First(ish) attempt at making mead - Log
Starting Parameters
Regular Mead
| Ingredient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Honey | 1.275kg (850ml) |
| Water | 4 litres |
| Wine Nutrient | 4g |
| Mangrove Jack Mead Yeast | 1/2 sachet |
Starting Gravity (24th Sep, 2023): 1.078
Final Gravity (13th Oct, 2023): 1.000
Final ABV: ~10.24%
Raspberry & Blackberry Mead
| Ingredient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Honey | 1.275kg (850ml) |
| Water | 3.4 litres |
| Wine Nutrient | 4g |
| Mangrove Jack Mead Yeast | 1/2 sachet |
| Raspberries & blackberries | 100 - 200g |
Starting Gravity (24th Sep, 2023): 1.080
Final Gravity (13th Oct, 2023): 1.000
Final ABV: ~10.5%
Note: The carboy ended up being too full and as the fruit expanded and fermentation began, there was an explosion of sorts.
Make sure to leave extra headroom when doing a fruit mead ferment.
Tasting & Aroma Notes
Immediately after racking into new carboy
Both meads were reasonably mild and dry in flavour and didn’t have much of an alcohol forward flavour. They were both quite clear however the berry mead was a touch more cloudy.
The regular leatherwood mead had a pleasantly honey aroma and the leatherwood notes had become much more subtle, but still present. It had a similar taste profile however it has a reasonably mild flavour at this point.
The berry mead had very little aroma at all, neither honey nor berry. It had a much more muddled taste that while quite pleasant, was hard to discern any particular flavour notes.
It will be very interesting to see how both of these progress as they begin to age.
~3 weeks after racking
The leatherwood honey aroma in both meads had intensified significantly over these few weeks.
The berry mead saw the most noteworthy change in both aroma and flavour. It had less muddled flavours and the honey shone through more than immediately after racking. The berry’s definitely had an impact on the overall flavour however I don’t think its obvious from flavour alone that raspberries and blackberries were used. At this point the berry mead had a more interesting and deep flavour than the regular mead.
The regular mead did progress over these three weeks, primarily in aroma. The intensity of the honey smell increased but the flavour remained largely the same, with a small improvement in clarity.
Bottling & Sweetening
Both mead’s were very clear by this point so we decanted them into recycled wine bottles. As we did this we also decided to add more honey as the original goal was more of a desert wine.
For each 750ml bottle we added approx. 2tbsp of leatherwood honey. This served to not only ramp up the sweetness but it also intensified the flavours and brought out the flavours.
From here we’ll be cellaring the bottles to see how they continue to age.