What should it taste like?

[UKTony]

OK, so I get that my traditional mead will need to age for 1+ years before it's drinkable, and I'm still cool with that, I have patience.

What I want to know is, until it has aged, what should it taste like, I tasted mine today (still only 8 days in) and it was entirely unimpressive so far. I guess I'm looking for a barometer on what I should be finding in a traditional that is very immature so I know if I'm on the right track?

On the plus side, it didn't taste of vinegar, yeast, sulphur or anything else noxious!

Cheers

Tony.

 

[fatbloke]

Therin lies the rub.......

It tastes like....... (drum roll).......... Mead !

Hard as hell to describe Tony. Sometimes, it can be distinctly wine-like. Sometimes people will describe the "alcohol hot" taste of some young meads as rocket fuel, whereas I "know" the difference between the alcohol hot taste and the "rocket fuel" of when theres some fusels present.

If you looked back at my blog, about 4 or so years ago, I did an unscientific test of 4 different commercial meads I got locally. They all had one commonality, cloyingly sweet. All in the 1.040 area (dessert meads) while the underlying taste was pleasing yet different because (probably) different honeys and yeasts.

I like some sweetness and honey character, yet I've also learned that honey can cause a haze in already cleared mead, so I ferment dry, stabilise, back sweeten to 1.010 a.k.a. medium, then finish the racking/clearing process, then just bulk store it until I can get round to it......

Prior to bottling I tastes and add any tannin and acid I think it might need - that can sometimes throw a final sediment which I let settle, then just final polish it with a filter and bottle......

You could equally just have a bit of a mission locally and find some commercial meads but theres no way of knowing whether you'd like them or whether your own ones will taste anything like them........

I know that lots not much help, but its a hard as hell question to answer.....

 

[ScotRob]

Commercial meads

As Fatbloke has said, you could try some commercially made meads to get a rough idea...i would recommend Moniack Mead if you can get it....slightly sweet, but not cloying or overpowering, and very drinkable lightly chilled as an aperitif or nearer room temperature as an after dinner or dessert wine. There are others out there too....I personally think that Lindesfarne Mead is ok (although it is not really a mead, but rather a wine fortified with honey and herbs).

My first batch of traditional mead was very hot to taste for quite a long time, but it did settle down slowly (1-2 years) and is great now....personally I think that dry meads are not that great as you often lose a lot of thr aroma and flavour that even the tiniest bit of sweetness will bring out.

 

[UKTony]

Thanks guys, it was the pre-ageing taste I'm specifically interested in (it was Moniack that originally got me in to this crazy malarkey last Christmas!)

My first batch is getting close to racking, not days but certainly I'd say a couple of weeks maybe.

I tasted it yesterday, at around 10% ABV and it didn't have a lot of character, there were some notes coming through, but it tasted very non-alcoholic. I was trying to figure out if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

I totally get the true character will show as the mead ages, and the lighter the honey, the more ageing it may require, that's all good.

I just wasn't sure, if at 10% ABV, a very young mead should taste so tame?

 

[ScotRob]

taste when racking

If it were my batch I would leave off tasting it until the first racking....at that point you can decide what it needs. If you used only honey and nutrients then now might be a good time to add some acid and tannin (tannin in particular can give fresh zestiness to a mead or wine when present in small amounts...without it you can sometimes get a flat or "medicinal" flavour)...acidity also helps with flavour as well as being something which yeasts benefit from.

I started a batch of traditional mead a year ago using Lime (Linden/Basswood) honey, and at first racking it tasted hot, harsh, dry and lacking flavour... over subsequent rackings (and it has had 2 or 3, as it has been very slow to clear) I have topped up with lime honey + water, being careful not to make it too sweet, and at the most recent racking (April) it had lost a lot of the "heat", mellowed slightly and was no longer dry and flavourless. The mead has now only just dropped clear for the first time and will be racked imminently, at which point I expect to possibly add a little more honey (but no more acid or tannin as I had these in from the start)....but even then I am expecting 1-3 years in bottle to achieve drinkability

