Monday, 17 March 2014
A recent find...
Summer Batches
Well last weekend I spent at home and I've been looking to make a few drinks ready for the summer as there's nothing quite like a hot weekend in the sun lying back after a long week with a drink in your hand. I knew with the resources I have left that I could comfortably make 3 one gallon batches of various flavours. I decided that as I've not tried a cyser yet that this would be a good opportunity. Cider is a great summer drink with a load of ice so why not try a cyser. Gallon 2 would be a more citrusy brew. After wandering around the local fruit shops I settled with orange, pink grapefruit and ginger for this brew. Lastly I let my brother decide on gallon 3 coming up with the idea of raspberry and chili.
I began by brewing up the cyser. This is one that I would definitely repeat again and do slightly differently as I completely forgot when I was doing it that apple juice has sugar in it! As such I ended up mixing together 6 jars of honey and 4 liters of apple juice yielding an original gravity of 1.120... waaaaayyyy too high than what would have been more suitable especially considering I was aiming for a light refreshing drink at around 6%... It's just going to be really really sweet instead! The yeast and extra additions I shall describe at the end.
Secondly I got the capsicumel brewed. This one I asked my brother what he would prefer in terms of a flavour profile. He wanted a subtle chili flavour with most of the focus being about the raspberry. I added my usual amount of honey with 4 liters of water and mixed the lot together. Adding to this I used 10 tablespoons of raspberry syrup and 1 whole chili (I've forgotten the type but it was a just a standard one, nothing in league with Naga). On sampling the first flavour to get you was the chili which was then overwhelmed by the flavour of raspberry on the aftertaste. If this remains the same after fermentation I'll be very happy! The OG for this batch was 1.110.
Lastly is the citrus mead. I cut up 4 mandarin oranges, 1 pink grapefruit and a small stem of root ginger (approximately 50-100g) sliced fine. originally I added about a 3rd of the ginger and then ended up just adding the whole piece I bought as I felt it needed more. When I topped it up I added 3.5 liters of water and half a liter of orange juice. Everything went into the demijohn to make sure the flavour potential is maximised. The OG for this batch was 1.110
Once all three had been added to their demijohns and they had all cooled down to an acceptable temperature, I added 1 teaspoon of nutrient to all three and 1 teaspoon of pectolase to the cyser. For the yeast, I found a cider yeast at the local shops and used this for all three rather than opening up multiple sachets.
All three have begun to ferment now with the citrus batch fermenting the strongest. Once these have finished I will be looking at starting a few other non-mead batches... criminal really for a mead blog but I wanted to try something completely different. I was bought a chardonnay kit almost a year ago now so I think it's about time I started that one. I've also been wanting to try an elderflower wine too. If both of these are on the cards it looks like summer time should be a very relaxed one this year!
I began by brewing up the cyser. This is one that I would definitely repeat again and do slightly differently as I completely forgot when I was doing it that apple juice has sugar in it! As such I ended up mixing together 6 jars of honey and 4 liters of apple juice yielding an original gravity of 1.120... waaaaayyyy too high than what would have been more suitable especially considering I was aiming for a light refreshing drink at around 6%... It's just going to be really really sweet instead! The yeast and extra additions I shall describe at the end.
Once all three had been added to their demijohns and they had all cooled down to an acceptable temperature, I added 1 teaspoon of nutrient to all three and 1 teaspoon of pectolase to the cyser. For the yeast, I found a cider yeast at the local shops and used this for all three rather than opening up multiple sachets.
All three have begun to ferment now with the citrus batch fermenting the strongest. Once these have finished I will be looking at starting a few other non-mead batches... criminal really for a mead blog but I wanted to try something completely different. I was bought a chardonnay kit almost a year ago now so I think it's about time I started that one. I've also been wanting to try an elderflower wine too. If both of these are on the cards it looks like summer time should be a very relaxed one this year!
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Banana mead batch 2
Another quick update...
I decided to do a second batch of banana mead to try and get more banana flavour into the mead... that and Tescos had reduced them massively again! I wont go on too long with this post as the details are pretty much identical to the first banana mead except with more banana. After everything had been done I ended up with a banana mead at around 13% abv. The flavour was very similar to the last one too but definitely did have more of a banana flavour to it.
For the future (maybe this weekend), I am looking to start some summery meads, definitely including a cyser. watch this space!
I decided to do a second batch of banana mead to try and get more banana flavour into the mead... that and Tescos had reduced them massively again! I wont go on too long with this post as the details are pretty much identical to the first banana mead except with more banana. After everything had been done I ended up with a banana mead at around 13% abv. The flavour was very similar to the last one too but definitely did have more of a banana flavour to it.
