Yet another Strawberry Mead!

[Jericurl]

Manthing has made quite a bit of noise about not having any strawberry mead left in the house for months. MONTHS, you guys!
I'm a terrible partner.

Today I have set out to rectify this egregious crime against the household.

I didn't feel like breaking out the huge brute container for this one. I want to make fig mead soon and I will be using the brute for it.

Being that I'm using 20 lbs of strawberries though, I opted to split it between two batches, then I will rack into one carboy.

Split between two containers:

Strawberry Melomel

2 gallons of apple juice
8 bananas (frozen, thawed, chopped)
20 lbs strawberries (frozen, thawed)
1 T plus 1 tsp bentonite
4 tsp pectic enzyme
12 lbs meadowfoam honey
6 lbs wildflower honey
8 grams FT Blanc Soft
8 grams Opti Red
enough water to bring each container up to 4 gallons

SG is sitting at 1.09 for each container right now.
I'll take another reading after 24 hours, then pitch my yeast.

Secondary will likely see some ginger, vanilla bean, and sweet woodruff.

 

[jburtner]

Wow! This is awesome! And you're not even going to bust out the brute? How many months do you estimate before this will be very nicely consumable? How many gallons will this make after racking and clearing?

Cheers to y'all!
-johann

 

[Jericurl]

I'm shooting for 7 gallons finished out (fingers crossed). I'm using bags for the strawberries so that should cut down on the racking losses just a bit.

I'll be happy with 6 gallons and one gallon for experimentation.

I'm guessing this will be fairly drinkable in 6 months, we will see though.

In any case, I probably won't bottle it before 9 months, unless it's already fantastic.

 

[jburtner]

Oops! I missed this line (and thank you) -

"enough water to bring each container up to 4 gallons"

Which would have pointed me in that direction with some racking losses. Sounds very good though! I want to start some more meads since I have acquired some extra carboy's now.

Cheers!
-johann

 

[Jericurl]

Well, we ended up with 9.5 gallons after racking to secondary!
I'm sure the SG is much lower than previously estimated. I'll be adding a bit more honey to this one. Photo only shows half of my batch. The other half was in a large fermenting bucket.

I'll post another picture once everything starts falling out. Fingers crossed that it ends up a gorgeous color.