Blackberry Mead August 2021

July 31, 2021

 Last year we had a surprise bush of blackberries so I picked and froze them and made them into mead and it was very tasty.  Two downfalls were it was a little light on the berry taste due to limited berries ans of cuorse, there just wasn't enough.  There never is enough.  So this year we went to Cronise market and bouoght 5 pounds of berries and went to twon with it.

• 5 pounds blackberries
• 12 pounds honey
• 5 gallons water
• pectin
• yeast nutrient
• KV1116 yeast

I put the berries in a 6 gallon bucket and added enough water to get me to two gallons.  I mashed and mixed by hand to destroy the berries as much as possible then added pectin enzyme.  I let this sit overnight so that the pectin cuold do its thing.  In the morning I was a little surprised to see some initial fermenting happening.  Not sure I liked that since you never know where the natural yeast came from but I'm hoping the kv1116 will overpower it.

I added water and honeyy to get me to 5 gallons.  I should note that there was almost no natural sugar in the berries.   Adding bits of water and honey and checking the hydrometer I was surprised to see that it took 12 pounds (1 gallon) of honey to get ti around 13% potential alcohol.  I put in the yeast and nutrient and put it under the table.  I may add some sugar in the secondary ferment to spike it a little, I like it strong.

September 22, 2021

OK, So I didn't keep great notes.  Probably about a month ago or three weeks I decided that the main fermentation was finished so I racked it to a 5 gallon glass jar.  It was very pretty and tasty.  Lots more berry flavor than the last batch.  It didn't quite make it to the top of the jug so I got some more berries and juiced them.  I added sugar to get to the same approximate value that the main batch started with and topped off the whole thing.  It bubbled a little and is now sitting quietly under the table waiting to be settled enough to bottle.

Eastern Redbud Mead April 2021

 OK, this one may be a little odd but here's what happened.

I have a batch of never-ending mead going.  Mary B read that redbud flowers are edible in salads and such.  So we took some flowers and put them in a glass for a week with some of the raw mead and viola!  It had a very nice slightly floral taste.  Very summer tasting.  So I decided a 3 gallon batch would be a good thing to try.

• A half gallon of petals
• Around 2 gallons of water
• 4 lbs of honey
• Yeast nutrient since there's no fruit for the yeast
• KV1116 yeas (as usual)

Mix it all up and it's bubbling in a day.  Not sure how to get the petals immersed, tried a little stirring which didn't help.  After a while I'll see if they get saturated and start churning with the rest of the mixture.

May 5 - It stopped bubbling pretty quickly, probably because of the high temps this early spring.  Tasted it a few times to see what was going on, to see if the flower flavor increased.  when it stopped increasing I racked. It has a very light floral taste and the flowers seem to have mellowed the raw mead flavor.  Nice experiment so far.

Sweet Potato November 2020

November 1 (ish) 2020

To be honest there was just not enough batches brewing so I checked the cellar and saw that I am low on sweet potato.  Since I'm loving the 6 gallon bucket approach I decided to make a big batch this time based on my prior recipe.  Bonus... some of the sweet potatoes came from our garden.

• About 10-12 lbs sweet potatoes
• 3 bananas
• water
• 7 lbs sugar
• yeast
• yeast nutrient

I finely chopped the sweet potatoes and boiled them in 2 large pots for about 3 hours.  A couple hours in I used a masher and wisk to mash it up and boil some more.  The next morning I poured it into the bucket, chopped up the bananas, added the yeast and nutrient.  I checked after 24 hours and it was bubbling and happy.  Doing some math based on the starting sugar I added 7 lbs of sugar.  This should bring the whole thing to about 10-12 percent alcohol when all is done.  After a few days it's bubbling away and very happy.

December 27 - I had previously transferred it to 2 3 gallon carboys and added some bananas and chai tea.  I racked my jalapeno today which freed up my 5 gallon jug.  So I transferred to the 5 gallon and removed all of the lees and mash.  Now it's settling.  Very tasty as always.

April 21 - Will bottle this weekend.  It hasn't cleared so I've been letting it sit.  Haven't tasted it but I can't wait.  Bottling day is always so much fun.

May 2 - OK, didn't get it bottled until today.  This batch will be interesting to see how it ages. found that the seal had broken and it's been open to the air for who knows how long.  Doesn't taste bad, not great either. I think I taste banana. Still, I won't throw it out of the glass so to speak.  We'll see what happens with time.

