gooseberry mead

[bonzoalonzo]

has anyone tried mead with gooseberry ?
is it me or is there a slight taste of something medicinal ?

annie xx

[fatbloke]

has anyone tried mead with gooseberry ?
is it me or is there a slight taste of something medicinal ?

annie xx

It's almost definitely not a problem. You'll find that meads, without much of a problem, easily ferment to dry. The alcohol content can often give them a medicinal taste - Ken Schramm is one of the members here and occasionally makes a visit. His book "The Compleat Mead Maker" is biased toward US mead makers and any of the recipes tend to need a bit of modification - but he uses the analogy of "Listerine" rather than just medicinal.

Either store it in bulk i.e. in a DJ or bottle it and put them away - I'd suggest that 6 months is the absolute minimum and lots of the books and other stuff I've read suggests even longer (1 year +).

The medicinal taste will abate with time - there's just no real way of telling how long it will take.

I have a batch of Kiwi Melomel (kiwi fruit mead) that's awaiting attention i.e. it's clearing - but because I steam juiced the fruit, the juice had lost that fresh taste of the original fruit and was distinctly gooseberry tasting when I mixed the batch - now as it's waiting to be racked off the lees I haven't tasted it yet but I'm expecting it to be medicinal - particularly because if my memory serves me correctly I used Lalvin K1V-1116 yeast - which is well known for making stuff that tastes rough as hell when it's fresh/young but it ages beautifully (it has a few other benefits as well).

so time is definitely on your side.

regards

JtFB

p.s. oh and welcome to the forums

[bonzoalonzo]

thanks for the info. i looked yesterday and the mead's been in the bottle now for two and half years. its got real corks rather than the plastic ones i do admit to be fond of !! its made from honey from the local vicar's garden and the gooseberries are from his wife's veg garden, so please why does it still taste wierd !!?? the taste can only be describred as being like the pink germolene smells....if you see what i mean
annie xx

[lockwood1956]

If you want to send a little of it to me I'd be happy to evaluate it for you (seriously)

a little pet bottle of it will suffice.

[Her Lushness]

a little pet bottle of it will suffice.

...or get a sample bottle from your Doctor...

[lockwood1956]

eek!

[fatbloke]

thanks for the info. i looked yesterday and the mead's been in the bottle now for two and half years. its got real corks rather than the plastic ones i do admit to be fond of !! its made from honey from the local vicar's garden and the gooseberries are from his wife's veg garden, so please why does it still taste wierd !!?? the taste can only be describred as being like the pink germolene smells....if you see what i mean
annie xx

Hum?

Well I don't know about germoline. The taste that's often described as medicinal, or as Ken Schramm describes in his book as Listerine (mouthwash) is also described as "alcohol hotness". I don't know how else to describe that.

It may be that it just needs to be put somewhere and left for even longer.

some honey's can exhibit strange tastes when fermented into mead for years - not just 2 1/2, but 4 or 5 years. It maybe that it's just the type of honey, or moreover the flowers that the bee's collected from.

Your best bet would be to send a small bottle to Bob - as one of our resident national wine judges, he'd indentify any of the obvious faults, but also will probably able to say whether it's better to leave it even longer or whether it's just a particular combination that hasn't come out well.

My "steam juiced" Kiwi melomel is now clearing/bulk storage, but the small taste I took when it was racked suggested to me that the original "gooseberry" flavour of the juice is very slight. So at the moment, it tastes like a mediocre white. Once it's cleared completely and had 6 months in the DJ, I'll know whether I need to back sweeten with some honey or not.

regards

JtFB

[bonzoalonzo]

thanks for the offer of testing, but i think the nail has been hit on the head with 'the combination may not work' !
i think i'll leave it for a while longer and see what happens. i must admit that it tastes different now after 2 and 1/2 years than it did after the recipe recommended maturing of 6 months. its slightly darker in colour too. i'm thinking to bother the vicar again for more honey and make a 'plain' batch, then after time blend.
annie xx

[fatbloke]

thanks for the offer of testing, but i think the nail has been hit on the head with 'the combination may not work' !
i think i'll leave it for a while longer and see what happens. i must admit that it tastes different now after 2 and 1/2 years than it did after the recipe recommended maturing of 6 months. its slightly darker in colour too. i'm thinking to bother the vicar again for more honey and make a 'plain' batch, then after time blend.
annie xx

I finally made up the 2 x 1 gallon batches I had honey for the other day.

1 was a 3lb/1.36kg pot of orange blossom, and the other was the same size of Spanish Lavender honey.

I made sure that I did a good job of emptying the pots, so the only taste of the raw honey was a tiny lick from the lid. I was quite surprised how mediocre tasting the orange blossom was, but the lavender was amazing..... I might have to take up the local honey blokes offer of a 25kg tub of Buckwheat after all

Hence I'd say that if the vicar will part with any more, then aim for 3lb in the gallon (both my 2 recents came out at about 1090 with that amount). Then it depends on what yeast you use.....I used lalvin 71B, but you could easily use D47 or similar. If you tried K1V, then you'd have to be prepared for a very rough tasting mead when it's young, but it does age beautifully. You could always get another pound so that if it did taste a bit "alcohol hot", then you can back sweeten it before ageing - the extra honey would make it "sweet" mead, but would also mask a fair amount of the alcohol hotness (or medicinal) taste. I'd guess that 6 months would then probably do the trick, ageing-wise.

regards

JtFB

regards

JtFB