Batch 028: The Meadjito
Sometimes I have an idea that sounds good at the time, like “I should make a mead that tastes like a mojito. I bet I can do that.” And I suspect I can, and this brew is my attempt to do so.
Of course, if it works, it’ll mean that I have a mojito that took six months to make instead of five to ten minutes.
I’m embarrassed to say that this write-up begins as a re-creation written three weeks later, and so is conjectural in part. I noticed that there’s no write-up, which means I lost the pen-and-paper notes and never typed this up. If this brew works out, then, there’ll have to be closer attention to documenting the guesswork next time. Sigh.
Ingredients in this batch
- 3 lb. (?) Kirkland clover honey.
- Six cups filtered tap water, boiled, then infused with
- 10 teabags of Twinings Pure Peppermint herbal tea
- Filtered tap water to 1 gallon
- 1 packet Lalvin K1V-1116 (?—relatively certain) wine yeast, made into a slurry in advance. (This slurry accounts for 4 oz of the total honey weight above.)
- ½ tsp. (?) of Valley Brewers yeast energizer, in the slurry.
- 1 tsp. (?) of Valley Brewers yeast nutrient, in the slurry.
- ¼ cup Grandma's molasses, added to the brew on 31 October 2016.
- 0.3 oz. generic fresh mint, added in a brew sock on 12 January.
- finely grated peel of one medium-small lime, added on 12 January in the same brew sock as the mint.
- 2 tbsp. Cruzan white rum, in which Thai lime leaves have been soaking for four months, added on 12 February.
Yield: TBA; hopefully about a gallon.
Made a starter, building up the Lalvin K1V-1116 into two cups or so of yeast slurry over 24 hours. Boiled four cups of water in a small pot, killed the flame, and left ten tea bags steeping in the covered pot while the water slowly cooled (about five hours). Poured the honey into the slurry, poured in the yeast nutrient and yeast energizer, and poured in the tea. Topped off with filtered tap water (not much needed), put a cap on the carboy, and agitated for about three minutes to oxygenate the must. Popped in an airlock and filled it with vodka, then set it on the fermenting shelf.
Brew date: 19 October 2016.
Original gravity: 1.108 (? — that's conjectural).
Bottling day: 12 February 2017
Final gravity: 1.005
Estimated ABV: 13.5% (assuming the small quantity of rum had a negligible effect on ABV)
Yield:
- 1 x 22 oz. beer bottle
- 7 x 12 oz. beer bottles
Total: Approx. 106 fl. oz., or about 83% of a gallon.
Observations
- 2016-10-13: There's fermentation in the carboy.
- 2016-10-31T20:48: The must has cleared a lot. Noticing that John Palmer says (on p. 245 of How to Brew) that molasses can result in rum-like flavors, I added ¼ cup to the carboy. The molasses sank to the bottom of the carboy, beneath the yeast that had settled out on the bottom.
- 2016-10-31T23:38: There are already bubbles rising slowly to the top of the carboy. Slowly. Fermentation is restarting due to the molasses.
- 2017-01-02T21:46: The taste of the mint has been softened and refined by the yeast. It needs some fresh mint, and it needs some lime juice and/or zest.
- 2017-01-12T23:48: Added lime zest and fresh mint in a brewing bag.
- 2017-02-12: Bottled.
- 2017-07-16: The lime has retreated a lot, though it's still a bit astringent. The mint has mellowed, too. This is a bit rich, actually. It doesn't taste much like a mojito, but it is tasty and refreshing.