Rose Hips and Hawthorn Berry Mead

August 14, 2020

 We have a lot of stuff growing right now including rose hips.  We have a ton so I looked up what I can do with them and found an herbalist who makes a "tonic" using rose hips, hawthorn berries, and cinnamon sticks.  Her site says that rose hips are heart healthy and hawthorn is a mild heart and mind stimulant.  She makes this for the holidays.  So, I gave it a shot.

• Hawthorn berries
• Rose hips
• Pectin
• Honey
• Chai tea
• Water

I ordered hawthorn berries from Amazon.  A 1 pound bag was around 12 dollars.  They arrived quickly and were dried.  I measured out a half pound with my cool little scale that Mary B got me.  I also measured out a half pound of rose hips and quartered them.  I put them all in a pot of water and simmered them.  Not too hard because I didn't want to steam away the taste.  I thought it smelled a little Christmas-y.  I added pectin to help it leach out flavors and let it sit overnight in a honey jar.

The next day I took about 4 1/2 pounds of honey and mixed it all together with some yeast.  I split it into 2 jars figuring when I take the high quantity of stuff out of it I should have about a solid gallon plus of mead.  The plan is to add more rose hips to the secondary fermentation.  I'll also taste at that time to decide if I want more honey, add cinnamon, and possibly other winter spices like allspice.

Loving experimentation!

August 25, 2020.

After this bubbled away for a bit it was looking weird.  Very milky but the fermentation had definitely slowed.  I racked it to a gallon and a half although the half had a lot of head space  While I was looking for the recipe approved cinnamon sticks (which I never found) I came across some chai tea bags.  This sounded appealing to me so I dropped them in.  After 2 days I noticed that the fermentation had completely stopped.  The headspace worried me so I took the half gallon and poured it into a quart jar.  Now the gallon and quart are settling and looking nice.  I kept the leftover for tasting and wow, super delicious.  Very spicy with the chai and the hawthorn adds a nice winter type spice as well.  Mary B says she tastes the citrus in it.  I'm not sure I do but in general it's really great.  I can see sipping this in the winter for sure.

September 7

Surprisingly, after sitting a short time on the refrigerator the fermentation stopped and it started to clear.  It looked beautiful and cleared very quickly so I bottled it up.  I didn't want to put it in 750ml bottles as it would be drunk to quickly.  I also didn't want to spend 35 bucks on small bottles so I tried something new.  I used small 12oz ball jars for some of the bottling and booze bottles for some other.  It came out very pretty and is very tasty.  Can't wait to try it in a couple months.

December 1

We were looking for something different and decided to open this a wee bit early and taste.  Wow, very smooth, very tasty.  I tasted caramel, Mary B tasted citrus.  Delicious, it will be hard to let it age and I only made a small batch :).

July 18, 2021 - Had some for an evening tipple

Blackberry Mead August 2020

 August 10, 2020

The yard has some really pretty blackberries that I wanted to take advantage of and I've heard of making blackberry mead so I figured I'd give it a try.  It should be simple.  I picked the berries whenever I saw them ripe and put them in the freezer.  When I had 2 ziplock bags full, about 1.5 pounds I got started.

• Blackberries - 1.5 pounds
• Honey - 9 ish pounds
• Water
• Pectin

Unfortunately I didn't have much pectin.  I took the berries and warmed them in a pot of water to thaw them.  Then I tossed them in the bucket with a little less than 2 gallons of water and about 7 pounds of honey.  I used a hand beater to mash them and tossed in the yeast.  All total it looks like there is about 2 1/2 gallons.  The next day there were lots of bubbles.  I took a gravity test and it came to about 10-11 ABV.  I like it a little stronger so I added another 2 pounds of honey.  It looks a little on the light side too.

Taking the advice of some online friends I will keep picking and storing the berries.  Once the initial fermentation is finished I will add more mashed berries to the secondary ferment to up the flavor and maybe even the hoochness :-)

August 20, 2020

Racked for the first time.  Hydrometer says it still had 4% to go but I was excited to get it into a clear jug so I could watch it.  I added 2 cups of sugar just to pep up the yeast.  I siphoned it to keep as many bits out as possible.  I had frozen about 2 cups of berries, so I warmed them in the microwave with some water and poured them into a bag in the jug.  The original mead was very light in color but had a slight berry taste.  The berries in the secondary should increase the berry flavor.  There was about a quart or more that didn't fit so me and Mary B drank it while watching a Pink Floyd documentary.  Tasty and potent stuff as usual.  This will be really nice when it finishes.

