Joe's ancient orange mead - good!

[Philipek]

Just bottled my Joe's Ancient Orange Mead. It came out at 0.992 . As usual, I tip the dregs of the bottling bucket into a glass and sup it while I carry on my duties. I was also bottling a TC and making a new TC. I had half a pint of the Ancient Orange Mead. I've had mead only once before. I kind of bullied my friend into making it when we were at sixth form college because I wanted to try a drink mentioned in Beowulf. It wasn't very nice.

My Ancient Orange Mead is gorgeous. A bit 'hot' (is that the correct terminology?) but that's no bad thing. p'raps my mate's mead was oxidised. I don't know; I'm going back a while. Anyway, I made this stuff in mid october and it's kind of ready now, though I dare say it could benefit from aging a while in the bottle. That's the beauty of this recipe - a turbo mead if you like. Get a taste of the stuff quick smart to see if you want to put away a demijohn of the stuff for a year and a bit.

Anyway, I usually brew English style beer or TC, so the half pint out of the bottling bucket is between 3.5 and 6%. The mead is 13%. I'm a bit sozzled (I'm a bit of a lightweight). Being a bit wobbly from the mead made me a bit cackhanded with bottling the TC and I was left with 2 and a half pints in the bottling bucket, which promptly got drunk. So, I'm drunk posting - hurrah!

Next stop, supermarket grape juice wine.

[crafty john]

Any chance of having the recipe for the mead

[EoinMag]

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f80/joes-an ... ead-49106/

there is the original recipe.

[crafty john]

Thanks Mate

[Philipek]

There are a couple of threads on here where people detail their experiences making and drinking this.

Here's one - Ancient orange mead. It's nice 'cos it's got pictures. I intended to post there, but as I said, I was a bit on the wobbly side and I couldn't find it.

I was a bit stingy with the honey so mine's quite dry, but lovely nonetheless. Now to design a label and hand it out as Xmas gifts. The nice thing with mead as a gift is that it's very very rare to find commercial examples of it so it's unique (and people can't tell you you've ballsed it up) . I've never seen it on sale.

This was so nice that I think, when I finally settle down, I might do some proper wait-for-a-year mead.

[EoinMag]

I've been wanting to do this for a while myself, so I bought 6kg of honey in lidl earlier and will be making three gallons of this myself later, I'll change it a little by adding super yeast, nutrient and using 2kg of honey per gallon, am well looking forward to it.

[mysterio]

Made a few meads last year, they turned out nice, they peaked about a month or two after fermentation. Fermentation was nice and quick with plenty of yeast nutrient staggered throughout the ferment. Used clover honey & orange blossom. Clover was my favourite.

[EoinMag]

Changed my mind on the yeast, not going to use super yeast, I'll use the lalvin K1 V1116, don't want it getting too dry.

[Philipek]

Mysterio, your meads tasted best 2 months after fermentation? That's how long my mead's been going. It tastes as if someone's tossed some vodka in it - Strong alcohol burn.

Was it just honey you used or did you chuck some other stuff in there?

I'm drinking my mead now and it's pretty good but the orange, cinnamon stick, and cloves basically means it's been mulled, I can't really taste much beyond that. Anything mulled is great. I could eat allspice dusted cinnamon sticks.

[b.all]

from what i understood mead is something that improves the longer you leave it rather than peaking early. 2 monthes definitely sounds very early.

I made this mead early this year so that it would be ready for christmas. started it going at the end of march and left it for 3 monthes untill the end of june, just before i moved house. it's now had close to 6 monthes maturing in the bottle and it's got really nice. i had a small bottle of it about 3 monthes ago and there were still some off flavours in it which needed time to mature but those have mainly disappeared now. think i'm going to make up some soon to leave for long term storage(i'm talking years here).

[mysterio]

Mysterio, your meads tasted best 2 months after fermentation? That's how long my mead's been going. It tastes as if someone's tossed some vodka in it - Strong alcohol burn.

Was it just honey you used or did you chuck some other stuff in there?

Plenty of yeast nutrients. Fermaid K and Go Ferm from Lallamand. You need a well managed ferment to make quick maturing meads. Mine tasted very smooth, like a fino sherry with a spoonful of honey in it.

Use the hightest method, works great.

http://home.comcast.net/~mzapx1/FAQ/BasicMead.pdf