMJ

 

[brewski09]

the comps should have a category for experiment wines that their little brains have never imagined before WVMJ

Beer comps do have this. BJCP category 23. Also a mead category in 24 is traditional, 25 is melomel, and 26 is other mead. A bit lacking in mead styles if you ask me, but they are there.

 

[the_rayway]

One thing I can say about GM - I love the sense of humour on that site!

Seth - I agree with WVMJ. The hat is awesome.

 

[seth8530]

Seth, you got a nice smile and cool hat, you would make a good pic on a mead label! GM is specific in one area, WMT is much more general, you wouldnt expect to compare traffic between the sites. Like you I make a lot of different things so here is a great place to. A well balanced uber sweet can be good, an unbalanced one like they just dumped some honey in at the end. What is suprising is a dry one, can have some sweetness and body even though its dry by a hydrometer scale, must be those unfermentables that remain to the end. WVMJ

Heh thanks, I still might have to pass before I start putting my own face on my mead labels lol.

But you are correct, that GM is a very specific board dedicated to a very specific product. It just feels like to me that their should be a bit more traffic on the board than their is.

I am yet to try a wine or mead which was ubersweet that I would call well balanced; however, I tend to shy away from things that are very sweet so I guess I should not be surprised I have not found one yet.

I have however, noticed what you are talking about a mead tasting sweet even though it has gone dry. The first mead I made dropped down to .994 to .992 ish and yet is still tasted oddly sweet. I thought it was pretty neat lol. I am not sure what causes it either.

One thing I can say about GM - I love the sense of humour on that site!

Seth - I agree with WVMJ. The hat is awesome.

Lol thanks, my girlfriend made it for me for my birthday. I decided to wear it to all of my classes that day.

 

[SouthernChemist]

Seth, you got a nice smile and cool hat, you would make a good pic on a mead label!

I think it would be even better if he were holding a Viking drinking horn in his hand!

 

[the_rayway]

Ok friends!
Unfortunately for me, my barrel is waiting to be replaced - so there will be a further delay in getting this ball rolling. However, I contacted my honey lady from last year, and she still had some honey left for me! I ordered 15 Lbs of clover.

I'm looking at a clover traditional. Shooting for a final of 3 gallons, so will ferment closer to 3.5 or 4 gals at the start. I will likely use my brand new BA11 yeast; I'm looking forward to seeing how it does! I'll post the recipe as soon as I decide what all is going in there.

 

[west_end]

I was curious about what a commercial mead might taste like so I picked up a bottle of this. It was $25.00 so i hope it's good. Has anyone made a mead and added hops?

 

[seth8530]

Looks interesting, does it really say 19% ABV? Please give us some tasting notes!