For the future (maybe this weekend), I am looking to start some summery meads, definitely including a cyser. watch this space!
The biggest batch yet! - 5 Gal Traditional
After a lot of playing around with small 1 gallon batches I decided it was time to get a full 5 gallon batch brewed. As I still had yet to use my barrel I decided that now seemed the perfect opportunity to use it. This decided the flavour of the mead too. As I want to use my barrel a few times in the future too I decided a traditional mead would be the most suitable and allowing the oak flavour to shine the most it can.
I started with almost 9kg of honey that, when I first saw saw the jars all lined out ready, I was a bit overwhelmed. I had been buying a few jars every week so the cost wasn't that much on one go so I hadn't noticed just how much I had bought, but when they were all lined up in the kitchen it actually took me back a bit. When you're used to 6 or so jars per patch and then move up to around 26... it's a bit of a jump.
Anyway, I added the jars into a very large pan to heat them together with water to get them diluted and then added them all to the 5 gallon carboy and topped up to 5 gallons with cold water.The yeast was pitched. Lalvin EC118 was chosen again for this batch although the original gravity was only 1.085. As I am staying the my Girlfriend a lot at the moment and the mead itself was at my parents house sat on the heater I didn't have many chances to monitor it. By the end the final gravity of the mead was 1.040 giving a fairly low ABV of around 6% but overall a very nice pleasant mead even at it's young age.
After stabilizing and clearing it was finally time to move it over to the oak cask. I had soaked my cask overnight with cold water after rinsing it out thoroughly to give the wood time to swell sealing any holes and cleaning out any last debris from the charring and transporting that may have been caused. Eventually I filled the cask slowly, taking care not to aerate the mead.
After a day in the cask there was some minor leaking from the spigot. If you look closely at the picture you'll see a dampness in the spigot. This has since dried and stopped leaking. At now 2 weeks aging the mead has taken on a very nice oak flavour so after 1 more week or so I shall bottle and age. Come summer time this should be a very smooth drink!
On a side note from this batch, the cask is 15litres and I brewed 5 gallons so there was around 3 bottles worth that went unused. If you have read some earlier posts you'll know I decided to pour vodka over cocoa beans to extract the oils and left them for months. I have added this vodka into the mead and I shall age for at least a year to give the oils plenty of time. Below is a picture of what happened. the vodka decided to float on the mead although after mixing they do not separate. The effect however was really cool and one I shall remember for party purposes!
Anyway, I added the jars into a very large pan to heat them together with water to get them diluted and then added them all to the 5 gallon carboy and topped up to 5 gallons with cold water.The yeast was pitched. Lalvin EC118 was chosen again for this batch although the original gravity was only 1.085. As I am staying the my Girlfriend a lot at the moment and the mead itself was at my parents house sat on the heater I didn't have many chances to monitor it. By the end the final gravity of the mead was 1.040 giving a fairly low ABV of around 6% but overall a very nice pleasant mead even at it's young age.
After a day in the cask there was some minor leaking from the spigot. If you look closely at the picture you'll see a dampness in the spigot. This has since dried and stopped leaking. At now 2 weeks aging the mead has taken on a very nice oak flavour so after 1 more week or so I shall bottle and age. Come summer time this should be a very smooth drink!
On a side note from this batch, the cask is 15litres and I brewed 5 gallons so there was around 3 bottles worth that went unused. If you have read some earlier posts you'll know I decided to pour vodka over cocoa beans to extract the oils and left them for months. I have added this vodka into the mead and I shall age for at least a year to give the oils plenty of time. Below is a picture of what happened. the vodka decided to float on the mead although after mixing they do not separate. The effect however was really cool and one I shall remember for party purposes!
Milk mead part 2
After the explosive start to the life of this mead I have finally got around to the final stages of the process. This blog entry is going to be kept short and sweet as there is not really much to say here. The mead has finished fermenting now with a final ABV of 13%. In hindsight I wish I had stopped this a lot sooner and yielded a lower sweeter mead instead. Overall the mead was very harsh to taste but with meads, the aging process gives so much back to the flavour of them. The milk mead is now currently in secondary. It's been stabilised and is now clearing nicely courtesy of bentonite. I'm thinking I may bulk age this batch in the demijohn rather than the bottle as a "safer" method.