If your mead hasn't fermented out completely then the ABV will rise....10% is about the strength of some table wines, but your lack of flavour and tameness may also be due to using a mild flavour honey, lack of acids, lack of tannins and over-dryness...either way, be patient, give it time, and see what develops...it is always a learning experience no matter how many meads you may have made

 

[UKTony]

Thanks for that, I'm planning to use FatBlokes approach that he's mentioned elsewhere on the forum (I believe ChevetteGirl has also used this) where I ferment down to say 1.015, then top back up to 1.035 then ferment back down again, until the yeast give up, then back sweeten to taste. I was considering maybe some light toast oak in the first rack off (anything other than light might overwhelm the delicate honey I used) or maybe some galalcool just because I've seen some great results from it on here, again used sparingly.

I'm not impatient per se, but I am quite analytical as a person, so I try to collect as many reference points as possible to ensure I don't stray too far in my first batch. But you're 100% correct, I'm only 8 days in to the batch, and I'm expecting at least a year or two before its done.

 

[ScotRob]

8 days in

Sounds like a plan. If you're only 8 days in, I would be ASTOUNDED if your must had fermented out completely (but it's not impossible in a warm, nutrient rich environment) and so your ABV is bound to rise.

Out of interest: which honey are you using? Is it a monofloral or a blend? I would be reluctant to tamper with a good monofloral by adding wood chips/flavour, but it depends what it is....if it is acacia, which is VERY mild IMO, then I can see why you would use wood....but if it's sourwood or heather (ling) then you would be hard pushed to make a mark on the flavour by using wood flavours....

As a Scotsman living in the beautiful heart of Scotland, it is my dream to make a mead from 100% heather honey,,,,but meads made from this weird, thixotropic, bitter honey take YEARS (5+) to mature,,,,,I am told the result is equivalent to the nectar of the Gods however....

 

[UKTony]

Sounds like a plan. If you're only 8 days in, I would be ASTOUNDED if your must had fermented out completely (but it's not impossible in a warm, nutrient rich environment) and so your ABV is bound to rise.

Yes, I only have 10% ABV right now and it's still going strong, I'm expecting to reach 1.015 or so in the next few days at which point I'll add some more honey and run it again. My ABV is targeted for around 14.5, so still a way to go.

Out of interest: which honey are you using? Is it a monofloral or a blend? I would be reluctant to tamper with a good monofloral by adding wood chips/flavour, but it depends what it is....if it is acacia, which is VERY mild IMO, then I can see why you would use wood....but if it's sourwood or heather (ling) then you would be hard pushed to make a mark on the flavour by using wood flavours....

I'm using "Summer Thistle" varietal, which I really like, it's very light and delicate, but has some great notes to it. My next batch will be sourwood, as that's my next favourite honey!! Had I stayed in the UK I'd be trying heather... but had I stayed in the UK I'd never have gotten disillusioned with a lack of mead and never would have started brewing, I'd have stayed in a Moniack stupor!!

As a Scotsman living in the beautiful heart of Scotland, it is my dream to make a mead from 100% heather honey,,,,but meads made from this weird, thixotropic, bitter honey take YEARS (5+) to mature,,,,,I am told the result is equivalent to the nectar of the Gods however....

I wholeheartedly agree, Brother Adam already proved that!

Tony.

 

[fatbloke]

Hum ? Have to see if they've got Moniack at Middle Farm.....

As to whether it'll hit the 14.5% ? Dunno and can't remember which yeast you said you were using Tony....

The older material that says about some of the best meads being heather honey, also said about it/them being bell heathet not ling, I seem to recall reading something that said that ling was rubbish for the reasons you mention (or was it Scotrob ?).....

Brother Adams making regime seems a bit strange too. Only using the cappings/comb washing, fermenting in oak, etc. I haven't found any book that fully explains his method yet, just bits in bee breeding type books/info.

S' pose thats because mead wasn't his primary aim......

 

[UKTony]

Hum ? Have to see if they've got Moniack at Middle Farm.....

As to whether it'll hit the 14.5% ? Dunno and can't remember which yeast you said you were using Tony....

