Greetings again, one and all!
My first mead in a loooong time is happily going through secondary fermentation/aging. 3 weeks, 5 days and counting! The wife and I cracked open the Grolsch bottle for sampling purposes, and are happy with the results so far!
I'm already looking forward to my next batch; and what I'd like to do is throw out some ideas about what I'd like to end up with, and let the group guide me toward a recipe. This may or may not a be a new approach; I don't know...
It's going to be a 5 gallon batch. I'd like for the end result to be fairly sweet, as my wife prefers mead on the sweet side. I have on hand 10 pounds of just-your-basic clover honey. I expect I'll use either Lavlin D-47 or EC-1118 yeast for the fermentation, as those are readily available; and both are very alcohol-tolerant. (If i remember what I read correctly, D-47 attenuates around 16%, EC-1118 around 19%) High alcohol content is fairly important to me, as I want the most high-test mead I can make!
So, given that I want a sweet, POTENT mead as my end result, do I need more than 10 lbs of honey? If I need more, how high do you think I can go? (I found the above-mentioned honey at a reeeeaaaally low price locally, so it wouldn't kill me to buy 5 or 10 more pounds)
I've also thought about adding some plums to the primary, because I saw some purple plums down at the co-op the other day for a jaw-droppingly low price. I think I can find my old 6.5 gallon 'bucket' fermenter if I'm feeling adventurous, so I add some if I get the itch. If I choose to put some in the primary, (say 5 pounds or so) how do you all think it would affect the overall sweetness of the end product?
I know I've thrown a lot of questions into the three of four paragraphs I've written here, but I'm really looking forward to the answers; whenever they may come. You folks are such a knowledgeable bunch, that I can't help but think there's going to be quite a bit of diversity in the answers. (At least I hope so!)
Thanks in advance for any and all help and guidance!
PM
My first mead in a loooong time is happily going through secondary fermentation/aging. 3 weeks, 5 days and counting! The wife and I cracked open the Grolsch bottle for sampling purposes, and are happy with the results so far!
I'm already looking forward to my next batch; and what I'd like to do is throw out some ideas about what I'd like to end up with, and let the group guide me toward a recipe. This may or may not a be a new approach; I don't know...
It's going to be a 5 gallon batch. I'd like for the end result to be fairly sweet, as my wife prefers mead on the sweet side. I have on hand 10 pounds of just-your-basic clover honey. I expect I'll use either Lavlin D-47 or EC-1118 yeast for the fermentation, as those are readily available; and both are very alcohol-tolerant. (If i remember what I read correctly, D-47 attenuates around 16%, EC-1118 around 19%) High alcohol content is fairly important to me, as I want the most high-test mead I can make!
So, given that I want a sweet, POTENT mead as my end result, do I need more than 10 lbs of honey? If I need more, how high do you think I can go? (I found the above-mentioned honey at a reeeeaaaally low price locally, so it wouldn't kill me to buy 5 or 10 more pounds)
I've also thought about adding some plums to the primary, because I saw some purple plums down at the co-op the other day for a jaw-droppingly low price. I think I can find my old 6.5 gallon 'bucket' fermenter if I'm feeling adventurous, so I add some if I get the itch. If I choose to put some in the primary, (say 5 pounds or so) how do you all think it would affect the overall sweetness of the end product?
I know I've thrown a lot of questions into the three of four paragraphs I've written here, but I'm really looking forward to the answers; whenever they may come. You folks are such a knowledgeable bunch, that I can't help but think there's going to be quite a bit of diversity in the answers. (At least I hope so!)
Thanks in advance for any and all help and guidance!
PM