Thursday, 23 January 2014
More bottling and the next brew... Milk mead
More of my previous batches are nearing completion now and needing to be bottled was my bochet. This has cleared lovely giving a deep ruby-caramel colour. Upon tasting it I found the original description of "toasted marshmallows and caramel" to be very accurate and after others tested it too with the reaction of "you're not getting this back now" I knew we had a good mead. Nice to know the 2 hours stood watching the mead boil were worth it!
As for the new mead of the day I started a milk mead brewing. This one has already gone pretty interesting and not necessarily in a good way! The ingredients simply consist of honey and lactose free milk (due to the sugar molecules being too large to be broken down by the yeast). UHT milk was also to chosen to air on the side of safety. Initially after I pitched the yeast there was a huge lag phase. Possibly making a starter culture in advance would be more appropriate for this mead. Although the initial ferment looked slow this completely changed once the yeast kicked itself into gear. This was probably the most explosive ferment I have ever done both requiring the blow off tube and then some. I'm hoping that once it's split and ready to be re-racked it will have calmed down some and that there is enough liquid left in the mix! If I get 2 bottles by the end of this I shall be happy.
(Generic information: Lalvin Ec-1118 was used with a OG of 1.100)
Monday, 20 January 2014
Banana Melomel (Bottling)
Well I finally got round to bottling the banana melomel after almost a month of letting bentonite do it's work. It's been my first time using this and I already love it. If you're just starting brewing and you're reading this then invest in some Bentonite! It will improve the clarity and look as well as removing any impurities floating around in there like residual yeast that you don't really want in the bottle. After siphoning the cleared mead off into an empty demijohn I stabilised and added a crushed campden tablet. I didn't really want any residual fermentation happening in the bottle. The gallon, after racking twice gave 4 bottle (and a glass which was very nice for testing purposes). I decided against sticky labels this time. If I want to reuse the bottles again and again I didn't want to be bothering with picking off the labels every time to wash them. Instead I opted for a vintage looking tag around the neck which I think works quite well. In the bottle pictured below I also added some gold leaf to sparkle it up a bit. I was a little apprehensive about adding the leaf initially. When I received them I examined them and realised just how fragile they are and how easily they can get stuck to themselves and other object (like fingers!). To add them in I just used a knife. After filling the bottle I scraped small sections of gold off of each leaf and added them little by little to the mead. Although they got stuck to the knife as soon as they met the liquid they came off easily. I homebrew terms it is a little expensive adding around £3 to the cost of each bottle but for the odd special one I think the price is well worth the effect.
Monday, 13 January 2014
Caramel Coffee and Vanilla Metheglin update
Yesterday I decided that this mead had pretty much stopped fermenting now and after 30 days with the yeast I've moved this into secondary. As with the usual I did the regular tests and found that my mead is at a FG of 1.005 and gives an estimated ABV 12%. The most important test was also conducted... tasting! Initially you get the smell from the mead. Although not unpleasant there is a strong alcohol smell to it which you can really tell. There is very little to no coffee smell too. The taste is completely different to this. Although there is only a subtle note of vanilla, the rest of the flavour from this merges into the coffee taste creating a very smooth drink. The alcohol in the taste as opposed to the smell creates a lovely warming feeling with very little to no burn that there usually would eb from a high alcohol content.
The bentonite was also added at this point as the colour could be vastly improved by clarity and hopefully after aging too this should be a very nice laid back after dinner mead.
The bentonite was also added at this point as the colour could be vastly improved by clarity and hopefully after aging too this should be a very nice laid back after dinner mead.
Thursday, 2 January 2014
Updates and new meads
Before I start I will apologize as unfortunately for this update I have no pictures. There have been a lot of updates over the festive period so I shall start in order with the old. I have taken both the Bochet and the Banana Melomel from primary into secondary back sweetened and added bentonite to clear. I've taken readings from both of them and calculated their ABVs. For the Bochet I get 8.9% and the Banana Melomel yields around 13.4%. They've been clearing for a few days now and the colour has cleared significantly already so it's nice to see the bentonite doing it's job.
As with all tasks related to food and drink you have to try your product along the way... it would be rude not to! The bochet had a lovely flavour which was just what I was going for; subtle vanilla and caramel with an almost toasted marshmallow flavour. When I first read that the Bochet would taste of toasted marshmallows I was a bit skeptical however it describes the drink perfectly. The only downside I noticed with this specific attempt was a slight watery feel to it. I'm hoping the aging process will kick some body back into it.
The banana melomel was interesting to sample. Due to the high alcohol content (and also a seemingly higher than normal acidity courtesy of our good old CO2) the drink was quite harsh to begin with and wasn't anywhere near as banana flavoured as I would have liked. I can attribute the decrease in banana flavour to the fermenting process. Obviously flavours of ingredients change after they have been fermented. Although I haven't with this batch, it might be wise to add banana into the secondary to impart more of the original flavour back into the mead - or at least some banana flavoured syrup. As with the bochet though I am hoping that the flavours can reassert themselves properly in the aging process.
