Mead!: The Adventure Continues

So back in November I posted about our first attempt at making mead. It was a traditional sack mead with a lot of honey and apples. I added some vanilla too which certainly came through during our recent tasting!

Now, when we did our tasting recently we had more than just our sack mead. We had actually done an additional five flavors shortly after the first! Of course we have our ingredients for each one, and wanted to get opinions on flavors before sharing the findings of each.

From left: Sack Mead / First Born, Pear Hydromel,
Golden Delicious w/ Wildflower Honey, Raspberry w/ Turkish Honey,
Pear Hydromel w/ Cacao Nibs, and Golden Delicious w/ Blueberry

 We really wanted to take the opportunity to try multiple flavor pairings and just go from there. We thought about what would taste best together and we were both pretty happy with the results. As were our lovely friends who helped give invaluable feedback.

The one thing that all the recipes we created have in common is that they were all brewed using a white wine yeast, a Cote de Blanc. Our next few attempts will be done with different yeasts and ingredients. Each batch was done in a one gallon carboy, and wielded two 32oz bottles and a one or two smaller "test" bottles. The test bottles from each were what we used for the tasting.

We started with our Hydromels. We had two, the simple Pear Hydromel, and the Pear Hydromel with Cacao Nibs. Even that one ingredient made all the difference between the two.

Pear Hydromel w/ Cacao Nibs

We started with the simple pear hydromel. What gave it the "watered down" quality of a hydromel was making pear juice instead of putting cut, raw pear in it. We then blended that pear juice with our honey.

Once that was done fermenting, we bottled two different batches to build different flavor profiles. One batch was done with cacao nibs, and the other with hops (not shown).

The Pear Hydromel with Cacao had beautiful clarifying on it. We were both really pleased with the color. It had a dry flavor and, as Hydromels tend to go it was incredibly light. There were also slight, very mellow after tastes of chocolate. A nice surprise. I certainly wasn't expecting to get that much of a hint of it.

 Anjou Pear Hydromel

The Anjou Pear Hydromel had no mellow after notes to it. It had a nice, light flavor of a dry white wine without the chocolate. It lended itself a more tart aftertaste than the cacao version, but was just as enjoyable. I made the suggestion of using it in a sangria. Even if sangria isn't your thing, with both of these hydromels they should definitely be enjoyed chilled. Neither seemed to need much more aging, and were quite lovely being so new.

Next up were our two Golden Delicious flavors. We had a simple golden delicious apple with vanilla; and we had a blueberry version. Both were also made with a local wildflower honey. Both of these were melomels and didn't involve us making our own apple juice. That'll be an upcoming attempt when apple season comes around.

The Golden Delicious w/ Vanilla

The golden delicious had a golden opaque color. Not as successful clarifying as our melomels, but for obvious reasons. These were done with small bits of apple instead of a sifted juice. Still a lovely color nonetheless. The aroma was very sweet, as was the initial flavor. There were certainly some tart notes after the fact with a noticeable alcohol flavor at the back of the throat. Nothing too intense, but just enough to remind you you're drinking.

The Golden Delicious w/ Blueberry

The blueberry version was a little different. Still our same base of wildflower honey, golden delicious apples, and vanilla - but this mixture included blueberry syrup and a dash of orange blossom water.

The aroma was very sweet with this one. The clarity was a little higher as well. Possibly because of the additional re-rack to separate them for the different batches. It had dry, fruity notes with no alcoholic aftertaste. My second favorite flavor of all six.

My absolute favorite among all six was the Raspberry with Turkish Honey. Firstly, turkish honey has a gorgeous golden color. That was the first thing that drew me to it. I also love raspberries. There was only one solution here, and that solution was mead. I added some cinnamon to it as well for a little something extra.

The Raspberry and Turkish Honey

The color was stunning from the get go. The combination of bright honey and bright fruit made for a very colorful mead. Slightly cloudy, since raspberries can be very pulpy. Next time some extra filtration might not be such a bad idea. The flavors were perfect (at least to me). A noticeable alcohol aroma, but not too overpowering. The flavor of alcohol was much less intense than the smell. The flavor was sweet with a smooth finish. This one I'm going to let age until Pennsic and enjoy it then.

Oddly enough, our "First Born" mead was my least favorite of all of

Sack Mead "First Born"

them. It was much much sweeter than I personally prefer, but the feedback we got on it was much more forgiving than I had anticipated. Since it was so overly sweet, it was suggested to use it more like a flavored syrup for foods and other drinks. That seemed like the best option to me, personally and depending on how it works in cooking we'll be brewing more and more of it. I think I'll be attempting a chicken recipe with it during an upcoming camping event.

If you happen to find me at an SCA event this summer, please stop me and talk brewing with me! This is a very new venture and I really would like to pick as many brains as possible. I'll also do my best to carry around something to share, but I'm limited on what I have in stock right now. I'll share it if I've got it, though. I look forward to making more and sharing them all! Thanks for reading, and if you do end up trying my mead let me know what you think!

YIS

Lady Elvira Violante Ballesteros