Dealing with crystallization

So I had about 2 gallons worth of honey that had crystallized in the 5 gallon bucket that I had bought it in. I had left it too long without using it and I think I accidentally didn’t seal the bucket itself enough to keep the moisture from getting in. So, knowing that it is still good honey and not knowing what else to do with it, I decided to make a batch (two actually) with honey that had been boiled first, much like beer is always brewed. It is a fairly common, though much debated, practice whose pros and cons are most scientifically investigated in this double blind taste test. Summarizing a very useful and informative post, essentially boiling will take away aroma but give you body and flavor.

So here’s to giving it a try. A normal plain mead recipe, one batch made with D47, one with EC1118 (because that’s all I have left in my yeast storehouse), with all that delicious honey brought to a rolling boil before being added to the bucket, cooled, and yeast pitched.

• 1gallon honey (approx. 10 lbs, did not very precisely measure this)
• water up to 5 gallons
• 1 tsp irish moss
• 5tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 batch with 1 packet D47 yeast, 1 batch with 1 packet EC1118 yeast

If the method works out without completely failing, then I may be adding strawberries in the secondary for these two batches to be my strawberry mead of this season. If boiling does lower the aroma but increase the body and flavor, that would work really perfectly with the strawberries bringing in their aroma in the secondary but enjoying the flavor and body of the boiled honey.

Stats:

• Started: 29 May 2012

Racking

Racked today the mole mead and the POM that I started at about the same time. (In the meanwhile, did a batch of a nut brown beer from a kit). The POM is tasty and plain (as it should be I guess!) and the mole mead is man WOW! Just spot on with the balance of the flavors and the slight spicy aftertaste and the sweetness of the honey and chocolatey of the chocolate. Maybe just a bit more cinnamon next time. Anyway, stats:

Mole Mead:

• Started: 6 April 2012
• 1st rack: 12 May 2012 (got rid of a ton of cocoa gunk on the bottom and all of the crushed chili peppers)

POM:

• Started: 7 April 2012
• 1st rack: 12 May 2012

POM

Made up another batch of plain old mead, just a simple recipe that I’m hoping turns into a regularly reproducible mead like my 5 o’Clock mead and Chai mead. Also, proving how easy it is to make mead! Recipe:

• 1gallon+1qt honey (approx. 12 lbs)
• water up to 5 gallons
• 1 tsp irish moss
• 1 packet Wyeast 4632 yeast (“dry mead”)

Stats:

• Started: 7 April 2012

Mole mead

So on the suggestion of and with the help of a friend, I started today a batch of mole mead. I think it will taste…as good as it sounds, although when we put all the cocoa stuff in the bucket with the honey, the color of the cocoa really took over. We’ll see how it develops over time. Stuck with the sweet mead yeast this time to counteract the bitterness of the cocoa and spiciness of the chilies.

Recipe:

• 7 dried Arbol chili peppers
• 12 oz baking cocoa
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 12 lbs wildflower honey
• 1 tsp Irish moss
• Wyeast 4184 sweet mead

Stats:

• Started: 6 April 2012

Bottled: Pumpkin, Sweet Sweet Potato

With the help of my two roommates, bottled the pumpkin mead (dry but with that really distinct pumpkin flavor…will be delicious!) and sweet sweet potato mead (so sweet! delicious! like you made frosting out of sweet potatoes and made it alcoholic). Final stats:

Pumpkin:

• Started: 16 October 2011
• First rack: 9 November 2011
• Second rack: 20 Dec 2011
• Bottled: 22 Jan 2011

Sweet Sweet Potato:

• Started: 16 October 2011
• First rack: 9 November 2011
• Second rack: 20 December 2011
• Bottled: 22 Jan 2011

Contest: name this mead

So I’ve just started two batches of what I consider my most reliable recipe for mead, what is a very close adaptation of my very first mead batch. I’ve had correspondence with Will, the proprietor of the Storm the Castle site, and I can’t stress enough his influence on the very beginnings of my mead exploration.

OH! The contest. I need a name for it. A recipe along these lines may very well be the first kind of mead that I try to mass-market, for whatever that means for a guy who carefully organizes containers of spoiled honey water in his basement. Send me a name for this mead, especially if you’ve tasted it, either the original, the “2nd Gen” or “3rd Gen”. Because here is 4th and 5th gen (or gen 4a and 4b) and I think it needs a name. Comment below, or on facebook, or tweet me, or whatever. Even if you haven’t tasted it, read the ingredients and tell me what you think.

