November 22, 2018 Last week was my wedding anniversary. My wife and I planned a short getaway 30 miles away from home in Virginia wine country. To my surprise, my wife scheduled a tasting at a local meadery I didn’t even know existed: Stonehouse Meadery! Stonehouse is a family operation. Tastings are by appointment only….
Tag: homebrew
Gingerbread Mead Primary Complete
October 31, 2018 It’s been a couple of days since I stirred / measured the SG of my latest mead, so I figured I’d take a reading (and a taste) tonight after the trick-or-treating festivities were over. I had a hunch that fermentation would be complete, since it was down around 1.002 last time I…
First Meads Bottled!
September 30, 2018 The Mead Must Flow! Today I bottled the Lavender Blueberry and Coffee Vanilla Bochet meads! Yay! My first bottling! I put the Lavender Blueberry into 7 375-ml bottles and the Coffee Vanilla Bochet into a 750-ml wine bottle and 5 375-ml bottles. I bought the 375 ml bottles from a guy I…
Re-Racked Coffee Bochet
September 8, 2018 Today I also re-racked the coffee bochet. I wanted to get it off the potential infection / mold that I posted about a week ago. Plus of course I had to get a taste of that stuff. I siphoned into a sterile ferm bucket while I sterilized the carboy. I also took…
Blueberry Melomel Ready for Aging
September 8, 2018 Today I re-racked the blueberry melomel. Of course, I took a gravity reading and a taste. The gravity came out as 1.004, which makes sense because I added some honey after the last reading of 0.998. Let’s call that the Final Gravity. So that’s an ABV of about 12.6%. There is definitely…
Infection in My Meads?
September 1, 2018 Before I left for vacation, I noticed some weird floaties on both my meads. It didn’t look like a full-on infection like I’ve seen in some of the forum posts, but it didn’t look completely normal either. Since it was in both meads which were in different parts of their lives but…
Racked Coffee Bochet
August 31, 2018 Because I’m leaving for two weeks tomorrow, and because I’m just an impatient SOB, I decided to rack my Coffee Bochet. Annnnd, also I just had to get a taste of the stuff. Opening the fermentation bucket, it looks like sewage. It’s doo doo brown, with a creepy looking vanilla bean husk…
Blueberry Lavender Melomel Update
August 29, 2018 Today I re-racked my blueberry lavender melomel, measured the SG, and took a taste test. I pulled the top off and got a nice whiff of lavender. I had remarked that this mead has looked cloudy, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it was quite clear when I siphoned the sample….
Coffee Bochet Update
August 29, 2018 Today I degassed my coffee bochet and measured the specific gravity. There is still absolutely no activity in the airlock. However, when I popped the top off my fermenting bucket, there were visible bubbles in the mead. It smells really boozy and you still get a light coffee aroma. The vanilla bean…
Advanced Mead Making Tips and Info
August 29, 2018 I stumbled onto this yesterday. It’s the Mead Exam Study Guide, intended for people who want to become judges in mead making competitions. Becoming a mead competition judge may not be of interest to you – it’s certainly not an ambition of mine – but I found that it contains a lot…
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