Pacific cooler Caprisun mead! An experiment gone absolutely right. It's hard to describe the flavor properly. Very "floral" but almost how a flower smells instead of floral as a flavor? Very unique.

Ended up at about 10-10.5% ABV so I'm comfortable calling it 10%.

Also my first mead to clear up soo beautifully. Bentonite is absolute magic, do not hesitate to use in secondary!

Thank you all for indulging my childhood nostalgic nonsense.

My batch from 3 months ago was done and clear so i racked it onto another jar a week ago. Then i backsweetened with real market honey. Now there is this strange layer. Does anyone know what it is and what i could do?

My not JOAM after aging for 5 years. Despite it not actually being a JOAM because it used different yeast it has aged beautifully, photo makes it look a little darker than it is. Tastes very smooth and the orange is very subtle.

Original post - https://www.reddit.com/r/mead/s/UbdbeE45LN

So i racked this batch 2m ago and i noticed few days ago from distant its getting darker in color but i didn't mind it at first today i took a better look at it and i see this the top section is actually has gone dark and it seems its growing to the bottom even the separation line is visible any idea whats going on?

Its a traditional mead and i added stabilisers when i racked it

I used cream honey for the first time with no added ingredients except yeast, fermaid K and O, go ferm and bentonite. Is it normal to still be this cloudy after a month?

My next brew will be a Viking's Blood, but perhaps a little tweak on the recipe. I have some absolutely massive blackberries, and living in WA state, some gorgeous dark cherries. I have my hibiscus ready to go and some blackberry blossom honey.

I'm planning on doing the hibiscus infusion instead of water in primary and using 1.5lbs of fruit split evenly between blackberries and the dark red cherries I have because I couldn't find any tart cherry juice that didn't have things like citric acid in it already. I have enough fruit to do another 1.5bls of blackberries and cherries in secondary.

Do we think this will work? Or should I press my own cherry juice from the frozen cherries I have? It's been a record cherry year here in WA, so I have no shortage of access to great fruit!

I've stabilized (campden tablet and 1.5 tsp potassium sorbate) and back sweetened about 2 weeks ago. I just added sparkolloid 2 days ago, but I can't tell if this gelatinous mass on the oak stave is just a weird reaction from the sparkolloid or if it's something growing. Any thoughts? See comment for recipe

Got my first batch of traditional bottled today! It's pretty tasty now. Can't wait to see what its like after aging.

Hello peeps.

Imma do a mead for the first time, I have a very basic equipment

(https://www.almostoffgrid.com/products/almost-off-grid-mead-making-starter-kit-with-mead-journal)

And my partner and I want to do mead for the 1st time. We are planning on making a fig and cinnamon mead now to have it ready for xmas.

Any advice?

(Figs are fresh figs from my garden, and the cinnamon is Mexican cinnamon)

Hi all, just curious to see what everyone does about keeping yeast on hand? Like do people keep loads of different packs in stock or do you just buy them as and when needed?

I find it's generally a lot cheaper to buy 5 or 10 packs but worried about them dying off so I'm a bit reserved about buying loads of different types to try. I'd keep them in the fridge but my better half will throw them out if been sat in a while. I generally make about 20 different gallons a year so I don't use that much.

I’m designing a recipe that will use a peanut extract in the secondary.
I’ve used peanut flavoring or extracts in the past in brewing beer with disappointing results.
Can anyone recommend or suggest a peanut extract that you have used that got good results.

May be one of those "no wrong answer" things, but is there a better answer? I'm learning by doing and trying different approaches to see what works best for me, but I'm interested in perspective from others. So, when adding fruit in secondary, is there a more optimal point to do it?

Normally when I'm brewing I wait for activity to stop, check the SG, recheck a week later etc.

But, when I'm going to add fruit, is there a reason not to add the fruit when it "seems" to be done and the SG gets to about 1.000? It could still ferment, I've had a lot of fruit meads go to .990, but is there a reason to wait for fermentation to be done done before adding fruit? I would still ensure it's done done (2 unchanged readings a week apart) after secondary before moving on.

A mead I'm going to add fruit to was at 1.020 last weekend when I was making some new batches and racking a couple that were done done...I didn't add the fruit and it's bubbling merrily on as we speak, would it have been OK to do so? Any pluses or minuses from not doing it last weekend.

Is having a little fermentation left to go a good thing for getting the flavor out of the fruit or does it counter the whole reason for doing it in secondary to begin with?

At the local discount grocery store there are these brands of honey, which one would work best with Rose nibs when making mead?

I've been reading up on yest types and Cider yeast appears to have more of a fruit flavor forward when it ferments. Is there any reason I shouldn't or couldn't use a Cider yeast in my Mead?

Do most of y'all taste a difference when using different yeast?

Sup yall.

Its a real feelsbadman when youve worked hard on recipe development, execution, etc all for it to go south when the auto siphon lets in a ton of oxygen. Ive seen its a reoccurring problem so was wondering about alternatives. To my knowledge its the tubing-siphon connection right?

