Mead Wine Making | Forum profile

You don't have to wait, but there are a couple to reasons you might want to. For one, a fresh fermentation that has lots of yeast usually has some bitterness that masks the flavor. If you sweeten now, when that yeast clears and the bitterness with it, you can find you sweetened it more than you needed to. Also, sorbate and sulfite inhibit a percentage of the yeast present - a high ...

After a long, cold winter, this past summer was tough on bees, very cool and damp. Now, this mild fall is adding even more unfavorable conditions. The 2010 honey crop may be even worse than this one. Only one of my two colonies I kept this summer produced for me, and my take was only 25#. I'll be taking three into winter and have been feeding, feeding, feeding... I'm looking into ...

QUOTE (PEL @ Nov 9 2009, 10:27 AM) I have some de-stemmed home grown elderberries in the freezer. My background is in wine making. My friend is a mead maker. We are thinking of making an elderberry melomel together. He suggested adding the elderberries to the secondary after the mead is fermented. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on whether to add the elderberries in the ...

[quote >Removed bag of berries, skins and 'nanas. Next time, will leave grapes out of bag to stay in primary longer. Elderberry must be in bag; remove before seeds become bitter. Do small bottle in 750's or splits? This seems like it should go in splits, half of it anyway. [/quote] Leaving the elderberries in longer will result in more berry flavor and more tannins, but that in ...

What kind of honey do you have? -------------------- Lanne pase toujou pi bon. (Past years are always better)

Well, this entire process has been a combination between a fun experiment and a complete comedy of errors. At least I've learned lots of ways not to make a melomel So the other day I sent a small sample home with a friend of mine that works in a federal chemistry lab to test the PH. It came out with a PH of 2.93 (!!!!!), so that answered my question as to the problem. Having that ...

I'd put it outside for a few days. And, I'd start a new batch. al_coholic.gif And don't be mad/sad about the mead -- I didn't follow directions either. ph34r.gif smileyhelp.gif As for the pictures: Your niagara looks great! luxhello.gif smileycheers.gif I would top off the mead, though. smileytoast.gif Chin up, Cheryl. -------------------- There are no problems in life.......... Only ...

As far as topping-up is concerned, I would use glass marbles, at least to get you part of the way. That way, you don't really have to worry as much or at all about matching the top-off to your melomel. I would think the closest thing to top-up a melomel would be a similar melomel, a fruit wine similar to the fruit you used, or a straight mead if your melomel is using a "clear" fruit like ...