Lís Alma Culuma
Orange Flower Honey
Brewed October 9th, 2022
Brewed with 4 gallons of water and 12 lbs of Florida orange flower honey from McCoy's Sunny South Apiaries. Yeast (Mangrove Jack's Mead Yeast M05) was pitched with the recommended amount of Go-Ferm. Forgot to take original reading for ABV. Wort was oxygenated for the first 5 days, twice daily for around 1 minute. Upon the fifth day the mead received a package recommended amount of Fermaid K. Sugar readings hit 1.00 SPGR on October 30th, and was cold crashed in a deep freezer. It was racked the for the first time November 1st and placed back into the deep freezer. I was able to re-create the wort to get the original SPGR, which was 1.07. This places the estimated ABV at 9.19%. A sample was pulled during racking, and it retained a lot of the orange armoa from the honey. It was light and crisp, however because the final SPGR was 1.00 it had very little sweetness. Did some testing with the sample and it was decided to add some of the original honey into the mead once it's been stabilized. Racked a second time November 6th the batch was racked a second time, and judged to need to continue to crash.
Lís Alma Hráva Erumë
Desert Wild Flower Honey
Brewed October 23rd, 2022
Brewed at the same as the Lís Alma Culuma, it received the same process. Brewed with 4 gallons of water and 12 lbs of Texas desert wild flower honey from Desert Creek Honey. Yeast (Mangrove Jack's Mead Yeast M05) was pitched with the recommended amount of Go-Ferm. Forgot to take original reading for ABV. Wort was oxygenated for the first 5 days, twice daily for around 1 minute. Upon the fifth day the mead received a package recommended amount of Fermaid K. Sugar readings hit 1.01 SPGR October 30th, and was cold crashed in a deep freezer. It was racked the for the first time November 1st and placed back into the deep freezer. I was able to re-create the wort, which had an SPGR of 1.09. This puts the estimated ABV at 10.5%. A sample was pulled during racking, it was strong and had some strong alfalfa undertones. While the SPGR was showing some sugar content, it was decided that this one would need additional honey post stabilization. Added stabilizer (Potassium Bicarbonate) November 4th per package directions. On November 8th the batch was cut in half, one half being bottled immediately (marked as dry), and to the other half (apx. 2.5 gallons) 1lb of the Texas honey as added in and then bottled (marked as sweet). Yield was 12 bottles of sweet and 11 bottles of dry.
Lís Yáva Quelellairë
Fading Summer Fruit Honey
October 23rd, 2022
This unplanned brew was at the request of a close friend, expressing interest in there being plenty of mead to drink. Brewed with 4 gallons of water and 15 lbs of Michigan late summer wild fruit honey from R&B Miller Farms, Coloma MI (link unavailable, was purchased at a farmers market). Yeast (Mangrove Jack's Mead Yeast M05) was pitched with the recommended amount of Go-Ferm. Forgot to take original reading for ABV. Wort was oxygenated for the first 5 days, twice daily for around 1 minute (However 2 evening rounds were missed because I fell asleep too early). Upon the fifth day the mead received a package recommended amount of Fermaid K. On November 6th the batch was inspected, the SPGR reading 1.05(?). It was decided that the mead would get racked, leaving some of the original honey sugar. Crashing on this batch took significantly longer than the previous two, possibly because of the higher sugar content.