New Year's mead

After far too long a delay (again) I finally got around to starting a new batch of mead this afternoon. I'd gotten 12 pounds of semi-local honey (from Pearsall) back in the spring, and was somewhat put out to discover it'd crystalized to a great extent in the interim. It was still good (quite tasty), and dissolved easily enough once I stirred it into a pot of hot (not boiling) water. But actually getting it out of the plastic jug took some doing--a combination of squeeze and repeat, plus adding hot water to the jug and swishing it around very aggressively.

I took the dissolved honey and added enough cool water to make five gallons of must. To this I stirred in two teaspoons of yeast nutrient, just over a teaspoon of tannin and four teaspoons of acid blend. I took a little taste, and darn if it wasn't pretty flavorful as-is. Then, once the must had reached room temperature, I pitched in a dose of Montrachet yeast, which I'd started earlier in a cup of grape juice and water. Looking over at my fermentation vessel as I type this, I see the airlock is already bubbling.

I used Montrachet once before, but can't quite recall what for. It's supposed to be a very good red wine yeast, that produces complex flavors in dry wines, and can tolerate high alcohol content. The Compleat Meadmaker recommends it for melomels (fruit mead) with a big mouthfeel, so that's what I'm going for here. After initial fermentation is complete, I'm going to rack the must out into a two-gallon batch in which I'm adding a quart of my dark muscadines I picked and froze earlier this summer. I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out, because I've developed quite the taste for a good red muscadine wine. The remainder of the mead I'm putting back in the big fermenter and adding bunches of crushed apple and cider to make an apple-mead cyser. I expect I'll add some cinnamon sticks and maybe nutmeg at the time as well. But that's still a few months away. The important thing is, we've got a new batch bubbling away.

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