Hey y’all! First off, I just wanted to thank everyone here. I’m pretty new to the mead world, and your posts have helped me learn a lot in the short time I’ve been here.
To business, I’m trying to make an Apple pie mead to be enjoyed around Thanksgiving/Christmas time, and I wanted to run the recipe by y’all to see how this sounds. This will be my second mead attempt; the first was a traditional that started very hot but has mellowed significantly after being bottled for a few months. Sorry if I’m too verbose! And thanks in advance for any help/advice! Hopefully if this goes well I can submit it to the recipe section for someone else to try.
Recipe for 2 gallons:
5lbs honey
1 gallon Musselmann’s Apple Cider
1 Quart organic 100% honeycrisp apple juice
McCormick’s Pure Vanilla Extract (to taste)
McCormick’s Apple Pie Spice (put into a teabag and placed in secondary)
Lalvin D-47 yeast.
1/2 gallon of spring water
I plan on using some combination of Campden and Potassium Sorbate to stabilize.
Sugar In The Raw (not quite brown sugar but it’s what I have on deck)
Fermax Yeast Nutrient
The current gameplan is to create a starter with maybe a pound of the honey, a half gallon of water and the yeast. I’ll then pasteurize the honey (thinking lower temperature, longer time). I’m then going to split the cider, apple juice, honey and starter down the middle and put into two 1 gallon car boys to ferment. I’ve been researching staggered nutrient additions, and I might try for that this time around.
After fermenting is done, I plan on racking both gallons into different car boys, stabilizing them with the combo mentioned in the ingredients, and then adding the vanilla extract (maybe a couple capfuls per gallon) and the apple pie spice (maybe a teabag full for a couple days). I’ll also add a honey/water mix to backsweeten and fill back to 1 gallon for each carboy. The Savannah Bee Company near me sells a lot of honey, so I’ll just get some from them and maybe do a 50/50 honey/water mix. After they clear sufficiently I will move to bottling.
Should I add the sugar in the raw in the primary/secondary/at all? I was trying to go for a brown sugar flavor, but I’m not sure how to go about it. Would I be better off trying to find/order some brown sugar, or will that come through at all? How does this sound to you all? Am I missing anything glaringly obvious? Am I overthinking this? I’m eager for any and all feedback that y’all may have.
Happy brewing, and thanks again!
-Tom
To business, I’m trying to make an Apple pie mead to be enjoyed around Thanksgiving/Christmas time, and I wanted to run the recipe by y’all to see how this sounds. This will be my second mead attempt; the first was a traditional that started very hot but has mellowed significantly after being bottled for a few months. Sorry if I’m too verbose! And thanks in advance for any help/advice! Hopefully if this goes well I can submit it to the recipe section for someone else to try.
Recipe for 2 gallons:
5lbs honey
1 gallon Musselmann’s Apple Cider
1 Quart organic 100% honeycrisp apple juice
McCormick’s Pure Vanilla Extract (to taste)
McCormick’s Apple Pie Spice (put into a teabag and placed in secondary)
Lalvin D-47 yeast.
1/2 gallon of spring water
I plan on using some combination of Campden and Potassium Sorbate to stabilize.
Sugar In The Raw (not quite brown sugar but it’s what I have on deck)
Fermax Yeast Nutrient
The current gameplan is to create a starter with maybe a pound of the honey, a half gallon of water and the yeast. I’ll then pasteurize the honey (thinking lower temperature, longer time). I’m then going to split the cider, apple juice, honey and starter down the middle and put into two 1 gallon car boys to ferment. I’ve been researching staggered nutrient additions, and I might try for that this time around.
After fermenting is done, I plan on racking both gallons into different car boys, stabilizing them with the combo mentioned in the ingredients, and then adding the vanilla extract (maybe a couple capfuls per gallon) and the apple pie spice (maybe a teabag full for a couple days). I’ll also add a honey/water mix to backsweeten and fill back to 1 gallon for each carboy. The Savannah Bee Company near me sells a lot of honey, so I’ll just get some from them and maybe do a 50/50 honey/water mix. After they clear sufficiently I will move to bottling.
Should I add the sugar in the raw in the primary/secondary/at all? I was trying to go for a brown sugar flavor, but I’m not sure how to go about it. Would I be better off trying to find/order some brown sugar, or will that come through at all? How does this sound to you all? Am I missing anything glaringly obvious? Am I overthinking this? I’m eager for any and all feedback that y’all may have.
Happy brewing, and thanks again!
-Tom
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