First off, hello! I've been reading and researching quite a bit regarding home meadmaking and decided to try it. I've already successfully made a batch of simple short mead but found it lacking in flavor but otherwise alright. Now, I'm trying for something with lots of bold, rich flavor, a 1-gallon blackberry melomel. I'll describe my process here, I would appreciate any feedback and would like to see if I'm at least on the right track. I'm someone who prefers to keep things as simple as possible, so there's less to mess up.
Ingredients: 3lbs raw local honey, 3lbs blackberries (frozen), 1 packet Lalvin 71B-1122, 1 gallon spring water
Process: (I'm going to skip over sanitation since we all know that already).
1. Crushed 1.5lbs thawed frozen blackberries in plastic bag, placed into primary fermenter with about half of the spring water.
2. Added 3lbs honey, after taking a bath in warm water to ease pouring.
3. Filled with additional spring water, leaving an inch or two of head space.
4. Attempted to take first hydrometer reading, but it was way too low. Used the handy calculator here to determine that SG was probably 1.118, suspect that fruit pulp in must threw off the reading or I just didn't do it right.
5. Pitched yeast.
6. Shook the jug like I meant it to aerate must.
7. Placed a poor man's airlock on mouth of jug, cheap balloon with holes poked in it.
What I'm planning to do is as follows:
1. Crush/puree remaining 1.5lbs of blackberries, strain it, add to secondary fermenter.
2. Rack into glass secondary through strainer.
3. Wait a few months before bottling/drinking.
My questions are open-ended...did I screw anything up or miss anything? I wanted to get the best of both worlds for adding fruit to primary or secondary so that's why I decided to go that route. What I'm shooting for is a semi-sweet, fruity, flavorful mead. Is that likely, based on what I've described, to be what I end up with? I would love to do 5-gallon batches but, due to space and financial limitations, I'm sticking with small mead batches for now. Does anyone have any suggestions for aging? More specifically, how long should I let the must sit in the primary before racking? My concern is excess tannin from the blackberry seeds. I just checked on my mead and the balloon is already inflated, just 5 hours after pitching the yeast! Thank you in advance!
Ingredients: 3lbs raw local honey, 3lbs blackberries (frozen), 1 packet Lalvin 71B-1122, 1 gallon spring water
Process: (I'm going to skip over sanitation since we all know that already).
1. Crushed 1.5lbs thawed frozen blackberries in plastic bag, placed into primary fermenter with about half of the spring water.
2. Added 3lbs honey, after taking a bath in warm water to ease pouring.
3. Filled with additional spring water, leaving an inch or two of head space.
4. Attempted to take first hydrometer reading, but it was way too low. Used the handy calculator here to determine that SG was probably 1.118, suspect that fruit pulp in must threw off the reading or I just didn't do it right.
5. Pitched yeast.
6. Shook the jug like I meant it to aerate must.
7. Placed a poor man's airlock on mouth of jug, cheap balloon with holes poked in it.
What I'm planning to do is as follows:
1. Crush/puree remaining 1.5lbs of blackberries, strain it, add to secondary fermenter.
2. Rack into glass secondary through strainer.
3. Wait a few months before bottling/drinking.
My questions are open-ended...did I screw anything up or miss anything? I wanted to get the best of both worlds for adding fruit to primary or secondary so that's why I decided to go that route. What I'm shooting for is a semi-sweet, fruity, flavorful mead. Is that likely, based on what I've described, to be what I end up with? I would love to do 5-gallon batches but, due to space and financial limitations, I'm sticking with small mead batches for now. Does anyone have any suggestions for aging? More specifically, how long should I let the must sit in the primary before racking? My concern is excess tannin from the blackberry seeds. I just checked on my mead and the balloon is already inflated, just 5 hours after pitching the yeast! Thank you in advance!
