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Lemon/Lime Mead

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U

upther

NewBee
Registered Member
Feb 25, 2015
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I'm a home brewer of about 6 years or so. I've made a bunch of beer, but never done a mead by myself. I've got the itch to make a mead and thought about doing a lemon/lime mead. Figure if I do it now, it should be ready by mid summer and could make for something refreshing to drink in the Florida sun. I'm going to use orange blossom honey since we have an abundance of that down here and also champagne yeast. As for the lemons and limes, I was going to zest and the juice them for use in the secondary. Figure all that acid would be bad for the yeast in the primary. One suggestion I read was to take the juice and put it in a pot and as it heats up to a simmer, add the zest. The thought was that it would bring out more of the aroma from the zest.

Looking at:
15lbs of orange blossom honey
1/2lb lemons
1/2lb limes
5 gallons spring water

I'll be kegging this which is another reason for wanting to do champagne yeast.

Opinions and/or ideas? Am I on the right track?
 
Adding that many lemons and limes before fermentation is going to drop your pH to stalling levels. I would add those to secondary.

Since you are new to mead, I would also suggest you read the article in my signature for SNAs and good practices.

Hope that helps!


Better brewing through science!

See my Current Mead Making Techniques article here:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html
 
Yeah, I was definitely planning on adding them to the secondary. Figured all that acid would be bad for the yeast in the primary.

I'll check out that article, thanks!
 
Once it's in the keg, I'll just be letting the CO2 do it's thing. Thinking I'll set it to about 15psi like I do when I keg my beers and then turn it down a bit when it's time to serve it.
 
Does that mean natural carbonation?
If yes, you probably don't want to add a bunch of lime/lemon juice in the secondary dropping the pH when the yeast are already stressed as this may lead to failure of carbonation. I'd add the juice in the primary and adjust the pH up to keep it at 3.4-3.6. Then when you are ready to carbonate, you just add your priming fermentables and let it go.
 
No, it would essentially be force carbonating then. I won't be putting any priming fermentables in the keg. Sorry for the confusion, force carbonating to me is putting it in the keg and shaking the hell out of the keg to introduce CO2 faster. That I'm not going to do.
 
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