Key lime ginger mead

[Brett_Bellmore]

Just started my first batch of mead in a while.

Zest of 10 key limes, juice from 3 of them.
Juice of 1 pound ginger, chopped up, frozen for a couple days, and run through my juicer. (And that thing may go through carrots like nobody's business, but it found ginger tough sledding.)
Juice from a couple kiwi, just because I was going with a green theme, and had them on hand.
2 lbs mixed varietal local honey from the Greenville area.
Water to bring up to 1 gallon.
1 campden tablet.

Tomorrow I plan on hitting it with some pectic enzyme, (Is that really necessary given the ingredients?) and Monday I'll pitch it with K1V-1116.

It smelled nice going into the fermenter, I guess that's a good sign.

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

I've really got to set up a dedicated space for brewing. This can't stay in the breakfast nook the next few months, and the closet next to the water heater is a bad idea. And the garage is WAY too hot. (South Carolina.)

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

It's now been a week, and after spending several days at a bubble or two every second, it's now dropped to one every twelve seconds, and is largely settled out. (But not clear yet!) Still too active to rack it off the lees yet? Or should I wait until I'm not seeing any more bubbles in the airlock?

I feel like doing something, maybe I should just start another batch of something else. Honeydew melons are on sale...

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

It had dropped to a bubble a minute, so I transferred it to a fresh jug, and made up the (considerable!) lost volume with the same flavorings as before: Zest of 10 key limes, juice of 3, juice of 2 kiwi, juice from 1 pound of frozen ginger, and this time one pound of orange blossom honey. With all that I didn't have to add any water.

Half thawed the ginger, then thinly sliced it across the grain, and it went through the juicer a lot easier.

I reserved a teaspoon or so to taste. (Actually, strained a little out from the lees through a coffee filter.) It was fully dry before the additions, and while the flavor was a bit harsh, it had a nice smell, and you could certainly taste the ginger.

We'll see if the fermentation picks up with that added honey. There's a bit of foam on the top, but the air lock isn't doing much yet.

 

[AkTom]

Do you take gravity samples?

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

Do you take gravity samples?

I must confess that I first started home brewing right after my first wife divorced me, and at the time was only interested in drinking myself into the grave with some interesting stuff. (Thank goodness I got over that!) So I wasn't terribly picky, and didn't get into details like that.

Picked up some bad brewing habits back then, I guess. if I make something I really like, I'll have trouble duplicating it.

OK, I promise I'll do that on my next batch!

 

[madscientist451]

I just ran a test batch where I added the zest and juice of 2 limes to a 1/2 gallon of finished, 12% mead and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 3 weeks.
Its way too much lime for my taste, I was thinking about 1/2 as much next time.
But using key limes and adding them at the beginning, as the recipe indicates above, may change the flavor contribution.

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

I just ran a test batch where I added the zest and juice of 2 limes to a 1/2 gallon of finished, 12% mead and let it sit in the refrigerator for about 3 weeks.
Its way too much lime for my taste, I was thinking about 1/2 as much next time.
But using key limes and adding them at the beginning, as the recipe indicates above, may change the flavor contribution.

Ah, but see my family motto:

Ok, seriously, the key limes are about the size of ping pong balls, if that. It's a lot of zest, but not so much juice.

And I do like extreme flavors.

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

Ok, it had really stopped bubbling, and cleared up, so I racked it into a new jug. Then I dumped the lees into a coffee filter, and based on what dripped through, added another pound of orange blossom honey, and a bit of water to minimize the headspace. That was 6 hours ago, and very little is happening. It's just sitting there, and I expect will be until I bottle it this winter.

After a bit I had a half cup of filtered lees, and me and my wife did a taste test. With a bit of honey added to bring up the sweetness, it was actually quite drinkable! Rather like an alcoholic version of what Vernors used to be like, before Dr. Pepper bought them out, and tamed the recipe to appeal to a larger mass market.

Unless it goes downhill in aging, my next batch of this will probably be 5 gallons, not 1.

Oh, and the lees? Going to try making bread with them.

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

Ok, I just pulled it out of secondary, stabilized it, and bottled. My official taster declared the taste good, the alcohol level not excessive, and that it was a little too sweet. (I tend to like extreme tastes, should have consulted her more closely when I backsweetened it.) Not a lot I can do at this point, except start another batch, and finish it a little less sweet.


The one large bottle has oak cubes, the other without, for a head to head comparison in a few months. The taller beer bottle has a couple, too, but the shorter not; They're for when my brother, the professional beer judge, visits in late October.

The smell and taste are fantastic, I'm definitely making this again, only 5 gallons.

 

[Brett_Bellmore]

Had my brother the professional beer judge over for a week visiting, and we did a tasting. He agrees the recipe is basically good, just a little too sweet. It was absolutely better aged on oak chips than without, so I'm putting the rest on oak, and starting a new, drier batch to mix this one with.

There was a little accident; My sample of oaked mead was in a beer bottle I hadn't taken the label off of, and it got confused in the fridge with a bottle of actual beer intended for cooking breakfast sausage. Didn't realize the mistake until I smelled the ginger while cooking the sausage.

Actually was pretty good for cooking sausage...