Honey and Fruit Mead - Shine!

Information about fruit/vegetable type washes.

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jonnys_spirit
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Honey and Fruit Mead - Shine!

Post by jonnys_spirit »

Hi,

I've got a batch of honey fruit mead cyser that I made. I am considering running it through the still to make some honey shine. Honey based dragon blood with a bunch of fresh fruit as well as frozen berry blend. Like this ->

Fermented this and yielded about 9 gallons of finished mead:
- 6 gallon kroger apple juice
- 1 cup (8 oz) santa cruz organic lemon juice
- 9 lbs frozen triple berry blend (blue/black/rasp)
- 15 lbs cut peaches
- 15 lbs blueberries blackberries and assorted produce fruit (very little grapes and apples - mostly blueberries - some black/rasp).
- 2 lbs golden raisins
- 6 bananas
- Bentonite 4tsp slurried into warm water (for clearing)
- Lallzyme EX 6gram packet - into berry must for extraction
- Pectic Enzyme 3tsp - heaping teaspoons - into berry must for extraction - it turns into soup
- 1/8 tsp kmeta into berry must to prevent wild bacteria colony (that sat for a day or two before pitching the D47 yeast and did SNA fermaid k nutrient additions)
- Honey - to ~1.090 SG / 21 Brix (3x 64oz jars)
- Ft Rouge tannin 2tsp - just before pitching yeast
- Heavy toast oak chips - 8oz in primary.

This stuff went through primary ferment and has been sitting around in carboys (6-8 months) clearing and it's good :) Have not back-sweetened or bottled. Considering running through the still once or twice and throwing into a jug with some oak...

If I do that this weekend then I'll start up another all grain batch of barley or something similar - probably about 30gal of wort to strip in a week or three...

Thoughts?
-j
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i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
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jb-texshine
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Re: Honey and Fruit Mead - Shine!

Post by jb-texshine »

I distilled raspberry mead. Fine drop.
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still_stirrin
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Re: Honey and Fruit Mead - Shine!

Post by still_stirrin »

Boy, with all that...I wouldn't distill it....

I'd bottle it and drink it as you made it...mead! (melomel???) It sounds like it's full of flavor, why would you dream of reducing that through the still?
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: Honey and Fruit Mead - Shine!

Post by jonnys_spirit »

Well I'm going to bottle some as is and put it on the rack to drink and run the rest through the still. The mead is good and I have some other ones too so not too worried about running it. I can't imagine that it will produce a bad spirit. Maybe I'll use some of the distillate to fortify the mead I bottle and age the rest...

Cheers!
-j
————
i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
————
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: Honey and Fruit Mead - Shine!

Post by jonnys_spirit »

Making low wines out of this today but starting with 8.5 or 9 gallons and ending up with maybe almost 4.5 or 5 gallons of about 25%abv low wines.

Licked my finger a lot this morning with one nice glass from middle of the hearts and this is yummy!

Spirit run next and I'll oak lightly for a spell and start testing regularly.

Cheers!
J
————
i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
————
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: Honey and Fruit Mead - Shine!

Post by jonnys_spirit »

First impressions of this are quite nice and I'll plan to keep this in rotation and ageing. I ended up with about 1.25 gallons cut and put the gallon on some used toasted oak with light char... Don't expect a ton of coloring out of these so might pull a stick and hit it with a blowtorch - or not... Gonna give it some time and check in on it down the road...

Cheers!
-j
————
i prefer my mash shaken, not stirred
————
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