I got my hands on a couple of jars of local honey and would like to have a go at making a "session" mead. Having listened to the recent BeerSmith podcast on the topic, it seems it is possible to make a lower abv mead in a similar timescale to beer, without the long aging process associated with stronger meads.
I have a basic plan but not all of the necessary ingredients or experience. I'm planning to:
- Make up a must at around 1.045 OG (4-5 litres)
- Rehydrate the basic wine yeast I have with some nutrient (I have only beer nutrient to hand)
- "Degas" by stirring the must every day or so for the first few days (is this necessary?)
- Wait for fermentation to finish, after a week or so, at around 1.000
- Rack to secondary, leaving the yeast behind, adding potassium sulphite to sterilise the mead and drive off oxygen
- Add potassium sorbate the following day to stop fermentation
- Cold crash for a week in the hopes this will clear up the mead (I have no clarifier)
- Back sweeten to taste with honey (targeting 1.020)
- Possibly dry hop (I have some spare Mosaic lying around)
- Bottle still as I have no means of force carbonating
Some questions:
- The wine yeast I have is a cheap generic one from the local shop. Any idea what the optimum fermentation temp would be?
- I don't have mead yeast nutrient - is this likely to be a problem for a low gravity mead? I'm not planning on adding nutrient when degassing as I only have beer yeast nutrient and figured it's less essential at lower gravities
- Any experience of dry hopping mead - quantities, hop varieties?
This is very much a kitchen cupboard experiment so I'm fully prepared for it not to work, but having tried a session mead recently I'm keen to have a go!
I have a basic plan but not all of the necessary ingredients or experience. I'm planning to:
- Make up a must at around 1.045 OG (4-5 litres)
- Rehydrate the basic wine yeast I have with some nutrient (I have only beer nutrient to hand)
- "Degas" by stirring the must every day or so for the first few days (is this necessary?)
- Wait for fermentation to finish, after a week or so, at around 1.000
- Rack to secondary, leaving the yeast behind, adding potassium sulphite to sterilise the mead and drive off oxygen
- Add potassium sorbate the following day to stop fermentation
- Cold crash for a week in the hopes this will clear up the mead (I have no clarifier)
- Back sweeten to taste with honey (targeting 1.020)
- Possibly dry hop (I have some spare Mosaic lying around)
- Bottle still as I have no means of force carbonating
Some questions:
- The wine yeast I have is a cheap generic one from the local shop. Any idea what the optimum fermentation temp would be?
- I don't have mead yeast nutrient - is this likely to be a problem for a low gravity mead? I'm not planning on adding nutrient when degassing as I only have beer yeast nutrient and figured it's less essential at lower gravities
- Any experience of dry hopping mead - quantities, hop varieties?
This is very much a kitchen cupboard experiment so I'm fully prepared for it not to work, but having tried a session mead recently I'm keen to have a go!
