Just to preface, I have not been making mead for very long. I currently have Joe's Ancient Orange, the 3-week sweet mead, and a typical show mead using Queen Anne's honey from a local apiary brewing, and they all seem to be going well.
I had an idea for a Wassail Spiced Cyser. I made a Wassail a few years back according to the recipe from Alton Brown, and it turned out awesome. After looking at the ingredients, it all looked very much like a typical spiced cyser. My question for the forums is what you guys think of it, and what amounts of spices and apples I should use since it obviously sounds like alot of spices for the mead. The wassail calls for 6 fuji apples, and a boatload of spices, which i'm wondering what I should cut them down to for this recipe.
Recipe:
1 gallon batch
**Baked apple recipe**
6 small fuji apples (i'm thinking 3 for the mead would be better)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup water
**The rest**
10 whole cloves (thinking 2 for the mead)
10 whole allspice berries (thinking 2 here as well)
1 cinnamon stick, 2 inches long (cut in half?)
1 teaspoon ground ginger (too much? maybe half?)
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (too much? maybe half?)
Enough Buckwheat honey to obtain 1.15 starting gravity(see below)
*Process*
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-core apples
-add apples to 8x8 baking dish
-Fill applecores with the brown sugar
-add 1 cup water to dish
-Bake for 45mins or until apples are tender
-cut apples to fit into carboy, and add apples and liquid from baking dish to carboy. Add water to fill up to 4-5 inches from top of carboy
-Empty contents of carboy into large pot, minus the apples. Add spices, yeast energizer, yeast nutrients. Test gravity.
-Add buckwheat honey until gravity of 1.15 is reached.
(Might be a long process here. Warming must, adding honey, cooling to room temperature and then testing gravity till goal reached may take awhile.)
-When target gravity is reached, add back to carboy(with the apples still inside) with enough headroom for foaming, and pitch yeast. I'm thinking KLV-1116.
-Stop fermentation when gravity of 1.02 is reached for a sweet finish.
The wassail recipe calls for madeira and ale. So after fermentation, I could fortify the mead with them if needed.
What do you guys think? What amounts of Apples and Spices do you think I should use? Any other suggestions/comments?
I had an idea for a Wassail Spiced Cyser. I made a Wassail a few years back according to the recipe from Alton Brown, and it turned out awesome. After looking at the ingredients, it all looked very much like a typical spiced cyser. My question for the forums is what you guys think of it, and what amounts of spices and apples I should use since it obviously sounds like alot of spices for the mead. The wassail calls for 6 fuji apples, and a boatload of spices, which i'm wondering what I should cut them down to for this recipe.
Recipe:
1 gallon batch
**Baked apple recipe**
6 small fuji apples (i'm thinking 3 for the mead would be better)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup water
**The rest**
10 whole cloves (thinking 2 for the mead)
10 whole allspice berries (thinking 2 here as well)
1 cinnamon stick, 2 inches long (cut in half?)
1 teaspoon ground ginger (too much? maybe half?)
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (too much? maybe half?)
Enough Buckwheat honey to obtain 1.15 starting gravity(see below)
*Process*
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-core apples
-add apples to 8x8 baking dish
-Fill applecores with the brown sugar
-add 1 cup water to dish
-Bake for 45mins or until apples are tender
-cut apples to fit into carboy, and add apples and liquid from baking dish to carboy. Add water to fill up to 4-5 inches from top of carboy
-Empty contents of carboy into large pot, minus the apples. Add spices, yeast energizer, yeast nutrients. Test gravity.
-Add buckwheat honey until gravity of 1.15 is reached.
(Might be a long process here. Warming must, adding honey, cooling to room temperature and then testing gravity till goal reached may take awhile.)
-When target gravity is reached, add back to carboy(with the apples still inside) with enough headroom for foaming, and pitch yeast. I'm thinking KLV-1116.
-Stop fermentation when gravity of 1.02 is reached for a sweet finish.
The wassail recipe calls for madeira and ale. So after fermentation, I could fortify the mead with them if needed.
What do you guys think? What amounts of Apples and Spices do you think I should use? Any other suggestions/comments?
