First Mead!

Actually it’s a melomel, which means mead with fruit added (tart cherries in this case). I have to confess that I’m out of my comfort zone here, but that’s a good thing. It’s how we grow as people, right?

I am not an expert at mead brewing by any means. In some ways I think it’s probably a little easier than making beer (no mashing, no boil time, no hop additions, and no cooling time, for example). In other ways it seems a little more demanding (using yeast nutrient and energizer effectively, dealing with potential stuck fermentation, and waiting far longer before the final product is drinkable).

This is not necessarily what I’m recommending for others to do; it’s merely a document of what I did. I’ll let you know in a few months how the final product turned out. If any experienced mazers read this and want to set me straight, by all means do so.

Mellow Mel

Style: Tart Cherry Melomel

Water:

3 gallons of spring water

Honey:

5 lbs. of Sunny Hill Honey from May’s Honey Farms in Harvard, IL

Juice:

2 quarts of tart cherry juice (R. W. Knudsen Just Tart Cherry).
A few more ounces of juice (if necessary) to add when racking to secondary to achieve desired volume.

Fruit:

4 cans of Oregon Pitted Tart Cherries in Water (14.5 oz. each)

Yeast:

2 packets of Lalvin 71B-1122 (dry wine yeast)

Other Ingredients:

2 tsp. of Wyeast Wine Nutrient Blend (½ tsp. a day for the first four days).

1 tsp. of LD Carlson Yeast Energizer (¼ tsp. a day for the first four days).

Recipe:

So here is the ingenious process that I pieced together from doing some online research. As with making beer, everyone has a different opinion on how to make certain processes happen, and it’s hard to find straight answers sometimes. Someone should do a blog on this stuff to set everyone straight.

First, rehydrate the two packets of yeast in four ounces of warm water (104 to 109 F). I recommend sanitizing a small pot and heating up some of the spring water to the desired temperature, and then pouring it into a small sanitized measuring cup. Add the contents of the yeast packets into the warm water and let stand for 15 minutes without stirring.

Add 1 ½ gallons of the spring water to a sanitized 5 gallon bucket. Add the first dose of the yeast nutrient and energizer to the water. Add the 5 lbs. of honey as well. It helps if you immerse the container in hot water first; it really cuts down the viscosity of the honey when you pour it. Thoroughly incorporate the honey and aerate the hell out of the mixture with a sanitized plastic paddle. This will take about ten minutes. You now have mead must.

Add the two quarts of tart cherry juice, as well as more spring water to achieve 3 total gallons of must. Aerate for another five minutes or so until all ingredients are well incorporated.

Open the four cans of cherries with a sanitized opener. Pour the cherries and the liquid into your primary fermenter (a sanitized 5 gallon carboy) through a large sanitized funnel. Add a few at a time; they tend to clog up. It helps to have a stick to push them through the opening. I used my bottling wand.

Pour the well-aerated must through the funnel as well. Place a cap on top of the carboy. Gently shake it to incorporate and aerate the must further. Be extremely careful when doing so.

Take an original gravity reading; it should be around 1.079-1.080. Stir the yeast well with a sanitized spoon and pour it into the must. Gently shake the carboy again. Attach your airlock and put in a safe place to ferment.

For the next three days add the quantities of nutrient and energizer specified above. Stir the must to incorporate these additives and to degas it.

After two weeks, rack the mead to a sanitized 3 gallon secondary fermenter. Fill the carboy up as high as it can go without interfering with the stopper, ideally to the base of the neck. Add a little more juice if necessary to achieve this volume. Do not transfer the cherries to the secondary. Put in a tight fitting stopper and airlock. Make sure it has a good seal, as the mead will stay in the secondary for at least two months. Also make sure to check your airlock and keep it filled with sanitizer or vodka to the appropriate level. If the stopper or airlock is compromised, your mead will be oxidized. You like that Johnny Cochran action?

Bottle when the mead has reached its final gravity and cleared (approximately 2 months). I would estimate that this one will be pretty dry, so the FG will likely be around 1.000.

Notes:

We’ll see what happens! My melomel gets transferred to the secondary this week. I’d like to share some with my family this holiday season, although I know it will still be pretty young then. Cheers to my first Viking brew!

By the way, this honey from May’s farm in Harvard, Illinois tasted awesome. It had a complex spiciness to it that I really hope makes it through to the melomel. Their honey comes from assorted wildflowers and you can really detect the terroir.