Monday, September 13, 2010

About that mead

A little belated in my updates, but then I'm a busy guy. When last we spoke, I'd split my 3-gallons of show mead in twain, with 2+ gallons going in with four pounds of plums to ferment out, and the remainder in a 1.5 gallon fermenter along with smoked malt. The latter one came to only 1 gallon, so I needed to top it off. Saturday I heated one quart of water and dissolved 1.5 pounds of honey into it, plus I added a quarter teaspoon each of yeast nutrient, yeast energizer and tannins. Once this mix cooled, I added it to the smoked-malt-mead, topped it off with about half a cup of water, and let it do its thing.

Several days later now and it's happily fermenting at a moderate pace. Very little foam. Quite well-behaved, actually. Because of the close confines, I was somewhat afraid I'd have a blowout, but I suppose racking it away from the bulk of the yeast lees protected me against that scenario.

I'd originally intended to add a jalapeño, but The Wife surprised me by coming home from H-E-B with some Hatch chili peppers, so I'm now tempted to sear one a bit and add it to the mead instead of the jalapeño. I'll probably decide in the next week or so. Either way, it'll be an interesting braggot-style mead.

The plum melomel continues to ferment as well, albeit at a much slower pace. And the five gallons of plum wine that has been bulk aging is probably ready for another racking or bottling, depending on how it's clarifying.

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