Posts Tagged ‘mead’

This weekend, I racked (transferred) the cherry mead from the fermenting bucket into a glass carboy, to get it off the fruit and start clarifying.  I started with a bucket because it has more room top for bubbles while fermenting and it is easier to get all 12 pounds of cherries in and out.
Materials:

carboy
airlock and [...]

The Cherry Mead stopped bubbling this week, so it took about 4 weeks to ferment completely. Any time now it can be transferred (racked) into a glass carboy and allowed to clarify. It smelled great while bubbling, so I have high hopes for it.
The chickens started laying the week before Christmas. I brought the chicks home [...]

These are the cherries that we harvested back in July.   There are 12 1/2 pounds.  I wasn’t ready to use them at that time, so they were frozen.  To thaw them, I put the bags of cherries in a large metal bowl and kept them in our “cold room” for three days.
Our cold room is [...]

Fellow mead maker and blogger Erroll, of washingtonwinemaker.com conducted a double blind taste test of boiled vs raw meads.  By boiling, we are talking about boiling the must (honey / water mixture) to sanitize it before fermenting.
Some people believe that honey has anti-microbial action and therefore does not need boiling, and that the flavors will [...]

At just shy of 1 year, the mulberry mead was ready to be bottled.  The recipe: 12 pounds of honey, 1 1/2 pints mulberries and 1 cup cherries.  It was racked in November of 2007 and ignored until now, leaving it tart and fruity with a hint of sweetness.  The fruit only contributed a touch [...]

The Sunday before last was mead and cyser (cider with honey) day. I racked a mulberry mead, made a mead with this years grapes and made a cyser. I spent about 2 1/2 hours in the kitchen, most of it was washing or sanitizing equipment. Brewing is mostly about getting everything clean, [...]

Cherry Mead was bottled last weekend. It’s always nice to have somethine special for all those summer get togethers.
The mead was made from about 13 pounds of honey and some frozen, pitted cherries (a few pounds), White Labs WLP715 Champagne Yeast and water to make 5 gallons. The batch was started on July [...]

I bottled the Dark Mead today. It’s almost a year old. The alcohol has broken down nicely. The spices contribute a very nice flavor. It is too sweet though. My wife suggested mixing it with sparkling water, and that works great.

The yeast in the Dark Mead started working again. I hope this brings the sweetness down, The sample I had when I racked it on 1/29/06 was too sweet and the alcohol flavor was overpowering. Notice the foam on top. When I racked the Dark Mead, the foam from the yeast had [...]

The dark mead and cyser are comming along rather nicely. They still look cloudy, which is the yeast and apple solids.

You can see that the foam at the top of the apple is almost gone, indicating that the yeast almost done. I will be transferring the apple to another carboy soon and putting [...]