I used to buy mine here before I left the UK.. used to buy 4 bottles at a time to save on shipping:

http://www.masterofmalt.com/product.aspx?par1=highland-wineries/moniack-mead

The yeast is White Labs WLP720 which is rated at about 15% tolerance

The older material that says about some of the best meads being heather honey, also said about it/them being bell heathet not ling, I seem to recall reading something that said that ling was rubbish for the reasons you mention (or was it Scotrob ?).....

It was scotrob, I'm not that smart!

Brother Adams making regime seems a bit strange too. Only using the cappings/comb washing, fermenting in oak, etc. I haven't found any book that fully explains his method yet, just bits in bee breeding type books/info.

S' pose thats because mead wasn't his primary aim......

It's funny that brother Adam says that dark honeys with the exception of heather are crap for mead (ok I paraphrased), yet I see people on here talking about making with dark honey all the time, I wonder if it's a problem specific to dark European honeys. Personally I can't wait to get my sourwood started, although not sure if sourwood is considered dark.

 

[Swordnut]

All epic advice above me. From my personal experience, all the meads I did yet tasted like cheap white wine when they were very young (end of primary young). That seems to be a rather good indicator that you did everything right and none of the nasties got at your sugars. So if it tastes like you're standard 5 dollar white wine from last year with perhaps alcohol burn then at least you know its mead. After that, time will tell which flavors rise up which (depends on your honey, recipe, yeast, etc.).​

 

[Chevette Girl]

On the plus side, it didn't taste of vinegar, yeast, sulphur or anything else noxious!

That's pretty much the best you can expect. Did this batch go dry? Those often don't taste like much of anything for the first six months or so, then the honey character comes back somehow, I haven't directly witnessed this but then again I don't often taste things unless I'm racking and I'm too lazy to rack very often.

 

[UKTony]

Hi CG,

It didn't go dry, but I tasted it at around 1.020, and it didn't taste like much of anything, I thought it was odd at the time that I didn't taste any alcohol heat or anything, given that the ABV would've been about 12% I felt sure I'd be able to taste it.

I'm not in a hurry, I just really started the post because I regularly hear people talking about fusels and alcohol heat and other stuff, and I couldn't detect any of that.

So anyway, I took it back up from 1.020 to 1.040, and fermented another .010 off of that already, so it's back down to 1.030, my original target was on the dry side of medium, but no higher than 1.015, which, given its progress so far seems eminently achievable, even with an extra pound of honey in there, that I didn't plan for.

It's a bit more of a "suck it and see" approach than I'm comfortable with, but it doesn't seem too bad, and I'm not disappointed with the WLP720 I used so far.

If nothing goes horribly wrong I can see me racking it at some point within the next couple of weeks, I'm not sure I have the chutzpah to step feed it any further than this since I'm already at least a pound over recipe.

 

[Chevette Girl]

I made a cherry wine once with 5 lb in a gallon that was very pretty but no taste of cherry whatsoever... so weird things CAN happen. Haven't checked back with that batch to see if anything's returned

You don't always get the alcohol taste thing going on, especially if it was a nice clean ferment.

Hahaha, you had a PLAN?? And don't want to deviate from it? Bwahahaahaa, it is to laugh If you're going to step-feed it any more, wait till it goes below 1.010 and boost it back to 1.020 or 1.015, if you do small steps like that you're a lot less likely to overshoot and wind up with something too sweet.

 

[mokayu]

I made a cherry wine once with 5 lb in a gallon that was very pretty but no taste of cherry whatsoever... so weird things CAN happen. Haven't checked back with that batch to see if anything's returned

You don't always get the alcohol taste thing going on, especially if it was a nice clean ferment.

Hahaha, you had a PLAN?? And don't want to deviate from it? Bwahahaahaa, it is to laugh If you're going to step-feed it any more, wait till it goes below 1.010 and boost it back to 1.020 or 1.015, if you do small steps like that you're a lot less likely to overshoot and wind up with something too sweet.

I think you use the wrong step while making cherry wine.