Homebrew Mead Wine

[ANADRILL]

I cask age my meads in a Hungarian oak barrel..

[CS1983]

I use a 5 gal home deport bucket that sometimes has bits of paint flakes still floating in it. The residual chemicals bring out a certain bite that covers up for my cheap honey choices.

/sarc

Seriously though -- what sort of actual differences do you notice vs aging in a standard carboy? Have you ever done a portion of the same batch in a small carboy to see if there is an actual difference or just perceived? I ask because I often wonder how much of the brewing hobby is like shooting, where the equipment's difference making is all in the mind of the user rather than actually being better.

[GilpinGuy]

A few more noob questions.
I got home early this morning and couldn't wait any longer. I poured some mead from a carboy and drank it. This was a raspberry that I brewed on Oct 6th. It was about 70 degrees.

Yum. Very tasty, very dry, but I wanted dry. It did have a bit of a bitter aftertaste that lingered for a few seconds, but I've bought "good" wine with worse bitterness. Is this the tannins that are supposed to mellow over time?

Also, what is the proper glass to drink mead from? I seem to have misplaced my hollow rams horn and the golden goblet that I plundered from that weak-ass village.

[CS1983]

My cyser is now bottled. I went with 12oz beer style bottles w/ oxygen barrier caps. I didn't measure gravity on this batch, but based on the yeast and past experience, I'd estimate it's somewhere around 18% abv but still very sweet. 12 oz has the same effect on me as ~4beers.

If anyone in the Springs area is thinking about doing cyser and wants to try it first before investing in 120 bucks in honey (5 gal batch), please send me a PM and I'll give you a bottle.

I'll be doing another batch soon and will let it sit in primary longer to try to cut some sweetness and raise abv. to yeast max (~22%). I'll then age in secondary for 6 months or so.

[CS1983]

What's the abv? When you say bitter... as in a fusel/gasoline style taste or something else?

[GilpinGuy]

What's the abv? When you say bitter... as in a fusel/gasoline style taste or something else?

I didn't check the abv. Just poured into a bottle (now empty) and started sippin out of a glass on a whim. At this point I'd say it has a rather high alcohol content. LOL

I guess you could call it a sort of gasoline after taste, but not nearly as strong. It's totally drinkable though.

The mead is crystal clear and looks awesome. My uneducated guess is that more time will cure the aftertaste.

Funny, I never even tried mead before brewing it, so I have no frame of reference at all. I might have to break down and buy one of the $20 bottles at the liquor store and compare. It's Stonegate or something like that. Worth a try or is it garbage?

[Brian]

I didn't check the abv. Just poured into a bottle (now empty) and started sippin out of a glass on a whim. At this point I'd say it has a rather high alcohol content. LOL

I guess you could call it a sort of gasoline after taste, but not nearly as strong. It's totally drinkable though.

The mead is crystal clear and looks awesome. My uneducated guess is that more time will cure the aftertaste.

Funny, I never even tried mead before brewing it, so I have no frame of reference at all. I might have to break down and buy one of the $20 bottles at the liquor store and compare. It's Stonegate or something like that. Worth a try or is it garbage?

Mead has a reputation for being pretty sweet, though that might not be fair anymore since it's started to gain popularity. There's just a lot more variety. When I first started playing around with wines and meads, it was hard to distinguish whether the odd burning flavors were related to issues with fermentation that I could learn to prevent, or just part of having a higher ABV result. But either way, the two most common suggestions were letting it age or adding back some sort of sweetener. Even if you prefer a dry result, adding even a bit more sugars back (honey, sugar, whatever) to your result can change the flavor and mask that harshness somehow. Just do it a little at a time. It's also why measuring ABV is important, because you'll probably find that your preference lands you in a particular range combo of sweetness and/or ABV and then you can target that next time around.

IMHO, the super-high ABV results tent to yield less tasty drinks, but can be fun contests in some ways to see how far you can push fermentation. I have some hooch in the basement that is basically only useful for bragging rights when friends come over.

[CS1983]

I'd try redstone meadery's stuff.

The taste profile you describe is fusels and the result of stressing the yeast by fermenting at too high of an ambient temperature. It takes time to mellow. What I'm reading about that indicates age for 6 months or so.

[GilpinGuy]

I'd try redstone meadery's stuff.

The taste profile you describe is fusels and the result of stressing the yeast by fermenting at too high of an ambient temperature. It takes time to mellow. What I'm reading about that indicates age for 6 months or so.

Good to know, thanks. I'll have to find a cooler place.

And yes, it's Redstone. It's all I can seem to find around here. I'll have to pick up a bottle.

[Irving]

I found some plum wine that was bottled in 2009 at my grandpa's place. How do I check if it's safe to drink? There is a lot of it.