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!