Barrel fermenting for break-in...Mead?

[brewski09]

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?

I've not made it myself, but the local meadery makes a really nice one where they dry hop with Chinook and cascade, which are very common hops for beers. I am primarily a beer brewer though. The are many great hops that would work well for this, so I would start experimenting with split batches after fermentation and bulk aging is done. I would start with .5-2oz per 5 gallons for about 3 days. You can use leaf or pellet, but i would go with leaf. You can also leave it in longer than 3 days, but may notice a vegetal quality around 2 weeks. The hop oils are pretty soluble in alcohol though. Also, you have to protect it from light when you add the hops because they turn slinky when they are exposed to light. God luck and let us know about your results.

 

[west_end]

brewski09 if you add hops after fermentation most of what you would get is an added hoppy aroma. Thats why hops, during beer making, are added during the boil.

Could you boil the hops a bit and then add the water and hops to the mead carboy during aging?

 

[brewski09]

brewski09 if you add hops after fermentation most of what you would get is an added hoppy aroma. Thats why hops, during beer making, are added during the boil.

Could you boil the hops a bit and then add the water and hops to the mead carboy during aging?

I had to think on this one a little bit. You could do a hop tea in a sanitized French press where you steep between 150-180f. I would target 170f for up to 30 minutes. However, you will still get bitterness out of this. I don't know how it would balance with a sweet mead, but it would be interesting to work with.

I think the best way to do it at this point would be to pour some finished mead onto hops making a fresh tea out of it and also blending some pressed and chilled hop teas with a range of finished meads with a few different sweetness levels. If you have leftover hops, protect them from oxygen as best you can and freeze them. Light, heat, and oxygen are the biggest culprits for hop degradation. They should not be yellowish or smell cheesy.

Some hops I would experiment with are chinook, cascade,
Simcoe, Nelson sauvin, Amarillo, galaxy, sorachi ace, or small amounts of citra. A good homebrew supply should have them in stock for around 2.50/oz.