Batch 033: Meadstrosity I

This started as a quick show mead using the last of the fireweed honey we brought back from Flying Bee Ranch when we made our trip to Oregon this summer. It's based in part on Mary Izzet's short mead recipes in Speed Brewing. Our initial thought was that if Izzet's time-line were realistic, this might have been ready in time for the holidays; but, instead, we wound up managing it until we blended in another orphan half-gallon (that's batch 043A) in the hope that their mutual weirdnesses will cancel each other out. We'll see.

Ingredients in this batch

• 1 lb. 12 oz. Flying Bee Ranch fireweed honey.
• ½ tsp. of Valley Brewers yeast energizer.
• 1 tsp. of Fermax yeast nutrient.
• Filtered tap water to 1 gallon.
• ½ packet Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast.
• 1 lb. Flying Bee Ranch meadowfoam honey, added 26 January 2017.
• 1 cup bottled water, heated, in which the honey was dissolved, added 26 January 2017.

Sanitized everything, then poured the honey into the carboy, then poured in the yeast energizer and yeast nutrient. Poured in water to a little over a gallon in the carboy. Agitated for five minutes to oxygenate, then drew off a hydrometer tube's worth and measured the gravity. Agitated again. Pitched in the rehydrated yeast at 84℉. Popped in a fermentation lock and filled it to the line with vodka.

Added a pound of meadowfoam honey in January, hoping that that would help the sharp edges soften. At bottling time, decided to combine it with batch 043B; they were weird in different, and hopefully complimentary, ways; and the combined orange juice-mead was bright neon orange, which I take to be a good sign.

Brew date: 19 January 2017.
Original gravity: 1.065 (but we're calculating the ABV as if the O.G. were 1.105 because of late honey addition) (and, when blending in batch 043B, that makes the original as-if gravity approximately 1.098, by my calculations).
Bottling date: 13 April 2017
Final gravity: 1.004 (for the combined batch).
Estimated ABV: Approx. 12.5% (lots of guesswork and assumptions in that number).

Yield:

• 9 x 12 oz. bottles
• 3 x 22 oz. bottles
• about an ounce and a half of leftover mead

Total: About 175 fl. oz., or about one and a third gallons.