About Fruit Mead
Jun. 30th, 2004 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplerabbitSo we have been brewing up a lot of mead. And we are currently working on a few fruit flavored meads.
My understanding is that if you add fruit to the honey (called a melomel) it doesn't last as long as a pure honey mead. That is what we discovered when we made the plum mead. While we don't usually drink our meads until they have aged a year in the bottle, it seems that the melomel has to be drunk WITHIN that same time period and doesn't last long after. Other brewers, is that what you have found?
So most of our meads have been flavored with herbs rather than fruits to ensure a vintage that ages nicely, giving the mead a chance to mature. We are currently brewing a cherry melomel, but it is a small batch.
On the other hand, the other way to get fruit flavored mead is to use the fruit blossom honey. Each honey contains some of the flavor of the type of flowers the bees collected from. So honey where the bees fed on orange blossom, is suppose to have a light orange flavor. The more common types of honey to obtain are sage, starthistle, wildflower, etc. The fruit blossom honeys are more than twice as expensive and include orange, blackberry, rasberry etc. While the flavor of mead made with the blossom honey is much more subtle than the melomel, it ages well and is quite lovely.
We currently have a single batch of the blackberry blossom mead in carboy and are considering buying more blossom honey. Since we are going to Seatle in a couple weeks, we are thinking of picking up several batches worth of the blackberry. We are also planning to get several batches worth of orange.
Of course, the amount we would have to charge (in trade) for a bottle of the blossom mead would be nearly twice the cost as the standard. Do you think it would be worth it? If you are one of those folks who asked us about getting a bottle or two of the blackberry, is that something you still want given the expense? Please let us know, as we have to place the order before we leave.
Meanwhile, if anyone has any carboys they can donate, sell or loan us, please let us know. One of ours broke and we were already pretty short for such an ambitious project. Also, if you have any empty wine bottles, please feel free to bring them by the Warren.
So our current batches are going well. We currently have 10 carboys in the works, hopefully ready to bottle in October:
My understanding is that if you add fruit to the honey (called a melomel) it doesn't last as long as a pure honey mead. That is what we discovered when we made the plum mead. While we don't usually drink our meads until they have aged a year in the bottle, it seems that the melomel has to be drunk WITHIN that same time period and doesn't last long after. Other brewers, is that what you have found?
So most of our meads have been flavored with herbs rather than fruits to ensure a vintage that ages nicely, giving the mead a chance to mature. We are currently brewing a cherry melomel, but it is a small batch.
On the other hand, the other way to get fruit flavored mead is to use the fruit blossom honey. Each honey contains some of the flavor of the type of flowers the bees collected from. So honey where the bees fed on orange blossom, is suppose to have a light orange flavor. The more common types of honey to obtain are sage, starthistle, wildflower, etc. The fruit blossom honeys are more than twice as expensive and include orange, blackberry, rasberry etc. While the flavor of mead made with the blossom honey is much more subtle than the melomel, it ages well and is quite lovely.
We currently have a single batch of the blackberry blossom mead in carboy and are considering buying more blossom honey. Since we are going to Seatle in a couple weeks, we are thinking of picking up several batches worth of the blackberry. We are also planning to get several batches worth of orange.
Of course, the amount we would have to charge (in trade) for a bottle of the blossom mead would be nearly twice the cost as the standard. Do you think it would be worth it? If you are one of those folks who asked us about getting a bottle or two of the blackberry, is that something you still want given the expense? Please let us know, as we have to place the order before we leave.
Meanwhile, if anyone has any carboys they can donate, sell or loan us, please let us know. One of ours broke and we were already pretty short for such an ambitious project. Also, if you have any empty wine bottles, please feel free to bring them by the Warren.
So our current batches are going well. We currently have 10 carboys in the works, hopefully ready to bottle in October:
- Methaglen (traditional spice, 2 batches),
- Wildflower (blend of floral herbs, 2 batches)
- Ginjer, Rose, Vanilla (3 batches)
- Orange Spice (orange rind, cinnamin & clove, 1 batch)
- Blackberry (blackberry blossom honey with a stick of cinnamin, 1 batch)
- Cherry Melomel (Bing cherries, 1 batch)
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Date: 2004-07-01 06:02 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-07-01 05:24 pm (UTC)As to the fruit blossom honey meads, if you mean they would be $40 a bottle, then that's too rich for my budget. :( Sounds delicious though, and I'm sure that people with the cash to spend would think it was worth it.