Homebrew No 5
Just cracked open batch number 5 of my homebrewed mead. I initially made two batches of mead using Crystal’s Wildflower Honey. The must of the first batch was made with 10 lbs of honey, 1 quart of maple syrup, and enough water to fill the remainder of volume of a 5 gallon HDPE food-safe bucket. I used 2 packets of Lalvin EC-1118 to get the fermentation process going. The must very obviously could have just used 1 packet though.
The first batch ran through primary ferment slowly compared to the last few batches that I made. I suspect that this is the largest batch I’ve made to date. All the early batches were 1 gallon total volume. I also started this batch during late summer… not sure if the A/C made the fermentation run at a lower temperature or not. This batch ran primary fermentation from July ‘24 to December ‘24. After December ‘24, I re-racked the bucket into anotehr 5 gallon bucket for a secondary fermentation. I’ve added no stabilizers so far.
As a result of the extended primary fermentation and now 6-month secondary fermentation, there should be effectively zero residual sugar left in the batch. I didn’t do specific gravity testing before or after the fermentation completed. Assuming that the wine is fermented to zero residual sugar, back of the envelope calculations suggest that this batch yields 12% to 15% ABV.
I do not envy you the headache you will have when you awaken
The mead aroma is honey forward with a virant plank-like smell. At room temperature its almost a “thin” smell. I don’t love the smell to be honest. The raw honey is obviously really sweet to the nose. It has a rich golden color and almost a sandy this texture on account of the water evaporation over time.
On tasting: very dry. Zero residual sugar or sweetness. The mead tasted grassy and floral. I can’t tell if this is the wildflowerness of the thoney. It’s very aggressive on the nose from the high alcohol content too. You can easily taste how strong this batch is.
The raw honey itself is sweet but not cloyingly so. It has a depth to it. There’s a sandy texture that I mentioned before, which seems to be caused by sugar crystallizing out of suspension. Honestly as far as honey goes this is pretty neutral and doesn’t really have a specific taste outside the green and floral aromas. Those influence the taste profile, but not too much
I tried backsweetening the room temperature mead with 1 teaspoon of honey to two teaspoons of mead. It was obviously sweeter. Was it better? Sugar is basically crack, so yes. However, after backsweetening the taste mostly became honey forward with no subtlety. Sure, the sweetness of the honey added depth but it became almost boring.
When chilled, the mead is still very floral scented, but the grassy taste completely disappears. It tastes better to me, but also very similar to a basic Pinot Grigio. If you’re allergic to grapes or gluten then this would be a very refreshing drink on a hot Summer day.
The Experimental Batch
What it really needs is secondary flavor and aromatic depth. Something that piques your interest and takes this fr oma good drink for abeer pong to the kind of drink you could bring to a summer barbecue (barbeque? idk, not my wheelhouse).
As it turns out, Jessie actually had the bright idea to do this before we even started. Our last experimental batch of mead (1 gallon, roughly 5 bottles) used a significant portion of maple syrup. We ran out of that so the big batch didn’t have enough of that, and the experimental batch needed another treatment. Jessie picked an amazing combo of lemon zest and Earl Grey tea, and I tossed in some juniper berries for a little kick.
This experimental batch (name TBD) was easily our best batch ever. It was so good that we actually don’t know how it tastes after secondary ferment and againg because we drank the whole gallon batch on New Year’s Eve with our buddies. We’re definitely going to make another one of those some time.