We recently came back from a trip through northern California and Oregon during which we bought some honey. This is my first batch of mead using any of this honey. Since it’s our seventh batch, there is of course the obligatory joke about that one song from the 90s in the title. This batch is starting out as a sweet show mead using blackberry varietal honey. I may keep it that way, or I may wind up infusing it with some combination of herbs in secondary. I’ve got my eye on a rosemary plant growing in the kitchen.

The honey itself is sweet and wild and tastes a lot like blackberries. I’m looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

2016-06-15_18_35_36_1_HDR
Preparing batch 007.

We're going to call this recipe This Honky's Gone to Heaven.

Ingredients in this batch

  • 3 lb. 1.7 oz blackberry honey from GloryBee, Eugene, Oregon.
  • 1 tsp. Valley Brewers yeast nutrient.
  • 1 tsp. Valley Brewers yeast energizer.
  • ½ of a 5-gram packet of Lalvin D47 wine yeast (split with batch 008).
  • Filtered water to one gallon total must volume.
  • 1 oz. Scotch barrel chips, boiled and allowed to soak for 24 hours in the water from the boil.

Yield

  • 2 x 22 oz. bottles
  • 5 x 12 oz. bottles
  • hydrometer tube and glass (about 12 oz. total)

Total:: 116 oz., or about 91% of a gallon.

Mixed honey, yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, and honey in a one-gallon glass carboy; agitated for ten minutes, opening and closing the carboy lid to force air exchange. Rehydrated the yeast in water at 106°F, then poured in the first half of the batch of yeast, popped in a fermentation lock, filled it with vodka, and labeled it.

2017-03-27_20_53_00_HDR
Nine months after brewing, batch 007 is golden and delicious.

Original gravity: 1.134.
Final gravity: 1.002.
Estimated ABV: 17%–19%

Observations

  • 2016-06-16T05:48:00: There's definitely carbon dioxide being generated like crazy in the carboy.
  • 2016-07-09T19:12:00: Tasted (still quite hot) and racked to a new sanitzed carboy. Gravity at the time of tasting was 1.001, giving an approximate ABV of 18% (!)
  • 2016-07-30: Milder, less hot. Quite yeasty. Needs more aging.
  • 2016-08-09: Much more mature already; it's developing nicely. Added one ounce of Scotch barrel chips, boiled twenty-four hours earlier and then soaked and drained, into a brewing sock.
  • 2016-08-25: Siphoned it into bottles; yielding 116 oz. with ABV in the neighborhood of 18%.
  • 2017-01-22: Getting tasty, it's still got a yeasty flavor to it. Jesus, D-47 takes forever to work.