Christine's Merry Mead

Type: Basic Mead

Recipe:

On 1/23/2011

1. Mixed 1/2 a bear of honey and 1 liter of H2O.
2. Pasteurized the honey-water mixure (starter must) on the stove by holding it at 160 degrees for 15 minutes.
3. Re-hydrated a 5 gram packet of Lalvin K1-V1116 yeast in 100 degree water for about 15 minutes. Yeast was active and foaming.
4. Pitched yeast into the starter must on a stir plate. S.G. = 1.047. Must temperature at pitching = 90 degrees.

On 1/25/2011

After 48 hours the yeast had eaten all the way through the sugars in the starter SG = 1.000.

1. Mixed 12 pounds of Missouri wildflower honey with about 3.2 gallons of cold Kirkwood kitchen faucet water in a 7-gallon aluminum stock pot on the stove.
2. Raised the temperature of the must to 160 degrees and held it for 30 minutes.
3. Transferred the must into a 6 gallon carboy 1 or 2 gallons at a time, shaking the carboy to aerate the must and then pouring some more.
4. Once the temperature of the must reached 75 degrees, pitched the starter into the carboy along with 1 1/4 teaspoons of Fermaid-K. Original Gravity= 1.100.

On 1/29/2011

Took a gravity reading. S.G. = 1.080. Recipe calls for an addition of Fermaid-K once 30% of the sugar is consumed. Must temperature 65 degrees.

On 1/30/2011

Added 1 1/4 teaspoons of Fermaid-K and shook the carboy. We will not take another gravity reading until airlock activity has stopped.

Notes:

We had planned to dechlorinate the water with Campden tablets but we hadn't made it back to our LHSS in time, and we wanted to pitch the starter must while the yeast was still active.

We tasted the gravity samples from both the fermented starter must and the 1/29 gravity reading.

The starter must tasted like a tangy acidic honey chardonnay. I'm sure the sourness came from the last two days of constant aeration on the stir plate.

The 1/29 sample tasted like honey water with some fruity white wine flavors starting to come through already. I'm very excited about how this will taste when fermentation is complete. We'll make decisions about back-sweetening and still vs. champagne-style at bottling time.

***Update***

At Christmas time 2011 this was delicious. IMO not unlike a semisweet white with honey and floral notes. A couple of months previous, when it reached a sweetness profile I liked, I used campden tabs to arrest fermentation. At the time of this writing (February 2012) there is still a bottle of this mead in a refrigerator somewhere in Minneapolis. If I get to taste that one or hear reports on its flavor, an update will appear below.