Ive seen the Brewsssiphon but its a little pricey if its going to just have the same issues down the line. But also dont mind shelling out if itll work.

Anyone have any suggestions? Ive also heard about getting a hose clamp as well. Help me youre my only hope.

Does anybody have experience using wood that they cut and dried themselves? I am thinking about making a mead from plants in my garden and I have lots of rosehip I never use and a small cherry tree. I wanted to cut some branches off the cherry tree, trim off the bark and younger wood, cut into small chips and leave to dry for a few months and roast it in the oven before using in secondary. Anybody done something similar? I know cherry has some cyanide (mostly in bark and leaves) so I want to be sure this is a sensible thing to do before just trying and accidentally poisoning myself.

Hey everyone,

I’m new to making mead. I started a hibiscus mead a few weeks ago, and now want to make a plum mead. I have about 8.8kg (19.4lbs) of various (wild) plums, harvested on my family’s property in France. They taste great, they are sweet and tart, about as small as cherries.

I initially wanted to do a wine by adding white sugar, but I thought it would taste better with honey, aka making a mead. I plan to use 71B yeast, pectic enzymes, and aim for 13-14% ABV, fermenting dry and then potentially back-sweetening with honey after stabilizing. I washed and froze the plums (didn’t removed the pits) and plan to use the fruits in primary in a mesh bag, which I would remove after 5-7 days.

The question I have is: how much plums should I use? I have seen wide ranges for plum meads/wines, i.e., 350-720g per liter (3-6lbs per US gallon). Some people say that, with stone fruits, the more the better. I have seen people juicing fruits (plums or other) and doing a no-water fermentation.

I wanted to aims for 10 liters (2.64 US gallons) of must (say after removing and pressing the mesh bag), would it be an overkill to use all of my 8.8kg (19.4lbs) of plums and add honey to it?

Thanks 🙏

This one was a bit special. A couple years back we had a local forest fire, and an area was just completely bare burnt earth, right along the cliff side completely decimating a beautiful oak grove. It felt pretty difficult to go there for a while just seeing nothing growing, until the fireweed (or rosebay willowherb) ripped through with its vibrant pink flowers and lush green leaves, now there are oak saplings all popping up and it's wonderful to see life return slowly.

It's a hell of a symbol for renewal and transformation, it's often the first thing to grow after destruction and fire, so much so it is also known as bomb weed here in the UK, because after the WWII bombings in London, all the destruction, this humble flower grew everywhere (people even thought the Germans were putting seeds in the bombs!).

It also flowers from the bottom upwards and so gained the folkloric name "summer's clock" and then it turns to fluff from the bottom up, gaining a lovely little saying "when fireweed turns to cotton, summers soon forgotten".

I hoped that this brew would be the perfect thing for late summer parties and revelry. CHEERS 🥂 (there were 6 bottles but they have been gifted already)

Hello!

I’m an amateur wine maker and I want to dip my toes into mead making. I plan on trying to make a cherry-rhubarb mead. The recipe I was looking at says to add half of the cherries in with all the rhubarb for the primary and then add the rest of the cherries in with the secondary (for another 2-4 weeks). I’ve never heard of adding fruit to the secondary and wanted to know if that was a normal thing for mead? The recipe says that it helps the Cherry flavor come through more.

Recipe for 5 gallons:
- 14 to 15 lb of honey
- 10 lb rhubarb
- 10 lb cherries (half in primary, half in secondary)
- 1packet Lalvin QA23
- Pectin enzyme
- Yeast nutrients
- Wine tannin

Any help or advice is welcome!

I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask something like this, but this is my first brew so wanted to make sure I'm not screwing it up too badly.

I'm making a pyment with grape juice. It started very actively fermenting and appears to have foamed up enough to even get on the underside of the lid, but thankfully didn't clog the airlock. I wouldn't be worried except that its a darker color than most of the krausen images I've seen. Is this due to the dark concord grape juice or should I be concerned?

Editing to add the recipe to satisfy the bot: 2 lbs of honey 2 64 Oz bottles of 100% grape juice half a packet of yeast 8oz of black tea

My autumn equinox elderberry melomel is bottled and ready for its last couple months to bottle age. It's a medicinal one and quite potent.

I made my first batch of mead and it’s turned out well. Nothing crazy but I’m happy with it

I was hoping someone could recommend me a book or site where I could learn a bit more about the process and different things I can do.

I googled a fair few times but always seem to come up with contradicting answers

P.S. I’m in Australia so anything using metric would be preferable

Could one use empty wine bottles for bottling up mead? I know it's been asked before but I was thinking about buying flip tops to attach to bottles so I wouldn't have to gamble with corks or threaded metal lids

Transferred to secondary fermentation this afternoon, 3 hours later the airlock is bent over and the plastic is all soft and tearable..

It was on the normal fermentation shelf, moved to the window for the photo. No lights around there or heat sources.

I knew this was a strong batch, but didn't think it was that strong! Any theories?