# Mead/Melomel ideas



## Bats (14/1/13)

I tried a search but wasn't getting much help from the search tab and no RecipeDB available at the moment.

I'm after any ideas on a new Mead or Melomel recipe. I have tried the JAO Mead recipe which I am a fan of however my wife isn't a fan of the spices and would rather something with a little more fruit character.

What is the best fruit to add to a Mead? It needs to be girly for the wife i.e strawberry, rasberry, blueberry, apricot etc.

Anyone have any good recipes for a 5L demijohn?


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## Airgead (14/1/13)

I make this sort of thing all the time.

Aim for a semi sweet mead. I use 71B as a yeast for this which tops out at aroud 12% so I make the base up to aroud 11% potential so the primary finishes dry. Once primary has finished I add 1/2 kg of berries/5l and leave for 1-2 weeks. You get some re-fermentation but the yeast pegs out with some residual sweetness. Let clear and away you go.

A little oak makes a nice addition as well.

Good ones to try are rasberry, blackberry (yum) and really any berry except strawberries which are a bit wussy. Plums are nice too but can be hard to clear.

Cheers
Dave


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## 4feathers (14/1/13)

hi ya all, i have done 3 batchs with a similar thought in mind , i would write a "Ladies" drink but in reality ,ahem, some men might go looking for it as well, particularly if the alc content is up a bit and its in front of you and it tastes nice and no ones watching and cause you can.
One drink is variously called "Purple Haze", i chose this one cause it came with a bit of a story i could relate to.
Another is a Blueberry Cyser, this just had to be made.

Purple Haze
4Kg Honey , i used Macadamia
2kg Blueberries, frozen ,thawed,smashed.
half cup lemon peel/zested
third cup brewed camomile tea
nutrient
yeast , i used Lalvin1118
up to 15 litres with best water

Change in second batch

6 kg Munuka honey
1kg Blueberries Primary/1kg Secondary all frozen,thawed,smashed.
half cup brewed camomile tea
yeast Harvest R56
up to 16.3 litres with best water.

Blueberry Cyser
3kg plus Honey, i used Macadamia
18 litres fresh not reconstited apple juice, i used Tasmanian organic from Woolies.
1kg frozen. thawed, smashed Blueberries
Nutrient
Yeast i have used , home made from Organic Apple skin and Wyeast 4466
Up to 22.5 litre with best water
Have tried extra honey in secondary
1 kg extra Berries in secondary
1 cinnomin stick in secondary

Method, Simple basic brewing stuff

Mix what you need to mix, get warm,organise yeast, add yeast, feed yeast, seal with airlock, shake wildly, feed yeast, shake wildly, feed yeast, shake a bit, feed yeast if it stinks, rack,wait,rack,wait,rack, chill, drink, backsweeten if needed to suit your palate. Its up to you if you worry about the S.G, alc content and all that, i would concentrate on good ingredients and keeping yeast very happy.

You can make these as strong as you like, they all look fanbloodytastic in clear bottles and all have tasted very good, you know its blueberry. I have finished dry and low sweet and have drank straight and backsweetened. Of cause all this tasting info has came from my wife.
Have made Raspberry equivilants but haven't tasted yet, they look great as well.

Hope it helps with satisifing your ladies needs Peter


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## Goldenchild (14/1/13)

Im about to put this one down just waiting on the yeast i ordered. picked up cherries at the fruito for $6kg :super:

5L batch
Lavlin 71B-1122 yeast
2kg honey
1kilo cherrys (frozen, pitted, thawed)primary 5-6weeks
rack onto another kilo of cherrys for 5-6 weeks
either rack again or just drop some oak in to secondary for 6 weeks
bottle and forget about for 6-12months


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## Deep End (14/1/13)

I just thought I'd stick this recipe up, I've never made it, but it comes out of an old recipe book I have from which I brewed my first ginger beer from a plant some 20 odd years ago. It looks to be a bit "rural" as do the other recipes for sassafras and horehound beer's which I have never been game to make. They look like sure fire bottle blowers to me. Then again the ginger beer turned out awesome and never once blew a bottle, had the odd "eruption" after opening! But never any explosions in the dead of the night lol.
Here it is anyway if anyone is keen to test it out.

