Daydream with Me; a Oaked Mead & Tasting Session

When I partake in Mead, I tend to think about life.  Goals, family, work, friends of the past and friends I see everyday.  This always gets me emotional.  Sometimes sad, sometimes happy, however the end result is the same.  I tend to daydream.  Something about the mythical part of mead, I'm sure.  Having nothing to do with the warming, almost liquorish concoction headed into my stomach, I'm sure its the history of mead, not the other delicious reason ;) ...But the result is always the same.  Finding a spot between the grinds of daily life and the depths of substance abuse.  And I'm ok with that.  That is my happy place.  A place to Daydream.  Typically during a tasting session (Using the label "Tasting Session" trying to make it sound as official as I can for my 2015 v2 "Hold my Hand into the Sunset" series) I started to think about another mead.  The goal was a Honey Whiskey. 

Hold my Hand into the Sunset; Blended Brett Mead & Tasting Session

Everything looks so nice after a San Diego downpour

 *Update 12/11/2014 - There has been a lot of chatter about Brett Trois not containing any Brett.  To see a good story about it, please read this story. 

People seem to love Brett IPA's, Brett Saisons and even some Brett Wheat beers, so always confuses me when Meads are not included into this statement.  Lets go over the facts, meads are perfect avenues for honey to show off fruit and spices.  Brettanomyces during primary fermentation pushes these fruit phenolics and spices.  So creating a fruit forward mead, paired with a fruit producing yeast seems like the perfect combination right?  Well I think so, with some small issues that we can overcome.

If you've seen my other posts you know I love 71B for my meads. Its quick, its easy and it fly's through fermentation when treated right.  However, the more and more I use Brett Trois and Brett C, the more I want to explore what these yeast can do, especially in meads.

This started off as two meads, one clean and one Brett fermented.  The clean mead was a "Quick, lets make this while brewing this other IPA." mead.  The Brett was a little more planned. 

Melody/Sensation Blended Mead Tasting Session

Sometimes the final product is nothing like the original intentions when crafting the recipe.  Originally two Meads, one Blackberry and the other a berry mix from Costco (Mulberry, Blackberry and Blueberry).  Both using 1.5# per gallon of fruit (added cold) dropped into secondary for 40 days after it was racked, cleared and racked again.  When pulling samples, they both felt like they needed something else, so what's a homebrewer to do besides blend them together?   

I pulled off 1.5 gallons of each Mead and blended.  Placing them into a Scotty keg.  Once blended I tossed them into my lagering fridge.  There it sat cold for about a month before I decided to bottle them with my Blichmann Beer Gun.  During this time they cleared up really well, bottling with a hint of Co2, creating about .5 volume with no clarifying agents.  The Co2 was just for some crispness on the final Mead.


Bouquet/Aroma:  Blueberries, strawberry and stone fruit.  Some crisp acidic or tart sharpness on the back end.  Some heat in the nose. 

Appearance:  Outstandingly beautiful.  Gem like clarity.  The sides are a rose colored plum, with the highlights almost ruby red.   

Silence at Midnight, Blueberry Mead & Tasting Session

If you pulled me aside and asked about my Mead processes, I 'd really only have a couple of suggestions for you.  Don't boil the honey, ferment cold, de-gas and add massive amounts of nutrients.  If you continued on looking for more information, I might start making a fool of myself.  The science behind my reasoning, (which I'm sure is interesting, as I attempted to blog about here) doesn't interest me as much as drinking, now that interests me.

Opening a Mead automatically creates a experience, a moment in time. On the patio, at the park or with friends.  This is what I love about Meads.  Capturing that moment in time.  As long as I follow the rules above, I've been lucky creating a experience(s) worthy of posting here.  (Not that this blog is worthy of much)

This Mead is my 3rd in a rapid "Mead Brewing Season" that started in November late last year,  for lack of a better description.  The first two are bottle and aging properly, this one is sitting inside my keggor with Hickory Honeycombs on a picnic tap.  The original concept was to use this as a NHC blending base with "They call me Porter" entering it as a Braggot. (Which ended up placing third in the first round in Austin.) However its turned into a pretty solid Mead on it's own.

Blueberries are fast becoming my go to choice in creating fruit forward homebrews.  The tartness blends itsself well vs the overpowering sweetness most other fruits bring to meads. 


Bouquet/Aroma: Honey sweetness, backed by an acidic tartness from the blueberries.  The aroma is wonderful coming off this sample. 

Appearance:  A small amount of haze that cleared up on the second pour (don't judge me), no head as this mead is meant to be still.  Bright raspberry in color which looks fantastic in any glass.  

America's Finest City Homebrew Competition 2014 Results

I try and enter 2 competitions a year, the National Homebrew Competition and the local America's Finest City Homebrew Competition.  I've always done OK in both, yesterday I received my judges sheets back for review.

They Call Me Porter:  Scored a 39.5/50 Overall. Category #12B Robust Porter. 3rd Place, America's Finest City Homebrew Competition 2014

Judge #1, Certified 40/50

Aroma: 9/12 Moderately high roasty aroma, some dark chocolate, tobacco, a hint of caramel.  Hops aroma is moderate.  Fruity ester is mute. 

Appearance: 3/3  Very Dark brown in color.  Large tan head with good retention.  Some garbet? highlights.

Flavor: 15/20 Moderately strong malt flavor.  Coffee, dark chocolate, grainy characters.  Hop flavor is moderately low, bitterness is moderate.  Semi-dry finish.  Fruity esters moderately low.

