Sup everyone. Long time no ... read.
Anyways, I've been working on a little project called Peach Melomel, and rather than run the usual route to making a fruit mead I decided to take my beerience and apply some fancy tactics to make a bitchin' peach melomel that would rival my brew clubs best meads, or at least try.
The ingrediants are straightforward:
2 Gallons (24lbs) of Dark Clover Honey aged 2 years in a pantry
Wyeast 4184
Yeast Energizer
Fermaid
9lbs Peach Puree
Tons of patience.
Aging the honey was what raised many eyebrows when I proposed it to a group of mead makers. Most notably they chastised this step as damaging to the aroma and flavor of the honey. My protest was that by eliminating some of the pungent characteristics of a dark clover honey it would allow me to bring out a very strong peach flavor. "Time will tell," was my closing argument. So off it sat in my pantry, eyeballing me everytime I opened it up until the day I'd turn it into liquid gold.. or a tank of crap water.
Simply enough you just dump all that honey in a 6 gallon fermenter and top off with water, stir the ever living piss out of it for aeration, add 1tsp of yeast energizer, yeast, and off to a dark corner to ferment.
After I noticed the yeast level starting to drop out (about a month) I racked to a new fermenter, added 1tsp of energizer and 1tsp of fermaid as well as 3lbs of peach puree (they come in 3lb cans usually) and let it sit again, this time I didn't notice any dropout until about 2 months. I would add a couple teaspoons more of fermaid and energizer when I noticed fermentation slowing down. With a sweet mead yeast you're going to need to baby the yeast along once you start breaching the 11% tolerance the yeast is designed for to limit off flavors. Being the naturalist I am I didn't bother taking samples along the way, just kept a close eye on the activity.
Last night I racked the mead onto the last 6lbs of peach puree, pulled my first sample, tossed a tsp of fermaid and yeast energizer in and swirled the mead around to give it some oxygen. I was nervous since I had let the mead rest from the second dropout for an additional month to settle out the undeniably mutated whorebeast that was my yeast. My hydrometer measurements puts the mead at an estimated 13%. You really can't trust a hydrometer at this point, so I'll just stick with that number so as not to scare wary drinkers.
Surprisingly, after the inital shock of the first taste sanitizing your mouth you are greeted with a not cloyingly warm, syrupy, slightly peachy delight. I handed over the sample to my girlfriend and she had the same initial reaction. My only irritant is getting past that first sip which I'm hoping the extra peach takes over and gives it the aroma and more bold peach flavor. To my dismay I only was able to get about 2 sips before le girlfriend had already finished the sample. My sampler is a 6oz tumbler.
I tried to warn her about the alcohol, but she insisted she would be just fine. 12 hours later and a kitchen destroyed she awakes to text me at work proclaiming that the little concoction still in progress is, in fact, a panty dropper.
So, pretty stoked about that and wanted to share my recipe/process. Here's some pics just for giggles n *****:
-Just racked onto 6lbs of puree, you can see the yeast already rising up to attack
And here's the sample. Sorry for the crap quality here, you can see through the mead, but you can tell it has plenty of time to settle out once the last stage is over, which could be months or a year before bottling.
It's a fun experiment, and honestly I'll be hard pressed to hand out many bottles of this stuff as the cost to obtain 24lbs of quality honey is really out of my price range for brewing a 5 gallon batch. The only reason I had it was because my mom gave it to me in exchange for bottles of whatever I did with it. She'll probably crap unicorns and piss excellence when she gets a handle of the stuff.
Anyways, let me know if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer.
Also have been working on a tea infused apfelwein with added raw sugar and cinnamon, we'll see how that goes soon.
Anyways, I've been working on a little project called Peach Melomel, and rather than run the usual route to making a fruit mead I decided to take my beerience and apply some fancy tactics to make a bitchin' peach melomel that would rival my brew clubs best meads, or at least try.
The ingrediants are straightforward:
2 Gallons (24lbs) of Dark Clover Honey aged 2 years in a pantry
Wyeast 4184
Yeast Energizer
Fermaid
9lbs Peach Puree
Tons of patience.
Aging the honey was what raised many eyebrows when I proposed it to a group of mead makers. Most notably they chastised this step as damaging to the aroma and flavor of the honey. My protest was that by eliminating some of the pungent characteristics of a dark clover honey it would allow me to bring out a very strong peach flavor. "Time will tell," was my closing argument. So off it sat in my pantry, eyeballing me everytime I opened it up until the day I'd turn it into liquid gold.. or a tank of crap water.
Simply enough you just dump all that honey in a 6 gallon fermenter and top off with water, stir the ever living piss out of it for aeration, add 1tsp of yeast energizer, yeast, and off to a dark corner to ferment.
After I noticed the yeast level starting to drop out (about a month) I racked to a new fermenter, added 1tsp of energizer and 1tsp of fermaid as well as 3lbs of peach puree (they come in 3lb cans usually) and let it sit again, this time I didn't notice any dropout until about 2 months. I would add a couple teaspoons more of fermaid and energizer when I noticed fermentation slowing down. With a sweet mead yeast you're going to need to baby the yeast along once you start breaching the 11% tolerance the yeast is designed for to limit off flavors. Being the naturalist I am I didn't bother taking samples along the way, just kept a close eye on the activity.
Last night I racked the mead onto the last 6lbs of peach puree, pulled my first sample, tossed a tsp of fermaid and yeast energizer in and swirled the mead around to give it some oxygen. I was nervous since I had let the mead rest from the second dropout for an additional month to settle out the undeniably mutated whorebeast that was my yeast. My hydrometer measurements puts the mead at an estimated 13%. You really can't trust a hydrometer at this point, so I'll just stick with that number so as not to scare wary drinkers.
Surprisingly, after the inital shock of the first taste sanitizing your mouth you are greeted with a not cloyingly warm, syrupy, slightly peachy delight. I handed over the sample to my girlfriend and she had the same initial reaction. My only irritant is getting past that first sip which I'm hoping the extra peach takes over and gives it the aroma and more bold peach flavor. To my dismay I only was able to get about 2 sips before le girlfriend had already finished the sample. My sampler is a 6oz tumbler.
I tried to warn her about the alcohol, but she insisted she would be just fine. 12 hours later and a kitchen destroyed she awakes to text me at work proclaiming that the little concoction still in progress is, in fact, a panty dropper.
So, pretty stoked about that and wanted to share my recipe/process. Here's some pics just for giggles n *****:
-Just racked onto 6lbs of puree, you can see the yeast already rising up to attack
And here's the sample. Sorry for the crap quality here, you can see through the mead, but you can tell it has plenty of time to settle out once the last stage is over, which could be months or a year before bottling.
It's a fun experiment, and honestly I'll be hard pressed to hand out many bottles of this stuff as the cost to obtain 24lbs of quality honey is really out of my price range for brewing a 5 gallon batch. The only reason I had it was because my mom gave it to me in exchange for bottles of whatever I did with it. She'll probably crap unicorns and piss excellence when she gets a handle of the stuff.
Anyways, let me know if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer.
Also have been working on a tea infused apfelwein with added raw sugar and cinnamon, we'll see how that goes soon.
Last edited by a moderator:
