Double Update - Specific Gravity Readings on Both Meads

Over the past couple days we have been taking readings on both the Strawberry-Peach and Blackberry-Rose meads to track their progress through fermentation and to gauge when the primary fermentation cycles have completed. We have some interesting readings on both meads and we wanted to share those with you all.

For the Strawberry-Peach Mead we added one pound of honey on 06/14/2020 which brought the specific gravity up from 0.996 to 1.020, a change of 24 points. We took another reading 06/23/2020 and came up with a specific gravity (SG) reading of 0.998. after adding the 24 points for the additional honey to our initial gravity reading of 1.090 - which comes to 1.114 - and using the current gravity reading of 0.998 we calculate the ABV of this mead is now at 15.23% which has exceeded the alcohol tolerance for the yeast we used (Lalvin 71B); however the tolerance of the yeast is really a range from 13%-16% roughly, and the specific gravity calculation does have a margin of error of 1.5% so it is still within the expected range. We did also so our first racking of the Strawberry-Peach mead to get the lees buildup on the bottom of the fermenting container out; we also did empty the "waste" from the container into a 10 oz bottle, capped it and put it in the fridge for a 24 hour cold crash. I removed the bottle and took a small sample from it today and it has gone from completely opaque orange in color to a crystal clear light peach color, which is very exciting since I was expecting it to remain a bit cloudy even after that process due to the way the fruit was prepared. Our future plans for this are to pasteurize the mead to prevent future fermentation and then sweeten with peach and strawberry juice in a 1:2 mixture. This will increase the near-absent strawberry flavor while also sweetening the mead as a whole, and we will be adding organic sources of malic acid in order to give the body a bit more complexity while ageing. Within the next six months this should be ready to bottle and drink. Our final estimations on this mead are as follows:

ABV: ~15%

Color: Blonde Rose.

Clarity: Crystal to Brilliant.

Flavor: Crisp peach notes, sweet strawberry, and a pleasant warmth on exhale from the alcohol.

Aroma: Honey, floral, and peach.

For the Blackberry-Rose Mead we have not touched since the fruit was removed from it a few days ago. We took a specific gravity reading from this one to see if it was time to rack, but it seems to be in fermentation still since the gravity reading went from 1.015 to 0.998. After calculating the new ABV we come to ~ 17.32%. This is on the higher end of the normal spectrum for both the yeast we used (Lalvin 71B) and meads in general - at least the ones that are not fortified - but we are going to see how far this must will go in fermentation. We will be adding two more pounds of honey to the mead and will continue to take readings until there is no change in specific gravity over the course of a week. We will then add some pure blackberry juice to bring back some of the flavor profile and wait another week. If there are still no significant changes to the SG then we will sweeten to 1.035 and taste to make any necessary adjustments. After another week of waiting and - hopefully - no changes we will begin racking the mead and preparing to let it sit and age. We do plan on adding malic acid to this mead as well since the flavor profile and mouthfeel both seem to feel a bit muted. Hopefully with the acid and ageing this will turn out to have a full complex body with a tart sweetness.

As always we will keep you all updated on the process of brewing our meads. We hope you had fun reading about the directions our mead is taking and that we catch you on the next update. We are excited to see where our #homebrew operation leads us!

Stay safe and remember to love one another!

~ The Forge Meadery

Note: all of the technical classifications we use for mead description are from the Mead Style Guidelines of the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) handbook, which can be found here: https://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Mead.pdf