Mouthfeel: 5/5 Medium body, medium carbonation, slight astringency.  (Not harsh) Semi - Dry finish

Overall Impression: 8/10 A robust porter with great roasty dark chocolate character.  Could use some more hops, but complex dark malt characters.  Tasty Brew!

Mead Thoughts & "Talk to me Goose" Tasting Session

I've only crafted three Meads before this one.  The first was a shot in the dark, that's still harsh at six years old.  Since this was my 1st exposure to Mead I expected all Meads to taste this way.  Phenolic and burning all the way down, not magical and beautiful like the ones I've read about in "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing".  Charlie's Prickly Pear Mead is still high up on a pedestal, unattainable in my mind.  (Wither it is good or not, really doesn't matter) The concept of me creating a well crafted mead seemed like a far off dream, obstacles like honey, blending and acid/nutrition additions kept me focused on what I did know, brewing beer.

Something changed while I was at the National Homebrew Conference.  Walking the Expo Hall, I picked up a card for Dutch Gold Honey and saw they offered bulk prices.  That next morning I sat and listened to Moonlight's Meads owner Micheal talk about mead.  While he can initially come off as arrogant and cocky I finally understood him, he was just overly passionate about his craft.  While his talk missed the technical aspects I was looking for, I came away with four important things.  Fermentation temperature (63), Fermentation timeline (2-3 Months), 71B Yeast for fermentation and he uses Dutch Gold Honey for all his meads.  Tasting the meads during his presentation I was blown away.  Well crafted, solid meads.  Maybe the ones I created years ago where all wrong?  That night I tasted a couple of 2nd round meads with Jym Ferrier (they took out all the non-placing 2nd round beers for us attendees to enjoy) they where just as bad or worse than what I created years ago.  Maybe we, as homebrewers are going about this the wrong way?

100% Brett Mead? oohh YES

If you wanted to read the Tasting Notes for this please click here

I think I've lost my mind with thoughts of these "Wild" yeasts, but I might not be alone.  Recently I brewed a Brett/Citra Pale Ale after listening to Chad on the The Brewing Network talk about Brettanomyces beers.  After I put up the post, I saw that Jeff over at Bikes, Beer and Adventure brewed a Extra Special "Brett"er.  I'm sure other homebrewers are also "playing around" with solid Brettanomyces fermentation's. 

The traditional thought of using Brettanomyces during secondary fermentation only is slowing changing.  Without a doubt, breweries like Crooked Stave, Russian River, Jolly Pumkin and New Belguim are leading the charge but homebrewers have better ability to play around with small test batches without the financial impact "For Profit" breweries would endure. 

Which got me thinking about the beautiful flavor compounds associated with 100% Brett fermentations.  The passion-fruit, tropical flavors and pineapple aroma of Brettanomyces Claussenii fermentation's should work well in a Mead playing off the honey Backbone. 

Scarlett's Mead

My niece Scarlett, a life Mead

I'm going to start this by saying, "I'm not a experienced mead brewer."  I appreciate the mead making process, it's just the direct opposite of traditional brewing, which I love.  On the other hand having mead to share with friends is a great experience few people outside of Homebrewing get to enjoy.

Never the one to turn down a good deal in life, hearing Danny (DeeperRoots Brewing) scored a deal on bulk honey I was in.  I procured #15 of Orange Blossom Honey for 2 meads.  The 1st of these meads is detailed below.  I wanted to create this mead with the no boil method.  Adding Tart Cherries in secondary for a sweet cherry sparkling mead.

BlackBerry Mead

So some of you know I brewed a very traditional mead years ago that was kinda forgotten in my closet.  Looking at my records we discovered that the brew was over 5 years old.  It is pure Blackberry Honey from Oregon.  Well today was bottling time.  I cleaned and sanitized my bottles (mostly 12oz'ers) and bottled them still with no carbonation.

Not having bottled in a long time I had forgotten how much it sucks.  Starting at 4pm and finishing up around 8.  Granted I was moving slow and letting the bottles soak.  Anyways, if you want to read the whole story of the BlackBerry Mead Click here.

Today this was sent off to the 2012 National Homebrewers Competition.  When I get the score I will post it up.

Adyan's Mead

Sweet Mead

 

Type: All Grain	Date: 4/10/2006
Batch Size: 6.00 gal	Brewer: Chris Lewis
Boil Size: 6.87 gal	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 60 min	Equipment: My Equipment
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0	Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Amount Item Type % or IBU 1.20 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Primary 3.0 days) Misc 21 lbs Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 100.00 % 1 Pkgs Champagne Yeast (White Labs #WLP715) Yeast-Champagne
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.121 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.120 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.028 SG	Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 12.27 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: 15.16 %
Bitterness: 0.0 IBU	Calories: 563 cal/pint
Est Color: 3.5 SRM	Color: Color
Mash Profile
Mash Name: My Mash	Total Grain Weight: 10.00 lb
Sparge Water: 4.32 gal	Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F	TunTemperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE	Mash PH: 5.4 PH
My Mash Step Time Name Description Step Temp 0 min Step Add to make 5 gallons of water and heat to 180.0 F over 0 min 180.0 F
Mash Notes:
Carbonation and Storage
Carbonation Type: Flat	Volumes of CO2: N/A
Pressure/Weight: N/A	Carbonation Used: -
Keg/Bottling Temperature: 60.0 F	Age for: 1,820.0 days
Storage Temperature: 70.0 F
Notes
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