First mead questions.

[RAWhiteFSU]

I am a beer brewer who would like to make some mead. I have made some fruit wine in the past (Apfelwein, Skeeter Pee, Vinter's Harvest Cabernet). (Aside: I pitched the yeast for my first batch of Dragon's Blood last night---apparently I ought not to have gotten the bucket that full.)

I would like to make a 5 gallon batch. I have 10 lbs. of Clover honey on hand. I would the finished product to be dry.

Does the following recipe look like it will be satisfactory?

10 lbs. Clover Honey
96 oz. Can of Elderberry Vinter's Harvest Fruit Wine Base
6 tsp. Yeast Nutrient
3 tsp. Yeast Energizer
Water to 5 gallons

Dissolve honey in warm water and add to fermenter. Add Fruit Wine Base. Add Yeast Nutrient and shake fermenter to mix. Add Yeast Energizer and shake fermenter to mix. Add water to 5 gallons. Pitch 1 re-hydrated pack of EC1118. Rack at 1.015 and degas thoroughly.

Please let me know any comments or suggestions. I'm going to try to make this tomorrow (Wednesday) evening. Thanks, R. A. White.

 

[Arpolis]

The recipe sounds fine for a melomel. I only have a few suggestions. Split your two cans of fruit wine base 1 for primary and the other for secondary. You will have a more pronounced elderberry flavor if you do it that way.

Also split up your yeast nutrient/energizer and do stagard nutrient additions. I like to do 70% up front mostly DAP or the yeast nutrient and the remaining evenly split to be added in 3 different portions over 72 hours.

Finally choose a different yeast. 1118 may be good for many wines but I find it too aggressive and only use it to re-start stuck fermentations. A good mead yeast from Lalvin would be lalvin-71b which makes good young wines. K1v-1116 makes good dry meads and it accentuates floral characters in honey.

 

[RAWhiteFSU]

Sorry for the confusion, I should not have numbered the list of ingredients. I only have one can of fruit wine base. Is the recipe still reasonable with only one can?

Thanks for the advice on yeast, I think I'll go with K1V-1116.

 

[Arpolis]

Haha I did not even realize that was a list. If I looked closely I should have known. One can will be fine. Do you want a more honey dominate flavor or the elderberry wine type flavor is the question. I still say split between primary and secondary but decide to use just the one can or two on how prominat you want the elderberry flavor compared to the mead characteristics.

 

[RAWhiteFSU]

I would rather not split the can because I am fanatical about sanitation and don't want to wonder about how sanitary the resealed can is. How about adding all the fruit base in secondary?

 

[Arpolis]

That would work out too. I have done melomels with fruit in primary only, secondary only and both. I prefer the split but would favor adding it to secondary only of just primary.