Homebrew Mead Wine

[CS1983]

On a whim, I decided to see if my bungs would fit the gallon jugs my apple juice comes in. They do. This means I need more and more airlocks, so I can do gallon-sized recipes for experimentation. Reading on the reddit mead forum, folks have had success with cherry juice and blueberry juice as a base. Think I'll try a blueberry/cherry recipe and if it's not awful/is good, give it away to an LEO on here.

Many ideas for trying things that I did not want to attempt in 5 gal batches, due to potentially being gross. This is no longer a concern. Let the experiments commence!

[Irving]

Oh, I tried that plum wine. It didn't taste poison, but it also didn't taste good enough to finish.

[GilpinGuy]

On a whim, I decided to see if my bungs would fit the gallon jugs my apple juice comes in. They do. This means I need more and more airlocks, so I can do gallon-sized recipes for experimentation. Reading on the reddit mead forum, folks have had success with cherry juice and blueberry juice as a base. Think I'll try a blueberry/cherry recipe and if it's not awful/is good, give it away to an LEO on here.

Many ideas for trying things that I did not want to attempt in 5 gal batches, due to potentially being gross. This is no longer a concern. Let the experiments commence!

I started my first 5 gallons in 1 gallon jugs also for the same reason. All 5 are different single fruits and simple, but for my first go around it seemed like a good idea.

[GilpinGuy]

Well, I tried some of the strawberry mead I made in early October and oh man. So good. I can't imagine it being better, but I'm sure it could be. That gallon didn't last long. I know what my first 5 gallon batch will be.

Then I tried an orange that I made on the same day as the strawberry. Totally horrid. It looked and smelled great, but holy cow, it tasted nasty. Undrinkable. I'll let that one sit for a while longer. Maybe it will improve. Maybe something went horribly wrong. Time will tell.

This is fun stuff. I have 3 other flavors to try. I'm hoping for the best.

[CS1983]

I’m interested in your strawberry recipe

[CS1983]

Yesterday at Sprouts, I picked up a gallon each of the following:

blueberry juice
pear juice
cherry juice

I also got 6x flip top 750ml bottles of their orangeade stuff imported from France at a whopping $2.99 per bottle. At a brew store or online, just the bottle would be ~$5 so the contained beverage, which the wife and oldest boy will drink, is a bonus.

Looking fwd to trying out the various juices with appropriate amounts of honey. I have high hopes for the pear, in particular.

[Brian]

If you get a good pear mead, definitely let me know the recipe. It's a hard one to do for some reason.

For flip tops, if you're looking for bottles, the "world market" stores sometimes get in sparkling french sodas and lemonade that are pretty decent. If you can get them late in the season about when they "expire" they're cheap sources of bottles that are tasty to drink, esp. in the summer. I bought a bunch of them a couple years ago. The labels come off pretty easy too, at least with the oxyclean soak I use (make sure to get dye/perfume free).

[GilpinGuy]

Today I got shit ton of honey, frozen fruit and water to get a bunch of 1 gallon batches going in the next few days - 8 gallons (a lot for me anyway). I am impressed with my strawberry, blackberry and raspberry meads. Same recipe, just different fruit. All of these came out good. A bit of back sweetening and they were yummy.

I'm dismayed that the orange came out nasty. I've read that it's not necessary to take the rind off so I didn't, but it came out wicked bitter...and tasted like rind. Any advice for oranges would be awesome....besides take the rind off, LOL

[DOC]

Instead of honey can I just try to make mead with refined sugar instead? I think the vikings would have used it if honey costs so much and sugar (had it been around) been dirt cheap.

[GilpinGuy]

Instead of honey can I just try to make mead with refined sugar instead? I think the vikings would have used it if honey costs so much and sugar (had it been around) been dirt cheap.

Hell, give it a shot! Do a 1 gallon brew see what happens.