shunoshi
Well-Known Member
I posted this at GotMead.com as well, but figured I'd shoot a copy to my HBT buddies who dabble in meadmaking:
On a whim I decided to make a 1 gallon cyser using 3 lbs. of grocery store bought clover honey and filling the remainder with pure apple juice. I warmed the honey slighty just to get it out of the jar, added apple juice to fill the 1 gallon jug, tossed in a cinnamon stick, 6 cloves, and a 1/4 tsp of Fermaid-K, GoFerm, and DAP. I shook the hell outta the bugger and took an initial gravity reading.....1.137. It hadn't really occured to me at the time that adding apple juice to honey with no dilution would make for a serious high gravity beverage.
I determined that my rehydrated Lalvin D-47 wasn't going to cut it anymore and pitched a rehydrated Red Star Montrachet yeast instead. I figured if it's good enough for EdWort's Apfelwein it's good enough for my cyser and I knew the alcohol tolerance of Montrachet was relatively high. I proceded to shake up the carboy for the next couple days to keep it aerated and then left it to do it's business.
It's now 5 weeks later. I took a gravity reading and we're sitting at 1.008. I took a sip of my sample and it was sweet, had an apple aftertaste and went down my throat like a shot of Blue 100. Wow, napalm. I plugged the numbers into an ABV calculator and I'm looking at roughly 17.1% ABV.
Sorry about the long and involved post, but I wanted to set the stage. On to my main question. Am I going to need to try and backsweeten this in order to get something palatable or will this mellow out with a little conditioning time (and by little I mean a lot)? I know from experience that big beers require some extended conditioning time. Is this going to be the same case? I suppose I should just take it one day at a time, but a 1 gallon batch can only handle so many samples.
Also, I was considering if oaking would help smooth out some of the heavy alcohol....
Oskaar, from GotMead.com suggested oaking with some French Medium Roast. Being new to meadmaking and having never messed with oak before I am clueless on oaking time/amounts. Can anyone clue me in?
Also any other suggestions on how to make this drinkable in the end would be appreciated.
Thanks!
On a whim I decided to make a 1 gallon cyser using 3 lbs. of grocery store bought clover honey and filling the remainder with pure apple juice. I warmed the honey slighty just to get it out of the jar, added apple juice to fill the 1 gallon jug, tossed in a cinnamon stick, 6 cloves, and a 1/4 tsp of Fermaid-K, GoFerm, and DAP. I shook the hell outta the bugger and took an initial gravity reading.....1.137. It hadn't really occured to me at the time that adding apple juice to honey with no dilution would make for a serious high gravity beverage.
I determined that my rehydrated Lalvin D-47 wasn't going to cut it anymore and pitched a rehydrated Red Star Montrachet yeast instead. I figured if it's good enough for EdWort's Apfelwein it's good enough for my cyser and I knew the alcohol tolerance of Montrachet was relatively high. I proceded to shake up the carboy for the next couple days to keep it aerated and then left it to do it's business.
It's now 5 weeks later. I took a gravity reading and we're sitting at 1.008. I took a sip of my sample and it was sweet, had an apple aftertaste and went down my throat like a shot of Blue 100. Wow, napalm. I plugged the numbers into an ABV calculator and I'm looking at roughly 17.1% ABV.
Sorry about the long and involved post, but I wanted to set the stage. On to my main question. Am I going to need to try and backsweeten this in order to get something palatable or will this mellow out with a little conditioning time (and by little I mean a lot)? I know from experience that big beers require some extended conditioning time. Is this going to be the same case? I suppose I should just take it one day at a time, but a 1 gallon batch can only handle so many samples.
Also, I was considering if oaking would help smooth out some of the heavy alcohol....
Oskaar, from GotMead.com suggested oaking with some French Medium Roast. Being new to meadmaking and having never messed with oak before I am clueless on oaking time/amounts. Can anyone clue me in?
Also any other suggestions on how to make this drinkable in the end would be appreciated.
Thanks!