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)

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.

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.

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!