Home Distiller

1 gallon vinters harvest black currant wine base
12lbs Maine wild blueberries
1 3lb can vinters harvest black currant puree
28lbs sweet clover honey
35g lalvin 71B
46.5g fermaid O
OG 1.146
Ph 3.32
Started this batch last Sunday after a long hiatus from brewing or anything

Front loaded the nutrients and aerated for 10 minutes, made a starter by rehydrating yeast in water @97f for 15 minutes. Added must to reach sg of 1.030, fed the starter every 6 hours until the 24 hour mark and pitched a half gallon of very lively yeasts.

Took off like a rocket and maintain the temp at 71°f

Been a week and shes moving right along.

I'll take a gravity reading when I return home and see where it's at for 7 days.

This is a high gravity but very doable when the yeasties are treated right.

> Ph 3.32


You're good with that as a starting pH ? No corrections before pitching yeast ?

Interesting mix, ShineOn. Like to see how it’s doings later. Maybe 6 months or so down the line. I assume you’re step feedin’ at the start? I gotta tell you tho’ I’d expect a much higher SG for a melomel.

As of now the ph is right at 2.9 and sg is 1.048

The ph in wine and mead are so much different than in an AG mash and I had to learn that from some really good mead makers. 3.2-3.6 is the range it prefers from my learnings.

Yonder, nope!!! No step feeding lol
With the starter and nutrients and degassing she was off to the races and has just now started to slow down.

We took the blueberries out after 9 days, pressed until I started to get a strong tannin flavor. Didnt press any further just because too many tannins will make it bitter and that aint what Im going for. Plus this will rest in the barrel for a few months.

I would actually be fine if it stopped right now at .048 as the tartness and sweetness are in balance and Id rather not have to backsweeten it.

As of now its 12.8625%

Like to try some, sounds deep flavored.

Pm me with address and you'll definitely get some!

I'll also send some Christmas berry honey trad and my barrell aged bochet( also with Christmas berry honey)

Soon as my coffee buchet ages we’ll see about gettin’ some out your way. Thanks, ShineOn.

Looking forward to it yonder!

Another day or 3 I'll be racking this into the barrell for 3-5 months. Possibly with a dozen vanilla beans!

Looks like she's finished now, FG is 1.042
13.65%
Im going to just rack this as is for the moment and let it clear some more before going into the barrel.

I kinda messed up by using tap water in it from my buddies house, he lives in the city and his water has chlorine and chloramine which can cause cork taint in the barrel so I need to make damn sure this hasn't happened before I put this pricey melomel into it.

If it's bad Im just going to go and buy another fresh dump from the distillery and put a bochet it before I put this in.

Sounds like you hit your marks. Hopefully you avoided the chloramine problem. Potassium metabisulphite should break it down if you have to use ‘contaminated’ source.

Yonder, the barrel was completely fubar, the distillery should have me one in the next couple weeks tho so its good but a shame I didn't read up more on barrel storage. Smdh

This stuff is being stubborn as hell on settling so ima hit it with some sparkaloid and see what happens, we use buan vino superjet filtering system but I want to minimize the amout of filters we need to use.

Got it sitting on some med toast cubes now and will check it soon to see where the tannins are at but it tastes like a sweet tart and I'm stoked

Ouch, sorry to hear that. I generally use sparkaloid a week or so out from bottling. Love the stuff. Settles great and makes no impact on flavors. Good luck ShineOn.