The Lordling's Tavern

Strawberry Guava Mead

1 May 2023

Technical Information

Primary:

  • Started: May 2023
  • Honey: Wildflower (Costco)
  • Yeast: Lalvin 71b
  • Starting Brix: ?

Fermentation Notes

So about those missing notes... this one was on it. I know I started the primary sometime after my wedding and before June. Still in primary as of now glugging along, but slowing down.

Tasting Notes

Coming Soon...

Dry Traditional Mead

5 March 2023

Technical Information

Primary:

  • Started: 5 March 2023
  • Honey: Wildflower (Costco)
  • Yeast: Lalvin k1v1116
  • Starting Brix: 24
Secondary: Yup, it's in there. I cannot find my notes... Hopefully this website helps with keeping up with them.

Fermentation Notes

Appears to be done fermenting, but I prefer to wait until most of the lees drop to the bottom on their own before bottling. Tempted to try and oak some of it, but I'm going to see how it tastes once it's clear.

Tasting Notes

Coming Soon...

Sweet Spiced Orange Mead

20 August 2022

Technical Information

Primary:

  • Started: 24 April 2022
  • Honey: Wildflower (Costco)
  • Yeast: Plain Old Bread Yeast
  • Starting Brix: 25
  • Ingredients:
    • 6 Sliced Oranges (including peel)
    • 5 Cinnamon Sticks
    • 7 Cloves
    • 5 handfulls of raisins

Fermentation Notes

As many of you might have noticed, this is just the Joe's Ancient Orange recipe. It is one of my wife's and friend's favorites, so this batch was being made to be served at our wedding. Threw everything in there and let it sit for months. I do not remember exactly when I racked it to secondary to get it off the lees, but I ended up bottling it 26 February 2023. So, it sat for a good long while.

Tasting Notes

Semi-Sweet. It normally comes out sweeter, but bread yeast can be unpredictable. Still delicious. The herbal notes came through a lot more in this batch. I believe because it fermented dryer than normal, and because it was sitting on the herbs for so long. It went over well at the wedding. We blew through a case of the stuff!

Dry Strawberry Mead

24 April 2022

Technical Information

Primary:

  • Started: 24 April 2022
  • Honey: Wildflower (Costco)
  • Yeast: Lalvin 71b
  • Starting Brix: 25
  • Ending Brix: 17.5
Secondary:
  • Started: 7 May 2022
  • Strawberries Added: 7.5lbs
  • Starting Brix: 17.5
  • Ending Brix: unknown

Fermentation Notes

The starting brix of the secondary should have gone up with the addition of the strawberries. I'm guessing the sugars just hadn't dissolved in the must by the time I took the measurement. I could have waited a bit and tried to get another measurement, but secondary fermentation kicked off pretty quickly. So any measurement would have probably been off by some amount. The inital brix left plenty of room for the must to ferment to dry so I wasn't too worried and just waited. I did forget to measure the ending brix (or at the very least, forgot to write it down), but the final mead was very dry to the taste.

Tasting Notes

Dry. A surprising amount of tannins were present in the final product. Much of the strawberry flavor had been stripped away despite being added in secondary. I maybe should have added more, but that was a looooot of strawberries by volume. It would probably work better in a sweeter mead. But as someone who prefers dryer meads, I haven't given up quite yet. I intend to try and make a strawberry/guava mead in the future.