I was asked to do some mead for an event in May '10 so the watchword for this batch will be quick aging ( Read more... )

Decided sort of last minute to do some brewing last night.
After a late dinner we ran out to stupormarket and picked up juice (blueberry/pomegranate blend) and bottled water and then did two 2.5 gallon batches of mead (mostly on my own but with some slight help from draxius and company from misterrigelI did one large batch of unflavored must with 15lb of clover ( Read more... )

Violet syrup arrived today, based on the suggested 1-2 tsp/cup dilution suggestions I could find on the net (the bottle is in Italian and what I managed to translate via Babel seemed focused more on what you could add it to rather then how much to use) the 250 ml bottle I got should be about perfect for 2.5 to 3 gallons of mead at that dilution ( Read more... )

I finally bought some of the cheaper brew ingredients I've been meaning to pick up for a while (more dry yeast, yeast nutrients, a fining agent, a no rinse sanitizer, pectic enzyme, a book on cider making, and a carboy dryer) from Northern Brewer and then from an organic fru-fru site I ordered one flavoring ingredient I've been eying for a while, ( Read more... )

My lovely assistant for the day was freegade15 lbs raw buckwheat honey from Smitty Bee Honey ( Read more... )

I am still quite hesitant to use an artificial flavoring for meads, it really feels like cheating, but I just can't find a source for enough food grade sweet violets to actually do the mead I want to do (Well, other then Alex's lawn, which if I had had a few spare hours when I was there recently I would have decimated). Hell, I can't find even a ( Read more... )

Finally bottled the orange vanilla mead tonight.
I got 19 bottles in all and gave two to lease as tribute ( Read more... )

So Friday I racked both of the carboys that I have currently up and while my prickley pear seems about right (seriously young, but it's still fermenting so thats no shock, very promising beyond that, nice clean sort of melon finish to it actually) the orange vanilla is all sorts of scary ( Read more... )

Finally got that prickly pear cactus mead started on Friday. The juice is not what I expected at all but the must was pretty tasty and the color is beautiful. Both blackendstryfsh and I immediately thought of a tequila sunrise when we saw it in the test tube for the hydrometer. It's been ensconced in the spare room downstairs and already it's cleared considerably ( Read more... )

So based on the general state of lock-down on my other LJ I'm going to really try to make a go of keeping this journal updated.

I have gone through sterlingspider almost entirely now and moved everything to do with crafting (and some specific related subjects) over to this LJ with appropriate tags. Unfortunately I was unable to move comments as well, but if you ( Read more... )