Bottles, Bottles

I bottled the Japanese Knotweed mead and the Dry mead today. I put priming tabs in the dry mead but left the JK mead still. The JK mead smells and tastes a bit strange, but the finish has a lot of good complexity in it, and I'm hoping that the odd taste will mellow out as it ages. It was a very small batch (half gallon) so I only got 4 bottles of it.

Mead tasting

Tanya and I tasted the flavored meads today since it's been a week since I split and flavored them. I recently took a good whif of all of them and made some adjustments.

Blueberry Concentrate - Recent smelling revealed little in the way of blueberry aroma. Added another shot of concentrated. Tasted today. You can just barely taste a hint of blueberry. Added another ounce.

Vanilla - Wow. Taste and aroma are very nice. The mead is smoother than the others and has a creaminess about it. It still has the alcohol bite of a young mead but it's noticeably less harsh than the other meads. Left it alone.

African Red Bush - The tea bag is imparting some light color into the mead. Recent smelling revealed a muted aroma; added another bag. Tasting revealed some fruity notes but also a hint of a salmon-y characteristic that I didn't expect. Will leave the tea bags in for a while longer.

Wild Orange Spice - One bag did it! Recent Smelling revealed a strong orange presence. Tasting revealed the same. The alcohol bite is making the orange notes very sharp. Will removed the teabag soon and let this one age.

Sweet Cinnamon Spice - Smelling revealed a nice aroma, though a bit weak. Added a teabag. Tasting revealed a nice cinnamon and spice presence, though it's still a little on the weak side. Will let the teabags sit a little while longer before I pull them.

This is really a lot of fun for me, experimenting with flavors. I'm calling the blueberry my "cheater" melomel. :) I'm very pleased with the vanilla, and I will definitely be making a full batch of it. It's interesting how the teas came out; there is no one universal model to flavoring with the herb teas. Each will require attention to produce the right results, though it's no surprise that the Red Bush, being the least spicy of the three, will most likely take the longest to flavor.

ABC... easy as...

I racked my Apple Butter Cyser into the secondary today. Wow is this a strong brew! The ABV is coming out to be around 17.3%, which is the strongest I've ever made. It fermented with cinnamon and clove, and is now sitting with white raisins and nutmeg. With any luck, I'll be bottling this one in February or March, and conditioning for the holiday season next year. If this stuff is as good as everyone tells me it is, I'll be brewing it every year. I'm very anxious to see how it comes out.

Mead Flavoring Experiment

 
 
Today I racked the Clover mead into five separate one gallon jugs and flavored each differently. I used Blueberry concentrate, a vanilla bean, and three types of Tazo herbal tea: African Red Bush, Wild Sweet Orange and Sweet Cinnamon Spice. I'll have to monitor these carefully, as I don't want the flavor of the teas to come across too strong.
 
From the left: Blueberry concentrate, Vanilla bean, and the teas; Red Bush, Orange, and Cinnamon.