Another melomel. We haven't brewed with plums at all since our first holiday mead. The plums for this have been sliced and sitting in the freezer since last summer, though we've been using the solera mead for other things ... and the solera's been producing more and more slowly, as well.

I'm calling this brew Eddybaby. Sugarplum. Pussycat., after some names tossed off in the Interview with Sir Edward Ross.

Ingredients in this batch

  • Approx. 2 gallons solera mead, mostly fermented.
  • 4 lb. frozen, sliced black plums.
  • Approx. 2 lb. frozen, sliced black plums, added 4 June 2019.
  • Approx. 0.75 oz. (pre-soaking)/1.8 oz. (after soaking) French medium-toast oak chips, soaked approx. six months in 200mL Little Black Dress 2015 Merlot, added 1 July 2019.

Procedure

Sanitized a two-gallon bucket. Pulled plums from freezer and dropped them into the bucket. Pumped mead over them. Popped on a top and filled an airlock.

Secondary fermentation began: 20 March 2019.
Bottling date: 30 September 2019
Final gravity: 1.002.
Estimated ABV: Approx. 12.5%.

Yield: Not calculated, alas.

Observations

  • 2019-06-04: Racked off of plums, discarding plums, and over new plums, into a new sanitized two-gallon bucket.
  • 2019-07-01: Racked off of plums, discarding plums, and on to red wine-soaked oak chips.
  • 2019-09-30: Bottled, yielding three and a half liters of mead.