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Greetings from a new old-timer....

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fuelish

NewBee
Registered Member
Nov 11, 2013
88
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Foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, TN
Got into homebrewing a few decades back, made a lot of great, or sometimes just very "interesting", beers. Along that road, I ventured into mead making (my wife is the impetus to get me back into it, specifically for mead....her favorite......other than my oaked habanero mead, which made a great winter warmer on a cold cold Detroit evening, but she no likey....but I digress). Just want to say that this seems to be a great website, chock full of solid info, and pretty respectful, in the scheme of most forums :) Just finished up starting my first 5 gallon batch of mead in a long time - a variation of a ginger mead I've made before (threw in a few sliced oranges).... looking fwd to more to come, and have been browsing the forum(s) for quite a bit since joining. Thanks in advance for any future tips/hints/advice I may glean from this joint, but think I remember enough from the old days to do alright for now. I like this place :)
 
Welcome!

...yeah, there is a lot of respect for others on this forum, I'm led to believe that this is an anomaly in the grand scheme of things on the internet...

If you're anything like me, the biggest problem you're going to have is the "Ooh, I must try that!" to-brew list a mile long... ;D
 
Chevette Girl said:
Welcome!

...yeah, there is a lot of respect for others on this forum, I'm led to believe that this is an anomaly in the grand scheme of things on the internet...
Click to expand...

Personally I believe it to be because there's no money to be made in homebrew. Thus you have no poorly informed charlatans pushing agendas who refuse to be wrong, because it would decrease their 'expert status'. There's no 'cutting edge' systems being sold by entrepreneurs at each other's faults.

Everybody here is interested in making mead, helping make mead, drinking mead, hearing stories about making/drinking mead.
To that I say

WASSAIL!
 
Thanks, all ....I'm a night shift nurse by trade - 7pm to 7am - before I left for work last evening, it looked like it was slowly starting. Got home this morning, looks like there are some happy yeast in there, it's bubbling well.....IT'S ALIVE!!! :) Already considering what to brew up next, once this batch goes into the secondary. Been some years since I've brewed, feels good ...and now the wait.................................
 
fuelish said:
Thanks, all ....I'm a night shift nurse by trade - 7pm to 7am - before I left for work last evening, it looked like it was slowly starting. Got home this morning, looks like there are some happy yeast in there, it's bubbling well.....IT'S ALIVE!!! :) Already considering what to brew up next, once this batch goes into the secondary. Been some years since I've brewed, feels good ...and now the wait.................................
Click to expand...

Yes, I think its another one of nature's little jokes on us that primary fermentation goes quickly but secondary/clarifying/aging takes so long.

I have to be careful to measure out my batches or I end up with lots of mead that won't be ready to drink for a loooong time.

Joe
 
Alright... a positive update. Started this batch 2 weeks ago, airlock activity is seemingly done, took a sample, has dropped from 1.088 to 0.098 (went light - 12 lbs honey, 5 gal batch). Just waiting for the small amount of oranges I put in there to drop, then into a secondary to wait some more. Looking at less than 12%abv, used champagne yeast, so am expecting to be able to bottle condition. Ginger is present/not at all overpowering, orange is present/not at all overpowering, a little bite to it.....this is going to be very satisfactory when all the waiting is over and all is said and done. Much clearer than I expected at this point, as I said, just waiting on oranges to drop out.

Next up, trying to recreate a peach mead I made for friends' wedding......they swore it was the best thing they ever tasted, it was pretty dang good....now, just have to remember just what the heck I did....LOL...my recipes are entombed in a dead harddrive in a computer in the basement, unfortunately. No biggie, though...it's all good fun, and my wife is all in favor of the mead - she isn't a fan of "unusual" beers, so mead I shall make.....mostly. I DO want to make a oaked cranberry wheat beer, again fudging the recipe I used up north....and a habanero sweet mead is on the horizon. I'm back in the saddle again :cool:


<EDIT> AND, I apologize for this thread starting from a post with no real questions, I just consider myself a newbee again, at this stage...
 
Alright....this batch appears to have finished up at 0.996, will let it sit for a while in the basement to clear and to be sure it's done, and will be bottling by my birthday, perhaps...hopefully it'll carbonate, as it's around 12% abv, yeast was way more tolerant. I think this is gonna taste pretty dang good after some time, although it seems to have lost the ginger note - still has a lil ginger bite, though, and the orange is there, moreso than i expected. We'll see sometime next year....now to reconstruct the old peach mead recipe I made many years ago...Hmmmmmm
 
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