Homebrew Mead Wine

[JohnnyDrama]

Nice.

Really cool photos as well. My brother made mead around twenty years ago. Pretty tasty. Hope yours works out.

[ANADRILL]

cask ageing mine it wont see the light of day till around christmas

[Dave]

Good to see you making good use of that stuff. What kind of honey and yeast did you use for that? Make sure those bottles are on a rack soon.

[Brian]

Good to see you making good use of that stuff. What kind of honey and yeast did you use for that? Make sure those bottles are on a rack soon.

Will have to go back and double check my notes on the honey, but this was an odd one that used grocery store fleischmanns bread yeast. I made a gallon of it back when I was getting started and liked it, so I decided to do a full 5gal this time. Doesn't finish as far as some of the others of course and the lees are pretty loose and fluffy compared to others which is annoying, but it worked out well in the end. The leftovers once I drained all the mead out made the house smell awesome for 24 hours though, assuming you like the smell of mulled cider or whatever. Will be great here in the fall - 6mo should be around October, so maybe I drink a bottle or two for Halloween.

[SamuraiCO]

Need the horn goblet to drink from. Mead was the drink of choice for much of the time men have made brews. Nectar of the Gods

[TFOGGER]

Warning: Possible side effect of mead include singing drinking songs in a language that sounds vaguely like Norwegian, a desire to actually use that battle axe hanging in the hallway, and pillaging villages for gold and wenches...

[Jamnanc]

Yeah, congratulations on your next child. That stuffs worse than tequila for fertility or so I've heard.

[Hummer]

Bottled some orange spiced mead tonight (similar to JAOM). It's hard to see with the 12:30am lighting but it had a beautiful color and was super clear. iPotato quality picture. Now I suppose I need to make some labels so I remember in a couple years what batch this

Looks great, Brian. Have never made mead but would like to try yours. Save a bottle once it ages and we'll make a trade.

It's looking like a good fruit and wine grape year here. We're expecting a bumper crop of Riesling, along with the Cabernet Franc, Cab Sauv and Merlot I'll crush a ton and half or two of grapes for wine this fall. Gotta take advantage of a good harvest because it doesn't happen every year in Colorado. But when it happens we've got the quality. I'll make some apple and peach wines, too.

We also have a bumper crop of bees so it should be a good year for local honey producers. More mead, more better.

[Brian]

Looks great, Brian. Have never made mead but would like to try yours. Save a bottle once it ages and we'll make a trade.

It's looking like a good fruit and wine grape year here. We're expecting a bumper crop of Riesling, along with the Cabernet Franc, Cab Sauv and Merlot I'll crush a ton and half or two of grapes for wine this fall. Gotta take advantage of a good harvest because it doesn't happen every year in Colorado. But when it happens we've got the quality. I'll make some apple and peach wines, too.

We also have a bumper crop of bees so it should be a good year for local honey producers. More mead, more better.

Sounds good! BTW I did pick up a like-new floor corker off CL, and bought the capper attachment for it as well. Wow, it really is a lot easier vs. the handhelds.

Only thing I noticed the other night was I had one or two bottles where the cork was pushing back up a bit almost immediately. The mead is 100% dead so it's not carbonation - I'm guessing it has something to do with either the starsan rinse, which I've noticed does tend to make bungs slippery as well (heyoo!) or maybe my corks were too soft or something. Replaced one of the corks with a fresh one and all was good. The other I just shoved down with my thumb and watched it for 12 hours or so to make sure it wasn't coming back up.

They're horizontal in a rack now, will keep an eye on them to make sure I don't have any corks popping. Since this batch is going to be a little sweet due to the style, that would make a heck of a sticky mess.

[Brian]

One thing I had planned to do but forgot about until it was too late was to bottle a few in the skinny 375ml bottles instead of the normal 750s. Have had several guys recommend that to me, whether to enter them in contests, or share with friends/gifts - 2x the bottles on hand would be nice.

My problem is I have a hard time going "half way" into a project/hobby. Several of the guys on the board here have lent me advice or helped me acquire gear over the last year or two, so there's quite a pile of "stuff" in the basement right now, not to mention 35-40gal of various mead or wine chemistry experiments going.