A Tale of Two Meads

MEAD!  When husband got into homebrewing beer, he made a batch of mead that came out really spectacular – won awards even!  When I saw how much less time-consuming it was than brewing beer, and tasted how good the results were, I stepped up and proclaimed myself as the household MEADSTRESS because awesome name, and then we could share in his  new hobby.  A bunch of years later, here we are, still brewing beer and making mead.  I’ve definitely gotten better (scored a 2nd place with an agave mead in the local Valhalla competition a few years ago), and here are my two latest attempts  – a Double Cherry Mead and a Ginger Mead.

Just the basics up here, recipes/details below the jump!  I’ve just finished Quality Assurance testing these two, so pardon spelling errors and any boozed-up-exuberance  🙂

	Double Cherry Mead  (left in the photo) Double cherry, technically a melomel, was a combination of 4 quarts of Trader Joe’s Red Tart Cherry Juice and 2lbs of Yellow Cherries picked from a local orchard, frozen a few years back.  I picked SO many at the time because a friend and I went and we were gabbing away, filling up out buckets and before I knew it, BUCKET OF CHERRIES.  After a batch of jam and eating a ton of fresh cherries, I just didn’t know what to do with them all and stuffed them in bags in the freezer.  So hey, why not add them to mead?  The resulting mead didn’t really clear (probably a pectin haze), so it wouldn’t be able to go to competition like that, but I don’t really mind so much because it tastes SO great.  The tart juice adds a nice bite, and the whole cherries add this sort of earthy, warm character to it and keep it from tasting like cherry cough syrup.  That glass in the front is REALLY hazy only because it was the dregs at the bottom of the carboy.  The bottle in the back has already cleared a good bit and collected some sediment at the bottom.  19 wine bottles total from this 5 gallon batch.  I’m fighting the urge to drain one tonight.  Mead went from ingredients to bottle in one year!
	Ginger Mead  (on the right) HOOBOY.  I wasn’t sure this was even going to work at all.  I started out with WAY too little honey in the mead in May 2011.  It sat, ruminated, and went wrong for two years before I checked it in April 2013.  It was .. off.  Dry, but not a good dry, very little ginger character, and the alcohol content was WAY too low.  I figured it could be saved, so I added more honey and a buttload of ginger, repitched the yeast, and crossed my fingers.  Well, two pounds of ginger later, I have a winner.  Ginger tickles the nose and gently dances across  the tongue without burning.  It really is JUST the right blend of ginger and honey to be sweet without cloying, spicy without hurting.  It cleared VERY nicely – all the ginger dropped to the bottom.  Some of the grated ginger slipped into the bottles, but I figure that can’t hurt too much.  Ended up with 16 wine bottles, 11 beer bottles (with sugar added for carbonation), and 3 of the 22oz bottles (also carbonated).  I added plain brown sugar for carbonation (about 1/4 tsp per bottle) which isn’t the best way to do it, I know, but we’re not going for scientific here.  This is just a test to see how it turns out.  The big inspiration for this batch was to make a carbonated mead that was like alcoholic ginger beer.  If the carbonated bottles turn out well, I’ll do another batch and carbonate the whole thing properly with a bucket and priming sugar and all that jazz.  We’re affectionately calling this the Red-Headed Stepchild, and I even got confirmation from a red-headed stepchild that this name is wildly appropriate.

And now the jump, read on for more details about the recipes and brewing.

Looking for details?  Look no further!

Double Cherry Mead

• 11 lb mixed wildflower and Orange Blossom Honey
• 2 lb yellow cherries (frozen)
• 4 qt Red Tart Cherry Juice (Trader Joe’s)
• 1 tbsp yeast nutrient
• 1/4 tsp energizer
• 2 tsp pectic enzyme
• Lalvin 71B-1122 Yeast (the best there is for Mead, really)

Brought Hooney and fruit to 150 degrees F to kill any wildlings on the cherries.  Held at 150 for about 10 minutes.  Added bottled (pasteurized) juice to carboy and then added warm honey/cherries.  In carboy 8 April 2013.  Bottled 8 May 2014.  My standard turn-around seems to be a year – gives the mead time to think about what it’s going to do or what it’s done, and I always get a big brew spurt in the spring when temperatures are just right.  The nutrient/energizers are low because I always mean to do the staggered method and then forget or run out of steam as the weeks go by.  Either way, the cherries here should’ve taken away  the need for energizer/nutrient.  Still, didn’t hurt it.  I’m also awful and rarely check my OG/FG and did neither on this batch.  Bad brewer.  I could’ve probably added some more pectic enzyme to see if it would clear better, and then hit it with finings (sparkalloid, etc) to see if that would bring it up to crystal clear.  Lazy brewer, did I mention that yet?  It doesn’t affect the taste, so, I’m happy with it as is.

Ginger Mead

• 5 lb Orange Blossom Honey
• 6 grams dried ginger (dehydrated and peeled)
• 1 tbsp nutrient
• 1/4 tbsp energizer
• Lalvin 71B-1122 Yeast

Boiled 10 qt water, added honey and ginger to simmer 25 minutes, cooled, added to carboy.  In carboy 17 May 2011.  OG: 11 brix (1.045).  Checked 8 April 2013, 3.2 brix (1.0125).  UGH!  Added 2 lbs ginger, 12 lbs honey.  Re-racked and added another packet of yeast.  Bottled 8 May 2014 and again, neglected to check FG.  Tastes good, so I’m happy!