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the.fee.fairy wrote: Mead tastes like a sweetish (depending - some mead can be dry) honeysih winish stuff.

thats fairly accurate description

Red: i see what you mean about the crust! Its a few inches thick!!

I've started it in a fermenting bin, and i've been faithfully stirring it every day. It does smell delicious!

can't wait for it to be ready!

The coffee one is going great guns - its fermenting so fast! I had to take it oustide to cool it down a bit to try to stop it bubbling through the airlock again

Its definitely the fastest bubbling of all the wines i've got going at the moment!

Thatll be great Fee thanks!

My friend is allowing me to pick her 25 cherry trees to make some wine - how cool is that?

Wow, you have a really really good friend!

I won't be home til midnightish, but i'll dig out the recipe then.

Wheat berries=wheat seeds/wheatgrass seeds.

Thanks Ebay!

Fee, what do u mean by this?

The coffee one is going great guns - its fermenting so fast! I had to take it oustide to cool it down a bit to try to stop it bubbling through the airlock again

Its supposed to bubble thru the airlock thats the idea of the fermentation - am I missing something?

Here's the recipe for Peach melomel:

Peach Melomel



Ingredients:

6 pounds peaches
3/4 pint elderflowers
2-1/2 pounds acacia honey
1/30 ounce tannin
Graves yeast
1/4 ounce tartaric acid
1/4 ounce malic acid

Procedure:

Press peaches (after removing pits). Dissolve honey in 4 pints warm
water, blend in peach juice along with acid, tannin, and nutrients. Add
100 ppm sulfite (2 campden tablets). After 24 hours, add yeast starter,
allow to ferment 7 days before adding elderflowers. Ferment on flowers
for 3 days then strain off flowers and top off to 1 gallon with cold
water. Ferment until specific gravity drops to 10, then rack. Rack
again when gravity drops to 5, and add 1 tablet campden. Rack again when
when a heavy deposit forms, or after 3 months, whichever comes first.
Add another campden tablet. Rack again every 3-4 months, adding a tablet
after every second racking.

And for basic melomel (presumably you could tweak it for strawberries):

Melomel



Ingredients:

16 pounds wildflower honey
5 gallons water
5 kiwis
3 star fruits
1 pound cranberries
acid blend to .45 tartaric
MeV liquid mead yeast culture

Procedure:

Pasteurized the honey and fruit at about 180 degrees for 10-15 minutes,
ran through a chiller, pitched with VERY vigorous aeration. Let it
sit
with the fruit in for 7 days, then rack off.



Specifics:

Original Gravity: 1.124

Apparently thi has a habit of suddenly fermenting very vigorously!


And...what i meant about the coffee wine is that the wine has literally bubbled out of the airlock - i came downstairs to find the airlock full of coffee wine, and a coffee wine puddle on the floor!



So i moved it somewhere cooler. Usually, the gas bubbles through water in the airlock, but in this case, the wine fermented so vigorously that it foamed up, into and through the airlock!

Oh blimey that is vigorous lol. Think thats why its better to do the primary ferment in buckets so stop that happening.

Thanks for the recipes - definitely gonna give it a go but have run out of demi-johns again now!

Fee - hows the coconut going? Ive just put mine in a demi-john after 10 days of it being in fermentation bin. The smell of the yeast is so strong my Dad asked if Ive been baking bread Ive strained all the juice from the raisins and coconut and theres a film of oil and scum on the wine now - looks revolting

I'm on day 5 of the fermenting bin. i've been faithfully stirring it every day!

It looks like rice pudding with raisins, and has a smell that starts off unpleasant, then turns into nice coconut, then, if you stick yur nose into the fermenting bin and take a deep breath smells really really really alcoholic! Like sticking your nose in a whisky tun.

I used young's Super Wine Yeast, and some nutrient, so i don't know if its just that yeast or not.

I'm quite looking forward to the unpleasantness of the straining into a demijohn! D'ya reckon you could skim the oily crust that its supposed to form off and use it in cooking like you would normal coconut oil? Might give it a go.

Hadnt thought of reusing the scum for cooking, dont see why not - Ive added mango juice with mine so not sure on the outcome.

Ive used the Youngs super yeast too - does seem to do the trick nicely. Did u take SG readings? It specifically says to but my first readgin the hydrometer wouldnt even stay down in the tube thingie and now its still on 1040 What does that mean?

I didn't take SG readings - i can just about work out the percentage of the wine when its finished, not quite clever enough to work out the SG of things.

I've just bought some dried lavender flowers, so when they get here, i'll be starting some lavender wine too. Does it come out purple?! If not - is it safe to add food colourings to wines? I'd love to have a purple lavender wine.

My lavender is a sort of yellow, sick colour - unfortunately not purple at all! I thought about adding some food colouring for effect. You can get that beautiful purple liquour - cant believe thats natural, so should be OK

brilliant. I'll have a look for some purple food colouing next time i go shopping!

Got my dried lavender today! It smells lovely. i'm going to start it on Sunday probably.

My crust ont he coconut one has softened and dropped - it now seems more foamy than coconutty at the top. i'll see if i can get it in the demojohn tonight, if not then it'll be saturday.

I am so looking forward to the outcome of these later wines - now i've got the better yeast and the nutrients.