Mead tasting 12/30/2017

[corkybstewart]

My daughter likes sweet meads and mentioned to her baby daddy that I made meads, something he had never really even heard of. We started with a braggot from 2007 made from the second runnings of a porter and 10 pounds of honey. I was surprised at how good it was after 10 years in the laundry room cabinet. Very dry but no oxidation or off flavors, it was still very good. Then we had a 2006 prickly pear mead-also very dry but delicious. Next up was a friend's 2010 sweet mead(all the info on the label) that was good but not spectacular. And thee last one was my 2016 prickly pear mead, first time it's been tasted since I racked it to a keg for aging last year. It's good but will be better in the next few years.

 

[JimRausch]

Sounds great! I plan to start my 1st mead sometime in the next couple weeks, and decided to do Prickly pear. Next to impossible to get fruit up here, so I ordered some PP syrup. It'll be a 1G batch- 2 lb honey, 23 oz. of the syrup, and I have some agave syrup to bump up the OG if needed. Have been spending quite abit of time scoping out this side of HBT lately, doing research.

 

[corkybstewart]

It's a shame I can't ship you fresh fruit next year. Our crop was pretty bad in 2017, the rains didn't come in time so the fruit we had was dry and tasteless.

 

[JimRausch]

I actually tried my 1st PP over Christmas. A local store down in Massachusetts had some and we picked up 2 and added them to a Christmas fruit salad. Not bad- kind of like watermelon with kiwi mixed in. But a lot of seeds. When you use them do you try to deseed?

 

[corkybstewart]

I use an apple press and strain the juice through several layers of cheesecloth to keep the fine debris out. But I'm pressing 6 gallon buckets full at a time! A lot of people down here make jelly with the juice, a few of us ferment it.