Strawberry Melomel?

[happymondays]

Hi Daw,

I have really taken to the idea of making Mead especially the history that goes with it and of course the fact that I love honey, so I couldn't wait till summer for our local farm that has a cracking variety of fields of strawberries, raspberries etc.

So I have cheated and bought some tins of strawberries from a supermarket, its at day 4 in primary so when I transfer to DJ's your recipe suggests adding a Vanilla bean and Cinnamon stick.

From an earlier post about washing raisins would you do the same with the Vanilla bean as I think the last time I bought one it had a similar feel to that of the packet raisins and do you just leave them in the DJ's till ferment has finished or do you leave them in for longer or taste as you go?

Regards Scott........

p.s. woops just realised dont know if this should be in the General Mead area sorry

[fatbloke]

Scott,

Vanilla tends to be extracted with alcohol. If you look at the nearest supermarket, in the home baking section, there's usually some "vanilla extract" available. It's often about 35% abv.

I've got an idea that vanilla pods feel quite "waxy" anyway - though you'd probably have to have a dig around the net on dry/preserving them to work out if they've been treated in any way that might affect the wine.

Hence, it's got me thinking about this recipe, I'd be going for some of the "Madagascar Bourbon" vanilla extract, and then add it drip by drip when it's ageing/cleared to work out the level of flavour/enhancement I want.

Oh and as you're not far from Windermere, there's the big shop/head office for Lakeland right next to the station. If nothing else it makes a nice day out. Though Lakeland are one of the main importers for the Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract.

regards

JtFB

p.s. I think I'm gonna try this one with tinned Strawbs' as well. Did you get the ones in fruit juice or the ones in syrup ? Also, I noticed that DAW's recipe uses Wyeast 4184 (I think that's the number I just read) which I think is a liquid yeast (gonna check anyway) so maybe you could post the ingredients you've used ???

[happymondays]

Hi John

Good idea about the Vanilla extract never thought of that and I am going to Ambleside area tomorrow so I will have a look in the Lakeland Shop.

I used the tinned Strawberries with juice from Morrison's choice ones they were only 32p a tin for 400g,

as for the method I saw Daw used 11kg for 5 Gallons, so for one gallon about 2.2 kg of Strawberries,

now I guessed on that the tinned Strawberries might be a bit more concentrated but I bought 10 tins which with juice would weigh 4kg but as this is an experiment with Tinned Strawb's I wont know if this will be too much?

for 2 gallons (as I buy Honey in 3kg tubs)


3kg of Wild Flower Honey
10 tins of Morrison's choice Strawberries in Juice
added 5.75L of water to give just over 2 Gallons
S.G. 1.096

I was going to add some more Honey just to bump it up a bit, but decided as it was a trial see how this turned out.

I'm thinking of trying another with some other fruit, I was in Aldi or Lidl they do Peach, Pineapple, Peach and Pear in 1kg plastic jars cant remember exact price but they were not expensive, and the same jars were in Morrison's too but slightly more,

have you done any of the fruit melomels John?

Regards Scott.....


p.s. John the "Making Mead" book is a good read got some interesting stories.

[fatbloke]

After reading your original post, I read DAW's recipe, but posted a few questions because I wanted to scale it down to a 1 gallon batch.

Plus I'm hoping for some clarification on a few things. For instance, the yeast he quotes is the Wyeast "sweet mead" yeast. According to the data sheet that Keith (Aristaeus) sent me, it only goes to about 11% ABV. So I'd want to make sure about the starting gravity i.e. so it's enough to go to 13 or 14% ABV, the idea being that I like sweet meads, so it should (theoretically) have about 2 or 3 % sugar left over.

I'll PM you about my efforts so far with fruit etc - all will become clear.

As for the book, I was thinking whether it might be worth either scanning it, or just typing it out and saving as a .pdf so I could make it available to anyone who might be interested in a sort of "lending library/lending a book to a mate" way. Not post it so it's freely available, but it would be dependant on the size of the .pdf because lots of people have a limit on the size of attachment they can receive. Only because it's out of print, not that easy to get, but still even after over 30 years since the original publication, contains lots of helpful info/guidance. Though I haven't made my mind up yet, whether I can be bothered to commit to the hour or so it'll take me to type it out or whatever.

regards

JtFB

[StockeyDAW]

As you can tell I prefer to use a fresh vanilla bean- all the flavor is concentrated in the seeds in that there bean and it just infuses into the strawberry mead during the secondary ferment. You only need 10 to 14 days in the secondary ferment at least for my tastes and one bean is enough.

