Sunday, May 04, 2008
I finally bottled the cinnamon mead last night, and I was disappointed with the results. It's not terrible, but it ended up very dry instead of slightly sweet (I'd hoped for some sweetness).
It ended up at about 12.5% ABV with a FG of 0.994 (which may have been slightly off because the mead was probably a couple of degrees below room temperature). The OG was 1.094, although that was an estimation because my hydrometer doesn't go any higher than 1.090. For those that don't speak brew, that basically means the yeast ate up pretty much all the sugar. While that bumped the alcohol up to a respectable 12.5%, it meant there was no sugar left.
The mead stayed in primary for over two months, but it had stopped fermenting after about a month. I left it in secondary for a little over two months and then siphoned into a tertiary (the sediment in the bottle of the secondary was a grey-ish brown, probably from the cinnamon sticks in the boil). It sat in tertiary for a little over a month. In total, it's been about six months since the day I made it. If I hadn't run out of patience, I probably should have left it at least another couple of months in the carboy to completely clear.
The mead has a light honey aroma, with no hint of the cinnamon, but the taste is actually the other way around. It tastes more like a dry white wine, with not really much of a honey taste, but with a very slight hint of cinnamon.
Back when I made the mead, I understood nothing about yeast, and I just assumed all yeasts were essentially the same. I'm still no expert on yeasts, but I at least know a bit more. I checked into the yeast I used, and apparently it's for making dry wines, which explains why the mead had such a low FG and came out dry.
With what I've learned, I'm going to make a full 19L batch of mead (no cinnamon or other adjuncts this time). I've acquired a couple of packages of Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead yeast (thanks, Brian), so I'm going to use that instead of wine yeast and about 6kg (~13 lbs.) of clover honey.
It ended up at about 12.5% ABV with a FG of 0.994 (which may have been slightly off because the mead was probably a couple of degrees below room temperature). The OG was 1.094, although that was an estimation because my hydrometer doesn't go any higher than 1.090. For those that don't speak brew, that basically means the yeast ate up pretty much all the sugar. While that bumped the alcohol up to a respectable 12.5%, it meant there was no sugar left.
The mead stayed in primary for over two months, but it had stopped fermenting after about a month. I left it in secondary for a little over two months and then siphoned into a tertiary (the sediment in the bottle of the secondary was a grey-ish brown, probably from the cinnamon sticks in the boil). It sat in tertiary for a little over a month. In total, it's been about six months since the day I made it. If I hadn't run out of patience, I probably should have left it at least another couple of months in the carboy to completely clear.
The mead has a light honey aroma, with no hint of the cinnamon, but the taste is actually the other way around. It tastes more like a dry white wine, with not really much of a honey taste, but with a very slight hint of cinnamon.
Back when I made the mead, I understood nothing about yeast, and I just assumed all yeasts were essentially the same. I'm still no expert on yeasts, but I at least know a bit more. I checked into the yeast I used, and apparently it's for making dry wines, which explains why the mead had such a low FG and came out dry.
With what I've learned, I'm going to make a full 19L batch of mead (no cinnamon or other adjuncts this time). I've acquired a couple of packages of Wyeast 4184 Sweet Mead yeast (thanks, Brian), so I'm going to use that instead of wine yeast and about 6kg (~13 lbs.) of clover honey.
// posted by Chris @ 10:31 AM 
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