Mead yeast

[@geterbrewed]

Hi Guys,

I hope you don't mind me posting on your thread, we have brought in a new mead kit which might be of interest to you http://geterbrewed.ie/mead-honey-wine-ingredient-kit-en.html

We brought these kits in from Prestige in Sweden they are the world's best at manufacturing yeast.

[Tom]

Thanks for all the imput, folks. I'll be taking it all in, digesting it, and hopefully starting my first one in a couple of weeks.

The mead kit does look useful in that it has all of the additives in one handy place, saving buying several tubs that may only get used once.

I'll keep an eye out for the Neil Delamere show! Good man yourself!

[Bubbles]

Well Tom, did you kick off your meads yet? Just today I bought 3kg of honey, so I'm fully committed now.

I'm wondering could I risk splitting the sachet of yeast for two separate batches, or would that be asking for trouble? I think the Lalvin sachets are for 5gal, but I don't know if that applies to mead as well as wine...

[Tom]

I split all the time. I usually only do single gallons of wines and stuff. It's designed for high sugar anyway, so wouldn't worry a whole lot about it. Rehydrate as usual. I'm a big fan of yeast nutrients though. Really helps reduce hot alcohols in my limited experience.

As for mead? Not quite got around to it yet. Need to order some supplies. It's mead or the car tax.

What are you making with your honey?

[Bubbles]

Cool, maybe I might have a crack at 2 meads then.

I have only 1 sachet of nutrient though. Not sure about splitting this in half.

I was planning on doing a plain mead made with 50/50 blended/wildflower honey. Might add 1tsp tannin and 1tsp citric acid, based on the little research i've done.

The other batch will probably end up as a cyser or a melomel. Will leave the acid out of that one as there's probably enough acid in the fruit or juice. Will split the sachet of 71B in half.

I'm in unfamiliar territory here! If any of this sounds bonkers, someone please say so!

[Bubbles]

Finally, I stuck this mead on this evening.

700g wildflower honey
900g blended honey
2tsp nutrient
1/2 tsp tannin
1 tsp citric acid
Lalvin 71B

The honey is Holland & Barrets. Not exactly artisan product, but I'm hoping the wildflower variety might give it a little character. I'm hoping that I've preserved whatever aromatics are in the honey by not heating the must at all. I just blended the honey into the bottled water using a sanitised stick blender. Worked a treat.

Have some honey left, so might do a melomel or a metheglin.

[Tom]

That makes 1 gal, aye?
Was it reasonably priced, to make a batch?

[Bubbles]

Oh yeah, 1 gal batch.

If I remember correctly, the honey cost me just under 20 euro which struck me as reasonable. For that price I got 2 x 350g wildflower and 2 x 900g bog standard blended variety. And i've one of the 900g jars left over. There was a special offer on at the time though.

Not the cheapest gallon of booze to make, admittedly. I did the same volume of spiced applewine using lidl aj for probably a fraction of the price.

[Bubbles]

Last night I walked into the room where this mead was fermenting and was bowled over by a big licorice smell, which I can only hop is coming from my mead. If it's coming from the Irish Red I have conditioning alongside it, I'm in trouble...