Wower! Racked again after 2 months. There was quite a bit of sediment and we are clearing nicely. Still a bit of a golden haze.
But the flavor is lovely. Not as full and round as I am used to, but I have not added the acids and tannins yet. However, I am very satisfied with the flavor and aroma.
I’ll be patient and wait another month or so before splitting the batch and trying the additions. I feel the urge to get another batch going. I don’t want to be without a bottle of this in my cellar. And I’m not good at laying down bottles for too long.
I suspect the “rocket fuel” flavors were acid additions related.
A finished gravity of 1.000 is pretty dry. Try back-sweetening a bottle or so of the mead with honey and see if that doesn’t bump up the honey aromas and flavors a bit. Keep track of the proportions you use when back-sweetening, so if you like it, you can scale it up to larger volumes.
[quote]I suspect the “rocket fuel” flavors were acid additions related.
[/quote]
I never thought of that. After a year or so of aging, that was totally gone and the flavors & aroma had no hint of it.
I do prefer a very dry mead, hence the low FG. But since I’m dividing this batch into gallons to test the additions, I might as well try the back sweetning on one.
OK, decided that my old additions were what I wanted for final flavor. It just gave the roundness and mouthfeel that I remembered. Just toned it down a notch for the 5 gallon batch:
1.5 oz Tartaric
3.0 oz Malic
.8 oz Tannin
Adding these acids and the tannin is interesting to me. I’ve only made one mead, but I’m curious as to whether this is a common practice these days. I imagine you have a pretty well-tuned palate to be able to know what to add and how much.
After a year of aging, the dry mead I bottled yesterday still tastes like rocket fuel. I’m really hoping it mellows with age.
I have spent a lot of time drinking and just know what pleases me. This batch was made with a whole different type of honey than what I was used to and fine tuning these flavors has been a challenge. But that just means that I need to make more. ;D
Pawtucket Patriot, Post your recipe and maybe we can add some insight on your experience.
O.G. 1.104, F.G. 1.000, ABV 13.9%
14 lbs clover honey
2 x 5g sachets of Lavlin D-47 (I now realize that this was probably overkill on the yeast)
I heated 2 gallons of water to 115F and added it to my bucket fermentor. Then, I added the honey and two more gallons of water and mixed in 4.5g each of Fermaid-K and DAP. I rehydrated the yeast in 104F water, along with 10g Go-Ferm. After proofing for 1.5 hours (I realize I should have only let it proof for 15-30 minutes), I pitched the yeast to 80 degree must.
24 hours after pitching, fermentation temp was 75. At this point, I added 2.8g each Fermaid-K and DAP.
48 hours after pitching, fermentation temp was 75. I added 1.8g each Fermaid-K and DAP.
14 days after pitching, the mead hit terminal gravity.
I know I fermented this strain too high. If I use it again, I’ll ferment closer to 65. I think I’ll probably experiment with backsweetening meads that finish this dry.
What’s interesting about this mead is that the aroma is not solvent-like. There is no acetone aroma or anything. It’s got a slight apple aroma with a light honey note. But it tastes really hot. I’m thinking this will decrease with age, but it may take several years.
In a bone-dry mead, there’s not much to balance the alcohol. It does need to age out. It takes a deft hand with the acidity as well, since alcohol + acidity will give it a real bite.
2 packets of yeast is not too much. Fermenting cooler would help. Try 71B sometime and see if you like it better than D-47.
Give the backsweetening a try on a small scale and see how it improves the drinkability. But start cellaring what you’ve got. How old is it now? I don’t normally even taste them until 6 months. Of course, Curt’s meads are gone by the time they’re 6 months old, so there are a lot of differences in approach.
Gordon, thanks for the reply. The mead is just a little over a year old now. It was brewed in July 2010.
I read (somewhere – I thought it was a reputable source) that the dry yeast pitching rate for mead is 1g/gal, which is why I thought pitching 10g to 5 gallons was overkill. Is there a more preferable pitching rate out there?
I’m going to use 71B for my next mead, which will be a semi-sweet mead made from orange blossom honey. I’ll basically be following the same no-heat procedure as is outlined in the BJCP mead study guide. Is this Curt’s method?
Curt’s method, my method, Steve Fletty’s method, Thomas Eibner’s method, … Probably a dozen or so NHC mead medals there. But we all got it from Ken Schramm. It’s all his research.
I don’t know…that’s not enough collective wisdom to convince me that it’s a good method. ;D
As I’m sitting here sipping some of the mead in question, I think I may have been a bit hypercritical initially. Both my wife (whose palate is superior to mine) and I agree that what we’re tasting is not solvent-like acetone flavors, but rather just an abundance of ethanol that will likely become more subdued with further aging. Actually, she seems to be enjoying it in its current state quite a bit. I imagine that in another 6-12 months, this will taste much smoother.
I did try backsweetening some of the mead and, honestly, we both preferred the straight dry product.
Gordon, out of curiosity, how do you feel about post-fermentation acid/tannin additions? Is this a common practice among guys like you, Ken, Curt, etc.? I’m not looking to weigh in on the practice, just curious. I’m always looking for ways to improve my product.
If the mead has aged long enough, no. The yeast will no longer be viable. However, if you back-sweeten a fairly young mead you may get some secondary fermentation. Racking the mead off of the settled yeast a month or three before back-sweetening will reduce the possibility of there being viable yeast in the mead.
I’ve back-sweetened many many meads. I never use yeast inhibitors and I’ve never had one that started fermenting again. I force-carbonate my sparkling meads.
Meadmaking is a pastime that benefits from patience.
I just began fermenting my first mead just over a week ago. I decided to make 4 3-gallon batches to experiment with different honey, yeasts, fruits, and spices. The lightest of these batches has 5 pounds of honey and 2 pounds of raspberries. (Beer strength I think.) I have no idea how to predict the fermentables in the berries, and I broke my hydrometer. I tasted them all when I added nutrients today. The other four were still very sweet, but the raspberry mead was quite dry already (and a beautiful color).
I was planning to make this a sparkling mead, but I’d like it to be sweeter. I suppose there is no way to sweeten it if I want to bottle condition? Maybe I could force carbonate and bottle from the corny keg somehow.
I boiled the raspberries as per the Papazian book (same with some prickly pear cactus fruit for another of his recipes), but I think the modern method is to add these to the primary once fermentation has gotten underway?
;D