To put my words into practice too, I have started another 1Gal batch of banana mead to hopefully give similar results to the current one but where I can use my ideas with regard to the secondary. Similarly with batch one there is a high sugar content from the honey and from the bananas so I was anticipating a volatile initial ferment like last time and had the blow off tube on standby. Turns out my expectations were right and the evening into the ferment the blow off tube had to be employed before the volcano got any worse!
And now for the final new addition - a 5Gal of traditional mead. I shall add more specific details of this later buy basically I have started a 5Gal carboy full of traditional mead off. The aim for this is to give a mead of around 10-12% to be put into my 15L oak cask for aging. I have been looking forward to oak aging ever since I bought the cask and now is my chance to. I am a assuming I will have enough left over as well to fill a 1Gal demijohn and if so I am wanting to experiment a little and try to create a "Jaffa Cake" flavoured mead. The orange and chocolate flavours should be easy enough. For the Orange I have a overly sweet orange juice to add into the secondary: that sweet it is not consumable on its own. For the chocolate I shall add in some of my homemade chocolate vodka (cocoa beans soaking in vodka). The cake flavour is slightly trickier. I have been doing some research and come across a few recipes where people have brewed an apple pie cyser. The "pie" flavour for these seems to come from the spices that are added such as vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Obviously these all compliment apple flavours well but would go less so with orange and chocolate so for the "jaffa cake" mead I am thinking of just adding in vanilla and nutmeg. It has also been mentioned to me to add in oats. When oats are used in the brewing of stouts and bitters they give a more rounded feel to the drink, imparting an almost creamier taste. I am hoping for similar with mead too but I shall do more research before then too.
More pictures and specific information to come!
As with all tasks related to food and drink you have to try your product along the way... it would be rude not to! The bochet had a lovely flavour which was just what I was going for; subtle vanilla and caramel with an almost toasted marshmallow flavour. When I first read that the Bochet would taste of toasted marshmallows I was a bit skeptical however it describes the drink perfectly. The only downside I noticed with this specific attempt was a slight watery feel to it. I'm hoping the aging process will kick some body back into it.
The banana melomel was interesting to sample. Due to the high alcohol content (and also a seemingly higher than normal acidity courtesy of our good old CO2) the drink was quite harsh to begin with and wasn't anywhere near as banana flavoured as I would have liked. I can attribute the decrease in banana flavour to the fermenting process. Obviously flavours of ingredients change after they have been fermented. Although I haven't with this batch, it might be wise to add banana into the secondary to impart more of the original flavour back into the mead - or at least some banana flavoured syrup. As with the bochet though I am hoping that the flavours can reassert themselves properly in the aging process.
To put my words into practice too, I have started another 1Gal batch of banana mead to hopefully give similar results to the current one but where I can use my ideas with regard to the secondary. Similarly with batch one there is a high sugar content from the honey and from the bananas so I was anticipating a volatile initial ferment like last time and had the blow off tube on standby. Turns out my expectations were right and the evening into the ferment the blow off tube had to be employed before the volcano got any worse!
And now for the final new addition - a 5Gal of traditional mead. I shall add more specific details of this later buy basically I have started a 5Gal carboy full of traditional mead off. The aim for this is to give a mead of around 10-12% to be put into my 15L oak cask for aging. I have been looking forward to oak aging ever since I bought the cask and now is my chance to. I am a assuming I will have enough left over as well to fill a 1Gal demijohn and if so I am wanting to experiment a little and try to create a "Jaffa Cake" flavoured mead. The orange and chocolate flavours should be easy enough. For the Orange I have a overly sweet orange juice to add into the secondary: that sweet it is not consumable on its own. For the chocolate I shall add in some of my homemade chocolate vodka (cocoa beans soaking in vodka). The cake flavour is slightly trickier. I have been doing some research and come across a few recipes where people have brewed an apple pie cyser. The "pie" flavour for these seems to come from the spices that are added such as vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Obviously these all compliment apple flavours well but would go less so with orange and chocolate so for the "jaffa cake" mead I am thinking of just adding in vanilla and nutmeg. It has also been mentioned to me to add in oats. When oats are used in the brewing of stouts and bitters they give a more rounded feel to the drink, imparting an almost creamier taste. I am hoping for similar with mead too but I shall do more research before then too.
More pictures and specific information to come!
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