September 28

I bottled it yesterday and of course saved a small bottle to have while watching some TV.  Then I had a great idea for a Sunday afternoon.  Mary B and I watched the Viking show Last Kingdom (Utrid son of Uthrid) while drinking my mead from the new horns that I got from Fridi on Facebook.  Very good time.

June 1 2021 - In celebration of Memorial Day we had Mrs. Mack's meat, a family favorite of Mary B's family.  Mrs. Mack's husband was killed by a sniper in Viet Nam.  We had a bottle of this mead, very very good.  The berry flavor increased with age.  Will definitely make another batch this summer when the berries are ripe.

Fresh Picked Strawberry Wine June 2020

June 12, 2020

Mary B went strawberry picking and grabbed extra so I could make some more strawberry wine.  This will be my first batch using fresh.  I made some from a kit previously.  I checked some online recipes and got the basic gist of the proportions.

• 6 pounds fresh strawberries with the tops cut off
• 6-7 cups of sugar (dehydrated cane juice)
• Water
• Pectin

I used a wine bucket to make it easier to work with the berries.  I poured the berries in and added water to around 2 gallons.  I added some sugar to get things started and used a hand mixer to grind up the berries.  I didn't want to cook them for fear that some of the wonderful flavors and smells would go up in steam.  I had to hand mash some of the berries.  I checked the gravity and it was at about 20% sugar.  I like my wine a little stronger so I added 4 more cups of sugar.  2 cups is one pound so the additional sugar probably only raised the sugar a little.  I'll let it get started and will add some sugar later, maybe.

June 21 - Getting ready to travel to the beach so I didn't want the wine to sit on the mash too long and possibly get funky.  So I racked it.  Very tasty.  Has about 3-5% still to go.  It's still bubbling pretty well and the airlock was bubbling almost right away.  One thing that was fun was I took some of the mash, mixed it with sugar, and put it on my english muffins.  Tasty.

July 19 - Got back from the beach and it had cleared really nicely so I decided to bottle it.  I didn't want it getting funky or anything.  It came out beautiful and so tasty.  Very rich strawberry flavor.  Definitely another to try in the future.  I can't wait to enjoy it in the spring.

Cherry Strawberry Coronacation Wine April 2020

April 15 2020

We've been locked down for a month with the Coronavirus social distancing.  I'll put on the record here that I think it's an overstep on the part of the government.  But that's the end of my political rant.

Through the lockdown we've been trying to support local business as best we can.  My wine supplies supplier and a place I play music is Blue Mountain Wines in Funkstown.  I bought a gallon of cherry wine starter.  It's a ton of corn syrup with natural and artificial flavors.  It also helps them stay in business and it's a quick batch of wine.  I've never used a starter before.

The process couldn't be easier.  Pour in the juice, add water and yeast.  I wanted to add a little of my own flavor so I added a gallon of strawberries that we picked last year.  I let them defrost overnight with about 4 cups of sugar to pull the juice out.  When they were defrosted I used a hand beater to mash them up.  They turned very juicy and delicious.

After adding everything to the jug I was sure to leave some head space.  I checked the gravity and it was set to yield around 13% alcohol.  I did some math and guestimating and added another 8-10 cups of sugar.  2 cups is a pound.  this should bring the final ABV to 15-18 percent.  It tasted delicious when I was checking the gravity.

It's under the table with KV1116 yeast.  After 24 hours the airlock is bubbling and all looks happy.

June 4 - Bubbling has slowed considerably so I thought it was mostly finished.  Racked it to a new glass jug and of course tasted.  Good and strong and very very tasty.  Very tasty.  I'm concerned some of the sweetness will go away after it finishes.  The hydrometer says that it still has 5% to go.  Could have been a bad reading on the lees though.

July 26 - Came back from the beach and this was definitely finished.  It's so dark you can't see through it with a flashlight.  It made 2 cases and is very tasty.  A little on the sweet side.  To be honest I didn't feel that the flavor was as pronounced as batches I've made with fresh fruit.  However it is really very good and I'm sure will age nicely.  I bottled this the same week that Sara and Alex had their little boy Patrick James.  I'm going to save a bottle for them to open in the future for a celebration.  This was a nice experiment to help out the local wine store, it turned out very nicely.