For a while, I've been thinking about brewing a lower gravity "session" mead, and I've finally gone and done it. I was inspired by a couple of things: first, I wanted to get my kegerator filled up! Also, I live very close to an awesome meadery, Apis. On a recent visit, they had a really great, low ABV, IPA style hopped mead that was called "Unoriginal," (which I think is an hysterical name, BTW...and making a clone of it is even funnier to me, for some reason.) Finally, I was already acting on inspiration #1, and had been planning on brewing a version of the 15 Min Pale Ale.
So this got me thinking, what if I just substitute the dry malt extract for honey to reach the same OG? Then, what I also did was to increase the crystal malt in that recipe to give a little more body and residual sweetness, to counteract the fact that I expect the honey to be completely fermented off.
Here's what the final recipe was:
Unoriginal Clone (a pale hoppy session mead...)
5 Gallons
OG: ~1.059 (depending on the pppg of your honey)
IBU's: 50
2 lbs Crystal 10L
6.5 lbs Honey (I used a medium color wildflower)
2 oz Falconer's Flight (10.4 alpha) @ 15 min
2 oz Amarillo (8.5 alpha) @ 10 min
1 oz Falconer's Flight @ 2 min
1 oz Amarillo @ flameout
1 oz Falconer's Flight (Dry Hop)
1 oz Amarillo (Dry Hop)
The malt was steeped in the strike water and as I started heating, and was removed at around ~170*F.
I then did a 15 min boil as per the inspiring recipe linked above, then cooled to 60*F and pitched 11g rehydrated US-05 Yeast. Went with that yeast as I wanted a clean fermenting, relatively attenuating yeast.
Yes, it's a lot of hops, but it takes a fair bit of hops to get the IBU's up with so short of a boil. You do get great hop flavor and aroma though, using this "hopburst" technique!
Yes, I would still consider this a mead...only a minimum amount of the fermentables come from the barley. Perhaps we can consider it a "Hop and Barley Metheglin!"
I am also still doing SNA's, although may not be necessary given the barley addition...
I'll update this as it gets completed...I'm very interested to see what my FG will be with the 2 lbs of crystal in the mix. If necessary, I may stabilize and backsweeten slightly before it goes in the keg...
So this got me thinking, what if I just substitute the dry malt extract for honey to reach the same OG? Then, what I also did was to increase the crystal malt in that recipe to give a little more body and residual sweetness, to counteract the fact that I expect the honey to be completely fermented off.
Here's what the final recipe was:
Unoriginal Clone (a pale hoppy session mead...)
5 Gallons
OG: ~1.059 (depending on the pppg of your honey)
IBU's: 50
2 lbs Crystal 10L
6.5 lbs Honey (I used a medium color wildflower)
2 oz Falconer's Flight (10.4 alpha) @ 15 min
2 oz Amarillo (8.5 alpha) @ 10 min
1 oz Falconer's Flight @ 2 min
1 oz Amarillo @ flameout
1 oz Falconer's Flight (Dry Hop)
1 oz Amarillo (Dry Hop)
The malt was steeped in the strike water and as I started heating, and was removed at around ~170*F.
I then did a 15 min boil as per the inspiring recipe linked above, then cooled to 60*F and pitched 11g rehydrated US-05 Yeast. Went with that yeast as I wanted a clean fermenting, relatively attenuating yeast.
Yes, it's a lot of hops, but it takes a fair bit of hops to get the IBU's up with so short of a boil. You do get great hop flavor and aroma though, using this "hopburst" technique!
Yes, I would still consider this a mead...only a minimum amount of the fermentables come from the barley. Perhaps we can consider it a "Hop and Barley Metheglin!"
I am also still doing SNA's, although may not be necessary given the barley addition...
I'll update this as it gets completed...I'm very interested to see what my FG will be with the 2 lbs of crystal in the mix. If necessary, I may stabilize and backsweeten slightly before it goes in the keg...