Tag Archives: in progress

Mint Mead

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full view of a one gallon wide mouth glass fermenter with airlock, contents are amber liquid and mint leaves
close up view of the top of a glass fermenter showing a dark amber liquid with mint leaves floating in it and a solid line of foamy bubbles at the top
empty plastic containers for the fresh mint leaves and the thrifty bee dark and robust honey used in this mead
  • .5oz fresh mint
  • 3lbs dark honey
  • 1pkg EC-1118 yeast
  • ½ tsp fermaid o (may add more if needed)

2025-01-18
Set honey bottle in warm water, started fermaid o in a cup of warm water, added yeast to cup of water when temp was low enough.

Added ½ gallon of water, mint and honey to fermenter. Stirred/aerated for about 6 minutes total. Checked temperature of must to make sure it was safe for yeast. Added hydrated yeast-fermaid o to must. Added water to a gallon. Stirred for another couple of minutes. Checked temperature of must: 77.7. Took gravity reading: 1.120spg.

Put must under airlock, placed fermenter in warmish corner and blocked light from the glass part.

    Persephone’s Descent

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    Pomegranate Mead

    a pyrex measuring pitcher full of juice, a metal bowl with a mesh bag full of white seeds, and a black bowl full of picked apart pomegranate husks

    Ingredients
    1.5 cups fresh squeezed pomegranate juice
    1 liter pomegranate syrup / equivalent 1.74lbs sugar
    .2oz fresh rosemary
    1lb 10.2oz honey
    water to 1 gallon (approx 2qt, 1cup)
    1pkg yeast
    1.5tsp fermaid o (start, 48, 72)

    2024-10-04
    So. I will never complain about the price of pomegranate products again. Holy goddess. 5 pomegranates (from a friend’s yard) turned out to be about 1.5 cups of juice. Apparently pomegranates come in white fruit too. Tasted good. Then I added the pomegranate syrup, got it from the International Market the other week. It tastes like jolly ranchers, but I like that so it’s all good. Added in the honey, which was just what I had left over from two 5lbs containers. Let the yeast and the fermaid o start doing their thing in a cup of water while I prepped it all. Shook the heck out of the must to make sure it was aerated enough. Checked the starting gravity: 1.092 spg. Added the little bit of rosemary and put it all under air lock.

    Everything was so sticky. But I’m excited to see how it comes out. 😀

    opened pomegranate, showing seeds
    open pomegranate, focus is on the thin skin that divides the seeds inside, it looks like honeycomb
    Zergut Pomegranate Syrup bottle
    back of pomegranate syrup bottle showing the ingredients
    back of pomegranate syrup bottle showing the nutrition facts and that it is a product of Slovenia
    one gallon jug fermenter with air lock on it, full of a dark red liquid with white foam on top

    Alpine Berry Mead

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    approximately 5 oz of fresh rosemary in a white bucket
    two small sprigs of rosemary on a white bucket lid
    white bucket with light brown liquid (honey and water)
    glass measuring pitcher with 1/2 cup water and yeast in it, an orange chopstick has been used to stir it and rests in the pitcher as well
    outside of white bucket, you can faintly see that the liquid inside is just a hair above the 1 gallon mark (written in black sharpie on the side)
    hydrometer & graduated cylinder containing mead must (a light golden brown), the hydrometer is showing a specific gravity of 1.140

    Rosemary + Blueberry Mead Take 2!

    3oz fresh rosemary leaves + some stems
    4lbs honey
    1pkg k1-v1116 yeast
    water to 1 gallon
    1.5tsp fermaid o (start, 24, 48)
    41oz frozen blueberries (secondary)
    14oz turbinado sugar (secondary to macerate blueberries)

    2024-09-27
    Harvested rosemary, washed and prepped it (removed woody stems), placed in plastic bag in fridge. Filtered 1 gallon of water. Marked the 1 gallon, 1.5 gallon & 2 gallon spots on the 2-gallon fermenter bucket.

    2024-09-28
    Mixed honey 4lbs, water 0.6875gal, yeast & fermaid o 1/2tsp together, spg 1.140, added rosemary 3oz, stirred some more, put under air lock

    I made my first rosemary+blueberry mead back in March. It was just an experiment, so I only made a half-gallon batch and I added the blueberries in on a whim. It turned out to be my favorite of all the ones I’ve tried making. So now that I’ve got my 2 gallon fermenter available again, I decided to give it another go. Fingers crossed that it comes out as good or better now that I’m doing it on purpose.

    This batch should take about a month to ferment, though I will have a better idea now that I have a hydrometer. After it finishes fermenting I will rack it off the rosemary and add in the macerated blueberries for a week or two. I will be able to take specific gravity readings this time, so I’ll have a clearer idea of what the final ABV% is.