In fine tradition, new mead for a new year. This year Tarou and I decided to do separate batches, based on the recipe for his Sweet Mead. I decided to use raw honey and strawberries.
Started like normal mead, honey and water simmering for 15 minutes, then foam skimmed off. After it cooled to around 85 degrees, put all but a little into the brew bucket. The part held back was used to pitch the yeast, which was then added. The strawberries were placed inside a paint bag, and the bag placed in the mixture. Mead was fermented for a month, and then racked off, Sparkaloid added to clarify, and the strawberries disposed of. I let it rest for a week, and then bottled it, which, was amusing as we had bottled Tarou’s Clovingly Sweet first and were expecting the same number of bottles, forgetting that frozen strawberries are made of a lot of water. Final count, 5 blue bottles, 4 oil bottles.
It is a very sweet and heavily strawberry flavored mead and it is a toss up whether we Strawberry Blonde or Clovingly Sweet more on any given day.
What do you think?