What the hell do I call this - Persimon, Yellow Plum & Rosehip Mead

There has to be a sexier name, if anyone can think of anything better than PPR (Not hard to do) please feel free to leave me some suggestions.

I started out with 4 cups of mushed RIPE Persimons with the skin removed. I am very careful to remove the skin of fruits when I can as to avoid the Pectin which apparently makes the wine cloudy. I figured plums were similar, well ok they really aren't but I needed something with a little more acid. I also had some rose hip concentrate I made up from fresh rosehips awhile back and froze.



Here are the measurements:

5 Litres spring water
2 cups rosehip concentrate (previously frozen)
4 cups yellow plum juice (previously frozen)
4 Cups Mashed Persimons with seeds and skin removed
6 Cups Honey

1 pack 1118 yeast
1 tsp yeast nutrient

Specific gravity = 1.082

Start time 6PM December 1, 2008

Blackberry Mead and a Yeast Test

As you may know from my previous batches, I have been using 1118 yeast which is more of a high alcohol champagne yeast. This time I decided to branch out and try a few things different.
Basically I started with pretty much the same base bringing the specific graivity up to 1.096 ish and separated it out into 2 batches of 8 Litres each. I am trying 2 yeasts, K1116 and 71B 1122 Both by Lalvin.



I started the batches at the same temperature at the same time. Both were innoculated at 9:45 PM on June 25th, 2008. We shall see how this experiment goes. I will keep you updated

Lilac Wine

Here is a couple of recipe's I mooched of Jack Keller. I already picked a bunch of lilac and separated the flowers... What a pain. The trick is to make sure there is no green in the flowers while keeping the sweet Stigmata. You can keep the flowers in the freezer if you need to drag the cultivating process over a few weeks.

LILAC WINE (1)

3-1/2 quarts lilac flowers
2-1/2 lb granulated sugar
2 lemons or 12 grams 80% lactic acid
7-1/2 pts water
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Champagne yeast
Put water on to boil while culling through and rinsing flowers. Put flowers in primary and when water boils pour over flowers. Cover primary tightly and set aside for 48 hours. Strain flowers through nylon straining bag and squeeze to extract all flavor, then discard pulp. Stir sugar, yeast nutrient, juice of lemon or lactic acid into primary and stir until completely dissolved. Sprinkle dry yeast on top without stirring or add activated yeast culture to primary. Recover primary and ferment 7 days. Transfer liquid to secondary and fit airlock. Ferment 30 days and rack, top up and refit airlock. Rack again every 30 days until wine is clear and no longer dropping sediment. Rack into bottles and allow to age 3-6 months. [Adapted from George Leonard Herter's How to Make the Finest Wines at Home]





LILAC WINE (2)

3-1/2 quarts lilac flowers
1-1/2 lb granulated sugar
10.5 oz can of Welch's 100% white grape juice frozen concentrate
1-1/2 tsp citric acid
1/8 tsp tannin powder
7-1/4 pts water
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Champagne yeast
Put water on to boil while culling through and rinsing flowers. Put flowers in primary and when water boils pour over flowers. Cover primary tightly and set aside for 48 hours. Strain flowers through nylon straining bag and squeeze to extract all flavor, then discard pulp. Bring 2 cups of must to boil and add sugar, stirring constantly until dissolved. Stir in frozen grape concentrate and immediately pour into primary. Stir in remaining ingredients except yeast. When must returns to lukewarm, sprinkle dry yeast on top without stirring or add activated yeast. Cover primary and ferment 5 days. Transfer liquid to secondary and fit airlock. Ferment 30 days and rack, top up and refit airlock. Rack again every 30 days until wine is clear and no longer dropping sediment. Rack into bottles and allow to age 3-6 months.

Wild Mountain Honey Strawberry Mead

They just had a sale on Strawberries at the Local Grocery store. Although I typically prefer local BC Grown Strawberries over the California counterparts, I did manage to find some very sweet smelling large deep red berries in the pile. I immediately grabbed 8 Pounds of them.

Awhile back, I also stumbled across a booth selling organic Honey and picked up a couple of pails of Unpastuerized mountain wild flower Honey. It is a beautifully thick and deep yellow honey with a sweeter and richer taste than the Clover Honey I usually use.

So now that I have given you the history of the ingredients in this batch of Strawberry Mead, let's move onto making Mead.



I cleaned and weighed out the strawberries and put them in a large stainless steel pot with 1.5 Litres of Spring water and the Citric Acid & Honey. while heating up the mixture, I crushed the strawberries with a hand crusher thingy (Sort of like a pastry cutter.) All the recipe's I found said to hand crush, I am assuming this is to keep the must chunky. Heating the mixture up, just to disolve the honey I then transfered the must to my 2 Gallon primary fermenter and added water to bring the level up.
I then checked the Specific Gravity and found it to be right around 1.091 which would bring the Mead to a 12% Alc level if left to ferment to dry.

I prepared and dumped in 2 packages of Lalvin K1-V116 Yeast, which I'm told is a Mead Yeast and let it sit on my fridge (Nice and warm.)

I did not have any yeast nutrient left, so I figured I would try it au-natural...well sort of.

Ingredients:

6 lbs strawberries
4 Tsp Citric Acid
4.5 litres water
7 cups unpasteurized wild mountain honey

spec gravity
1.091

1 Package of Lalvin K1-V1116

The Must was innoculated at 5PM PST on April 29th, 2008

See ya in a few days.

Sparkling Apple Pineapple Cider-Mead

OK, so it's been awhile since I've tried anything new. I've been wanting to do an apple cider so why not.

After doing a little searching and letting my mind wander a little, I came up with this recipe


Sparkling Apple Cider Mead

6 Litres Organic Apple Juice - Pressed, not from concentrate.
Specific Gravity of juice is 1.050

1 can pineaple tidbits with juice 540 ml Tossed in blender
1 litre spring water
5 1/2 Cups Honey
1 Tsp Jamaican Allspice

specific gravity is 1.100 pot alc of about 13%.

2 Packs of Lalvin K1-V1116 Yeast. Most ciders suggest using a Champagne Yeast, but I've never been one to listen to what others tell me :P

1 Tsp Energizer

Innoculated @ 5PM on Feb 27th 2008