Yes I used the liquid wyeast 1484 and now I have stopped using it. I believe that those figures for alcohol tolerance may be correct. The original strawberry I started with a SG of 1.085, 5 days later it had dropped to 1.040 and was racked at that time and the vanilla bean tossed in, the fermentation was complete another 10 days later at 1.004 (some residual sweetness). As I have indicated I have problems getting liquid yeast supplied fresh with the Ice pack still with some cold left in it - when it gets heated at least with the one batch of liquid yeast that I got it was very slow to get started so in that batch I pitched D47 to get things going. So I have now only used the dry yeast packages.

In the strawberry mead that I made early last fall I started the SG at 1.095, pH 3.28 and I used the D47 lalvin yeast. This yeast fermented to SG.940 (dry) without any problems. I prefer Lalvin 1122, KIV 1116, Red Star Pasture Red or premier cuvee or Lalvin1118. My opinion Daw

[happymondays]

Hi John

I used the tinned Strawberries with juice from Morrison's choice ones they were only 32p a tin for 400g,

I thought I better point out as I have just realised after a trip to Morrison's that the above mentioned tins of Strawberries with juice is in fact with Apple juice!!

There was some Strawberries with syrup which were a little bit more in price,

I think I will have a look at the frozen bags that I think Rich said from Farm Foods maybe next time.

I didn't put the fruits in a Bag in the primary and as they were soft in the first place they literally went to a mush, I tried to filter through a muslin bag but the sediment it threw in the DJ's was huge,
would putting these in a nylon bag in the primary have stopped a huge sediment do you think?

So my Strawberry Melomel doesn't look as red as it could slightly more light rose,



Although it does taste Strawberry

[Duffbeer]

I thought I better point out as I have just realised after a trip to Morrison's that the above mentioned tins of Strawberries with juice is in fact with Apple juice!!

There was some Strawberries with syrup which were a little bit more in price,

I think I will have a look at the frozen bags that I think Rich said from Farm Foods maybe next time.

I didn't put the fruits in a Bag in the primary and as they were soft in the first place they literally went to a mush, I tried to filter through a muslin bag but the sediment it threw in the DJ's was huge,
would putting these in a nylon bag in the primary have stopped a huge sediment do you think?

So my Strawberry Melomel doesn't look as red as it could slightly more light rose,



Although it does taste Strawberry

Yay a result then .

I doubt you will achieve any more than a rose colour whatever strawberry's you use, it lookes mighty fine to me.

[lockwood1956]

Yes

looks pretty good to me too...


if you want it any darker then you could add some oenocyanine, (grape skin extract) available from any home brew shop that stocks Brupaks products

list of shops stocking the product here

http://www.brupaks.com/stockists.html

[StockeyDAW]

[QUOTE=happymondays;28582]I thought I better point out as I have just realised after a trip to Morrison's that the above mentioned tins of Strawberries with juice is in fact with Apple juice!!

There was some Strawberries with syrup which were a little bit more in price,

I think I will have a look at the frozen bags that I think Rich said from Farm Foods maybe next time.

I didn't put the fruits in a Bag in the primary and as they were soft in the first place they literally went to a mush, I tried to filter through a muslin bag but the sediment it threw in the DJ's was huge, Scott for sure a nylon bag makes things so much nicer - I suggest you go in that direction - I get nylon straining bags in the paint department of the local Home Hardware Store approx 2.50$ each. a good price; it is also suggested to use these bags only once and toss them out because they are difficult to make sure they are sanitized for the next batch--- always a few speck of fruit that want to stick in between the netting
would putting these in a nylon bag in the primary have stopped a huge sediment do you think?

So my Strawberry Melomel doesn't look as red as it could slightly more light rose,that is a very unusual thing about strawberry mead (wine) it does not keep its color like raspberries. You will notice after the degas stage that the color will change to something like a golden amber red still great in the glass. Your photos look like the way it is supposed to be. The apple juice ie: malic fruit and strawberry citric fruit will blend together well - hopefully more strawberry than apple

Cheers Daw

[happymondays]

Cheers Duff, Bob, Daw,

Sorry for the late reply, funnily enough the pic looks a lot darker than it really is, more like the amber red Daw mentions but it tastes not too bad and hopefully in time if I can leave it alone it will be good to go.

Looking forward to trying it.

Scott......

[happymondays]

Just a quick one, found 500g bags of frozen Strawberries from Farm Foods only 65p a bag, they also do Blackberries same price.

[lockwood1956]

cheers for the heads up

parsnips not on sale?

[Rich]

parsnips not on sale?

Quick, wake up Bob, your sleep posting.. Dreaming of parsnip wine now....

Might have some spare seeds, you could grow your own in those new raised beds this year..

Rich