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Apple mead?

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JamesB

JamesB

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Oct 6, 2003
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About a year ago, I tried an apple wine from a winery in New Jersey. It was excellent. :P

In an attempt to produce something similar, I brewed up a 15 gallon batch using this recipe:

6 gallons apple cider
2 gallons clover honey
7 gallons water
Cyser yeast.

Today, I was planning to filter it into the keg. However, it just didn't taste good. :'( :'( Others agreed. :-[ There must be a way to make a good apple mead. Any suggestions? Has anyone ever had success with an apple mead? ???
 
Just out of curiosity...can you explain what was wrong with it? what kind of off flavors did it have? And how old is it?
 
I never put any water in my cyser. That being said I don't know why that would cause off flavors.

Really need far more detailed reporting of the preocess, equipment and steps before I can speculate much on what went wrong.

Possibilities off top of my head include....
Infection.
Oxidation
Autolysis (sp)
 
The cider I used was already pasteurized but without preservatives. I mixed it with the honey and warm, filtered water, also adding yeast nutrient, betonite, and irish moss. Crushed camden tablets were then added before pitching the cyser yeast the next day.

It didn't have any infected taste. It was just dry without any real taste of apples. I can just say that the taste was poor.

If you have a recipe for apply mead which has turned out well, please share it.
 
15 gallons seems like a lot of mead to give up on! If there are no off flavors or infection and you simply arent pleased with the dryness or lack of fruit flavor why dont you work on it? It may turn out to be the best mead you ever made. I would stabilize with sorbate and add honey and apple concentrate to sweeten and enhance apple flavor. The only reason i say this is because i had an identical situation with a strawberry mead...came out way too dry and not tasting like strawberries, so i stabilized and added honey and strawberry syrup and let it age an extra six months. Ended up being OUTSTANDING!
 
1 Dry cysers have little apple charachter in my experience,
2 You'd have less than me because you watter your apple juice down
3 Try sweetening with Apple juice concentrate.
 
The Cyser we are making (5 weeks old) tastes very dry and bears little or no reseblance to apples. We used Apple juice and honey with no water added. We will be racking it this weekend and topping off with apple juice concentrate. I'll let you know what changes that makes.
 
GntlKnght said:
The Cyser we are making (5 weeks old) tastes very dry and bears little or no reseblance to apples. We used Apple juice and honey with no water added. We will be racking it this weekend and topping off with apple juice concentrate. I'll let you know what changes that makes.
Click to expand...

I'm just about on the same schedule as you and using the same recipe. When I finish tasting from a small glass, the glass has a very strong honey odor but not much apple.

Question: When you put the AJC in, are you going to dilute it with water, or just put it in straight from the can?
 
Cysers have some apple charachter at about 1.02 IME. Very little near 1.00

That being said they are still not the same as straight mead when dry IMO.
 
Hidalgo said:
Question: When you put the AJC in, are you going to dilute it with water, or just put it in straight from the can?
Click to expand...

The plan is to use it straight out of the can. Am a little concerned that it will start fermenting the AJC, but I could not find any with preservatives. Seems like you can only find juice WITH preservatives when you are looking for juices without!!!
 
You could feed it more honey first if you wanted to. I'd target S.G of 1.01 perhaps with the honey.

Alternatively you could sorbate and sulfite first to stabalize and prevent fermentation restarting, then sweeten in 2 weeks or so after racking.
 
Re: Apple mead recipe

Can anyone offer a recipe? How does this sound? Next time, I'll just use all apple cider with some honey. I'm thinking a different yeast might be better than cyser.

If it turns out too dry, I can just sweeten it a bit with apple juice concentrate, right?

PS. Here's a site that sells concentrates without perservatives: www.naturesflavors.com
 
As long as the concentrates are added at the end to sweeten/flavor to taste, the preservatives don't matter from a fermentation point of view. Most large grocery stores IME have AJC without preservatives if you read the labels carefully.
 
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