Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

My family recently installed a bee hive in our back yard. not this year but next I am looking forward to making a batch of mead, I would like to add some of my blackberries to it. I have made mead in the past about 12 years ago so I do not recall the flavor. but has anyone made a mead recently, one with berries? I would like to know how it turned out and how long you aged it. I will include some pictures later of the hive my son and i love to go watch the bee return loaded with pollen.

I made just such a mead last summer.  I used 20 pounds of Virginia clover honey (found, of all places, at Sams Club) and 4 pounds of black raspberries that a friend and I picked around the forest fringes near my house.  I boiled it for 15 min to sanatize it, put some yeast nutrient in it, and cooled and pitched champaigne yeast.  We had friends come into town last month who really wanted to try it, so I bottled it into beer bottles, as it is pretty sweet (not sure anyone could drink a full bottle of it).  It is still a little raw, after aging for about 9 months, but very promising.

If you are considering making meads, I have heard several people recommend The Complete Meadmaker http://www.amazon.com/Compleat-Meadmaker-Production-Award-winning-Variations/dp/0937381802/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208048231&sr=8-1

It is written by an award winning mead maker and supposedly very good.  I read a couple parts of the book and I like it.  I think I will pick it up before making my next mead.

I would love to see some pictures of your hive.

Cheers,

Tom

Way to go on the hive installation. I'd love to have one of those someday myself. I'd be interested in hearing more about how you got yours up and running one of these days.

We have only made two meads so far -- an orange blossom mead and a vanilla mango mead. Not much experience, but with those two we've won several first place ribbons, a second place best of show, and two first place best of shows. The only thing I can think of that is especially important is keeping the carboy covered and in a place with a consistent temperature, and leaving it alone for as long as you can stand it. Both of ours stayed in primary for a full year. I think it helped a lot.

Good luck!

Any of those prize winning meads left, BarleyP?  I would offer to trade you for my unproven, still too young and harsh, mead in a beer bottle.  Attactive offer, huh!

Congrats on your success.  With that kind of feed back, perhaps you should make more mead.

We do have some left, and we're happy to share, of course. Just need to find a space to! We can't take too much credit for it all, since we just followed directions and didn't actually bring much knowledge of meads to the table. The feedback we've received since seems to support the idea of leaving it all alone in the carboy for a really long time and being consistent with it. Oh, and yeast nutrient is key (and sanitation, duh)!

That is a great offer, thank you.  I look forward to it.  How much yeast nutrient did you use (if you remember)?  I will post the information from the Complete Meadmaker when I get a copy (or when I next borrow John Baker's copy).  I seem to remember it was something like adding a 1/4 tsp every day for the first week or so.  But don't quote me on that, as I read that section of the book about 4 months ago.  I remember the author saying on the Brew Bubbas podcast that his meads are clear and ready to bottle in about 4 months, which is much shorter than the 1 to 2 years most folks recommend.  I would not believe it was a good idea, but the author has won a TON of awards for his different meads.

The compleat meadmaker usually specifies:

2 tsp yeast nutrient
2 tsp yeast enegizer

-Jon

Thanks, Jon.  Does he talk about a nutrient/energizer addition schedule in the book?  If not, I will go back to the pod cast and take some notes.  I remember him mentioning adding certain amounts over the first week of fermentation, which resulted in his mead being done far faster.

Offhand, I don't remember him mentioning it in the book, but it's been awhile since I read it.

how do you add a picture can't seem to figure it out so no beehive pics yet

Just go to post as normal, click below the text box on "+ Additional Options" and then you can attach your pictures.  You might have to shrink them down though because there is a 128 KB per post limit.

I have a 5 gallon keg of sweet mead in my fridge.  I'm not exactly sure how much honey I ended up using in uniform units.  It was around 130 'oz' (weight? volume? I have no idea.  the label just said oz) of Southern Virginia farm honey acquired from an x-girlfriend and about 6 lbs of wildflower honey from Integral Yoga's bulk honey dispensers (not cheap).  By my estimates, it should be around 9% ABV.  I pasteurized it, rather than performing a full boil to retain more flavor and think I let mine sit for about 2 months before I kegged it.  I put in a small amount of yeast nutrient (like 2 table spoons).  The yeast was white labs sweet mead yeast.  I have been aging it for over a year, and trying it about every 2 months.  It keeps improving.  At the moment, it makes a good aperitif or digestif because it is quite sweet and is best consumed in small quantities.  Mine tastes like a bottle of mead that Market Street had on tasting months ago.