Vanilla-cinnamon Metheglin

[pdilley]

Vanilla-Cinnamon Metheglin

Primary
Honey to 1.116 OG in a 2:1 ratio
10g D-47 yeast
SNA (6g DAP at innoculation, 6g Fermaid-K at 1/3 sugar, 6g Fermaid-K at 2/3 sugar)

Secondary
3-4 vanilla beans
3-4 cinnamon sticks
Back-sweeten to 1.012 if necessary

Australia Substitution Notes:
1a. Honey - Iron Bark; Original recipe called for wild mountain honey (Note: Will also try with Stringy Bark and compare against Iron Bark)
1b. Honey Must OG - 1.138 OG target for full attenuation of the SN9 yeast
2a. Substituted Vintners Harvest Yeast SN9 for the Lalvin D-47 yeast as its readily available at the LHBS. Vintners CY17 would be a good alternative and match the slightly lower tolerance % of D-47 but SN9 was on the shelf and listed as the best option for meads.
2b. Substituted 8g for 10g as that is the standard sachet size for Vintners Harvest SN9.
3. Substituted Bintani Yeast Nutrient for Fermaid-K as its readily available at the LHBS. Bintani has similar DAP levels so no change to additional DAP measurements.

 

[pdilley]

Quick note, the secondary spice additions are for a 19L batch. Simply adjust up and down the amounts based upon your fermentation size first and by your tasting preferences during racking(s) to balance out the flavour as you see best for you and for the quality and potency of your flavour ingredients. Dial in your OG and pitch a 8 gram sachet per 25 Liters increment of must and have at it!

18% ABV will be hot for a while longer, so looking at 2 years+ aging to mellow out all that alcohol.
If that is too long for you then switch down to a Vintners Harvest MA33 or perhaps CY17 and go with the 1.116 OG and age for a year to year-and-half.
2 years is not that long a time for making Meads, a very dark honey and strong spice will take 4-5 years to mellow out properly.

 

[mash head]

Damn 2 years your a patient man Pete. I am usually sampling my home brews at about week 2 just to make sure they are alright of course. Greg :lol:

 

[pdilley]

Don't look at traditional Polish Meads greg, those have 9 to 99 year waits!

 

[mash head]

WHAT are you brewing for the next generation . Takes 99 years to see if you got it right and by then youve probably taken the recipie to the grave. Silly poles. Greg :lol:

 

[brettprevans]

aging is the reason i just 'invested' in 4 more kegs. ageing sours/lambics, meads and the like will be rewarding, but i couldnt bear to be out of beer due to limited kegs, so more kegs for me.

look like a good starting out recipe there Pete

 

[pdilley]

aging is the reason i just 'invested' in 4 more kegs. ageing sours/lambics, meads and the like will be rewarding, but i couldnt bear to be out of beer due to limited kegs, so more kegs for me.

look like a good starting out recipe there Pete

A Yum one to start with for sure.

I have 2 34-litre, 1 25-litre, 4 5-litre glass demijohns.
I have 1 30-litre, and 1 60-litre plastic primary fermenters.
Even so I feel I don't have enough.

This is *exactly* the reason to get into the whole "small batch" brewing movement. I can order up a couple pallets of 5-litre glass demijohns. 6 per pallet means 12 new 5-litre demijohns. With the 4 that makes for 16 demijohns perfect for small batch beer, mead, and wine recipes. (I am sure I will soon feel I will need even more of them!)

Each 5-litre demijohn means a recipe will give you 5 to 6 750ml bottles of wine, mead, beer, or whatever to age in the cellar. This means its a lot easier to handle than 80 bottles from a single 60 litre batch! This also means plenty of variety, rotation, and experimentation. In other words the whole fun part that this hobby is all about! Someone needs to champion the small batch movement over here Small batching means your per batch costs are lower so you can spend more on higher quality and more exotic ingredients in your wine and mead making, or beer brewing for the small batch beer brewers that want to join along! Anyone willing to join in with me?

5 litre batches of beer means AG BIAB in smaller pots and smaller bags to lift and back to the counter top stove using natural gas which has more BTUs in it than Propane and should be heaps cheaper to run as well :icon_cheers:

One option is to also use the original recipe OG 1.116 even if pitching the 18% champagne yeast (clean fermenter). Usually what is done is to ferment out to a dry mead and then age it for 9-12 months. Then dissolve some honey in a small amount of water and stir that in a little at a time, tasting as you are adding. Once you hit the point where it tastes right, close it up and let it sit for a couple weeks. The flavours will blend a little more and the sweetness will mellow a bit, so at that point taste it again and sweeten again if necessary. Usually you will age it more after that, but sometimes not. If it tastes good, it's ready to drink at that point. The sweeter it is, the younger you can drink it typically.

 

[notung]

Anyone willing to join in with me?

Yes, I think I may be with you despite having a larger functioning all-grain brewing setup. I've caught myself wondering lately about the nice things I could do with a mini mash tun, fermenting some more experimental brews in some 5L demijohns. (Unfortunately for me, I currently only have one of these...) The only concern I have relates to temperature control: lots of little brews may require lots of heat pads! $$$