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.
This was one of my experimental brews so it’s a micro-batch. It will not be repeated, but I may use it as inspiration to make something less complicated. I considered calling this the kitchen sink brew
Full list of ingredients in order of addition:
342g quick oats
7g powdered cinnamon
700ml water
300ml water
100ml maple syrup
75ml barley malt
200ml water
1/2tsp fermaid o
1/2 packet k1-v1116 yeast
125ml water
31g chopped dates
20g honey
1/4cup water
1/4tsp fermaid o
50g honey
100ml warm water
1/4cup maple syrup
1/4tsp vanilla
Yes, I did switch back and forth between metric and imperial, I tend to go with whichever measurement is most exact or easiest to manage at the time.
oat milk mead startoat particles fallen from suspension
2024-04-22 Mix oats, cinnamon & water; soak for 24 hours
2024-04-23 add water, puree, strain until I get tired of messing with it. Mix ‘oat milk’, maple syrup, barley malt, water, yeast and fermaid o together and put under airlock
2024-04-24 added in a little more water & swirlled it
2024-05-02 rough racked must into new fermenter on top of chopped dates, honey and more water, put back under airlock
2024-05-08 took a small sip, definitely alcohol, texture is noticably different than other meads, probably due to the oats, very dry
2024-05-09 added honey & warm water
2024-05-20 airlock pressure still positive, but brew is clearing
2024-05-21 racked to another jar and put in fridge to cold crash
2024-05-24 took it out of fridge, sniffed it, it smells like booze, stuck it in the cabinet to age
2024-06-01 racked, added maple syrup and vanilla, tastes good, put back under airlock
2024-06-04 airlock still showed pressure, but I racked it into a 1 liter bottle
I briefly tried to make Moon-specific meads. This was the one for May. My original plan included rose petals, to be added in conditioning to keep the infusion of rose flavor to a minimum. But strong winds stripped all the rose petals from my friend’s rose bushes. heh Maybe next year! However, my pottery instructor had some oregano that had gone to flower and I thought, why not!?
2024-05-21 prepared oregano flower tea: steeped tea for 20 minutes, strained into 2 quart mason jars, each with 800ml fluid, this will be the liquid base for the mead
2024-05-26 Mixed tea 1400ml, water 500ml, 1lb honey, 1/4tsp fermaid o, & 1/2 packet kv yeast. Put under airlock in half-gallon fermenter
2024-06-05 3tbsp hibiscus flowers
2024-06-12 removed hibiscus
2024-06-17 clearing
2024-06-21 tasted it, added 4 oz of honey, stirred the lees up and honey, put back under airlock
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. 😀
We have a pair of rosemary bushes on one side of our house, and so early in my mead making journey I decided to see what would happen if I fermented on fresh rosemary. To my great delight it turned out to be my most favorite creation.
Because this was just an experiment, I only made half a gallon of it. Much to my later dismay. Here’s the basic timeline and ingredients I used.
2024-03-12 2ish quarts water 24 grams rosemary leaves/flowers 1.5 pounds honey 1 packet k1-v1116 yeast in two 32oz mason jars
2024-04-20 racked mead off the rosemary, put back in jars and put back under airlock. the smell is not bad, but it’s interesting.
2024-04-21 (afternoon) poured rosemary into half-gallon pickle jar with blueberries, sugar and water:
Macerated Blueberries
386g frozen blueberries
128 grams turbanado sugar
wide mouth 32oz mason jar
2024-04-20
8pm - mixed it up, popped it in the fridge
2024-04-21 (early afternoon)
moved to half gallon jar, added 3/4th cup of water to get the sugar and stuff out of the mason jar. covered jar with strainer bag, will let it come up to room temp and then add in rosemary mead.
placed pickle jar with airlock onto fermentation shelf
2024-04-28 racked off blueberries, washed container, put mead back under airlock for aging