Here is the recipe, one with D47 and one with Wyeast 4632, otherwise identical. The honey has crystallized a bit because I left it in the cool of my basement for too long, but it seemed to dissolve in the water just fine. I’m also trying to make my meads less dry–sweeter and more fizzy if possible. So I’m lowering the honey content a bit now and might try to prime it with some more honey before bottling. We’ll see, if nothing else I just wanted to tinker a bit.

• 1 gallon wildflower honey
• 1/2 tsp irish moss
• 5 tsp fermax yeast nutrient
• 6 oranges, quartered and boiled to sterilize
• 5 half sticks of cinnamon (boiled to sterlize)
• 1/2 cup of raisins (chopped and boiled to sterilize)
• water up to 5 gallons
• pitched yeast: one was D47, one was Wyeast 4632 “Dry Mead” yeast (note: the wyeast was about 2 months past the “expiration date”, dunno if it’ll matter, we’ll see over the next few days)

Stats:

• Started: 18 Jan 2012

POM#3, Ground’s Gold

Just racked my two most recent meads. The POM is really great, a very standard mead just like I wanted. Making a fairly basic batch of mead should be fool-proof. This batch is very drinkable, just sweet enough, and retains a complex flavor without bombarding your taste buds with 58 things happening at once. Stats:

• Started: 27 Nov 2011
• First Rack: 3 Jan 2011

This batch of Sweet Potato is still great, a brilliant idea. This batch isn’t as sweet as the previous one because of the yeast I used but it still has a sweet potato-y taste. I look forward to people trying it and thinking “Wow! What is this?” and slyly grinning as they fail to figure out exactly what fruit/vegetable/spice is dominating their palate. This batch also has the distinction of being the SECOND batch of mead that I’ve left a stirring spoon. Proving once again that a sanitized spoon has no adverse affect on the flavor of a fermenting mead. I’m calling this one “Ground’s Gold” based on the lovely light gold color this mead has.

• Started: 27 Nov 2011
• First Rack: 3 Jan 2011

Fall meads, good progress

I racked both the sweet sweet potato and the pumpkin mead (probably for the last time before I bottle them) and sampled them–they are turning out great! Maybe even the best meads that I have ever brewed. I’m really getting a sense for that Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead yeast and what it does (always sweet and bubbly). Anyway, some stats, I’ll probably get to bottling them in the next couple weeks if they settle down pretty well.

Sweet Sweet Potato:

• Started: 16 October 2011
• First rack: 9 November 2011
• Second rack: 20 December 2011

Pumpkin:

• Started: 16 October 2011
• First rack: 9 November 2011
• Second rack: 20 Dec 2011

Two new ones

I started two new meads a few weeks ago but I was dumb and didn’t post about them right away. I won’t try to put down the recipes, but for what it’s worth I will log their stats.

The first is a re-creation of the Sweet Potato Mead that I started just a month before. The first batch went so well and sweet potatoes were on a ridiculous sale at Publix ($.49/lb v. the usual $.99) so I bought a bunch more and had at it. Here’s the stats:

• Started: 27 Nov 2011

The second is another batch of POM: Plain Old Mead. Standard yeast, standard honey (right at 12lbs, 1 gallon+1 quart)–what I hope is to make a fool-proof, easily re-creatable batch of mead. If I tell other people how easy it is to make mead, I better be able to make a pretty simple, pretty straight-forward mead. Also, I’ve been doing such crazy recipes recently that I wanted to make sure I had a standard for people to try and enjoy.

• Started: 27 Nov 2011

Peach

I haven’t updated about peach in a while–I think that is accurate as I haven’t done much with the peach in a while. I’ve tried to add my usual gelatin-based clarifier to get it really clear but even after at least a month it did not get as clear as I’ve been trying to get.

One thing I’m pretty happy with is that I set out to make two identical batches and I have ended up with two identical-tasting batches. I haven’t been compelled with the actual taste yet (the honey is potent, the peaches are not) but it will age nicely.

• Started: 10 Jul 2011
• First Rack: 30 Jul 2011 (onto 10lbs of peaches, pureed and sanitized)
• Second Rack: 1 Sep 2011 (off of peaches and yeast, mostly)
• Bottled: 6 and 20 Dec 2011