MEAD

15 cups of water, 1.5kg honey, 1 cup of strong tea (made from 4 teaspoons of tea), 1 medium sized raw apple, 1/2 a teaspoon ground ginger, juice of 2 lemons, 1 level teaspoon compressed or dried yeast. (the ginger adds a "brightness" to the mead without affecting actual flavour)

Pulp apple; boil water and allow to cool. Put ingredients other than the yeast into a non metal container, adding the water last. Stir well and when contents are properly cool, add yeast. This can be stirred in or just sprinkled on top. Pour mixture into a large wine flagon, or, leave in original non metal container if you have no empty wine flagons. (Reason for the glass flagon is simply that you may have the fun of watching the mead"working") If you use a flagon, add water to allow 8cm (3in) off the top of the jar. Keep in moderately warm place, between 60 -70 F. In a few hours the mead should start fermenting. It could take up to 60 days to ferment out. After fermentation has finished, cork jar. The mead should clear itself gradually, but if it doesn't, in about two weeks beat the white of an egg stiffly and add to the mead, stir and shake the jar to mix well, then recork jar. The meadshould then be clear in about a week, when it can be bottled, using corks or crown seals. The result should be a dry, still mead.

Well thats it straight out of the book! no guarantee's but if anyone's game, let me know how it goes 
Cheers
Mick (Deep End)


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## biggo (15/1/13)

My most recent mead was a Raspberry Melomel.

7 kg of honey (2kg for the demi)
23ltrs of filtered water (enough to top up demijohn)
2kg of raspberries (frozen and blended) 1kg of raspberries for 5ltr demi
white labs sweet mead yeast

No boil but saintise everything  
warm honey to pour
add water and raspberries 
mix and oxygenate the must/wort add yeast nutrient and yeast

over the next 2-4 days add a tsp of nutrient each day and oxygenate each time

The no boil methond will keep the delicate aromas and other flavors that usually boil off

as a side note next time I will be adding 4kg of raspberries instead of 2kg.
1kg will be in the primary and the rest in secondary


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## Bats (15/1/13)

Sounds like the Rasberries, blueberries, blackberries etc have it.

I like the sound of a blueberry or blackberry, but of course the wife wants Rasberry as the colour is prettier..... :icon_vomit:


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## brettprevans (15/1/13)

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/index.php?app=core&module=search&do=search&fromMainBar=1
39 results for melomel
There will be even more for mead
Basically any fruit will work. U need a lot, just like fruit beer.
If u do a google search there are more ideas than u can poke a stick at. It's huge elsewhere in the world.


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## barls (15/1/13)

try having a read here http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_rapidrecipe&Itemid=616


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## Airgead (16/1/13)

Bats said:


> Sounds like the Rasberries, blueberries, blackberries etc have it.
> 
> I like the sound of a blueberry or blackberry, but of course the wife wants Rasberry as the colour is prettier..... :icon_vomit:


Actually, the colour of blackberry is absolutely stunning...much prettier than rasberry.

Cheers
Dave


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## jimmythehuman (17/1/13)

I have a mead that has been sitting forgotton for 9 months. Its very clear and i was going to bottle it, however it is a super standard, honey and yeast. I would like to sweeten maybe half of it. Any tips on the simplest way to back sweeten...can i sweeten straight into large swing tops if i dont make it sparkling? I was thinking 1/3 apple sweetened, 1/3 sparkling and a 1/3 as is.


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## 4feathers (17/1/13)

Hey Hunman, pour a measured amount into a glass 100 ml is best, get some fresh non reconstituted Apple juice, add a measured 5 ml into glass of product, mix and taste. Add further hits of 5ml juice until you get it to taste how you like. Then find out how much is in each swingtop or bottle say 375 ml, do the math and add a measured amount to each bottle. You made need to remove a bit from each bottle to allow for addition of juice. So if it was 375ml and you had figured that 10ml per 100ml tasted good [10%] you would need to add 37.5 ml Juice to bottle and if it don't fit in drink a bit of the product.
Swingtops are fine but if you were doing this with crown sealed bottles and your product was not finished fermenting it could become dangerous as it could restart fermentation..Hope it helps Peter


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## 4feathers (17/1/13)

Sorry, not Hunman but Human.as we all are and we make mistakes. Peter


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## brettprevans (17/1/13)

unless you kill the yeast you cant eliminate the fermentation that will occur in the bottle, so adding fermentables into the bottles witll just ferment and your back to sqaure one. unless you have exceeded the alc tolerance of the yeast. 

search "back sweeten" or "back sweeting" and read all the issues and discussions on this topic. its the same whetehr its beer, cider, mead etc,


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## Airgead (17/1/13)

One problem with back sweetening is re-fermentation. You need to be careful that the yeast is dead or can't ferment.

I make a sweetened apple liqueur from some of my cider using brandy to fortify it above the point that kills the yeast. Very basic. 2/3 cider. 1/3 brandy. Sweeten with honey to taste. You could use mead in place of the cider and sweeten with apple juice.

Liquid Panty Remover.

Cheers
Dave


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