Batches 221 and 222 were my very first brew day at our lovely little house. We moved in in the fall, but between moving and endless house projects, we never had time to dust off the brewing equipment.

This batch uses more of the wonderful star thistle honey from Sleeping Bear Farms in Beulah, MI. Our only noteworthy road trip in 2021 took us to the UP in Michigan, so we were able to stop at this lovely meadery and honey farm again. I consider Michigan one of America's best-kept secrets; everyone's heard of Flint and oh-so-scary Detroit, but the shores of the Great Lakes have some of the most breathtakingly pristine country I've seen anywhere. My star thistle batches all need Trekkie names, so this one honors the constellation as well as Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which is seriously the prettiest goddamn place.

After fermentation was done, the batch seemed rather lackluster, so I added a jar of cloudberry jam from IKEA. You know, like you do.

Ingredients in this batch

  • 5 lbs 1.5 oz Sleeping Bear Farms star thistle honey
  • 12-15 g total of Fermaid O, added one third at a time at pitching on 4/1, on 4/5, and on 4/9
  • 1/2 pack Mangrove Jack M29 French saison yeast
  • 11.26 oz IKEA Sylt Hjortron organic cloudberry spread

Process

Added the honey, first batch of Fermaid O, and 2 gallons of Saint Paul tap water to a bucket, agitated, and pitched. SG was 1.105. I added more Fermaid O four days later and again another four days later.

On 7/4, I racked the batch to get it off the yeast. Gravity was not read, although based on flavor, it should be around 12% as usual.

On some untracked date in 2023, I racked the batch onto a warmed jar of cloudberry jam. I did not attempt to calculate ABV at bottling because of this; the batch wound up pretty sweet. I bottled on 1/1/24 and honestly don't love the flavor. Let's see if it improves.