Test Mead: Kiwi Session

Hello everyone, and welcome back! Today we just bottled a Kiwi Session Mead just in time to age a little bit before summer. So first things first, the recipe. This one was quite simple, we started out brewing a traditional mead using:

~ 1lbs (453g) Wildflower Honey

1/2 packet Lalvin 71-B Yeast

Filtered Water to two-thirds gallon (2.5L)

OG: 1.035

We left that to ferment for two weeks until we got a Specific Gravity (SG) reading of 1.000. At that time the mead was pastuerized and had 1/3 gallon (1.25L) of Kiwi and White Grape juice added to the traditional mead. After that it was cold crashed for 7 days, racked into a new carboy/container, and left to set and age for two weeks. After that it was bottled. The Final Gravity (FG) of the mead was 1.032, making it quite sweet with no alcohol taste.

What is a Session Mead?

A Session Mead is a mead that is designed with the intention of being able to drink a single, or multiple, bottles over the course of a day without becoming impaired or drunk. These kinds of meads have a low abv usually between 3%-5%, will be sweet or else dry and carbonated. These meads are usually very easy to make and very quick to ferment, but do take quite a bit more planning since you have a very low target alcohol level in mind. The brewer must determine what SG is needed for their volume to convert into alcohol that will come out at the level desired, and must take into account all sources of fermentable sugars entering the brew. It takes a little more planning in the beginning than regular meads do, but the end result is usually a mead that is very pleasant to drink right out of fermentation which isnt the case with many normal meads.

Why was this a test mead?

This was a test for two reasons, one is this is our first attempt at a session mead, so the whole process was for learning what to do, how to do, and when to do it. The other is that Kiwi is an extremely hard fruit to properly ferment since as it undergoes fermentation it releases sulfer by-products. We determined the way around that was to not have the kiwi ferment so we simply made a traditional mead and added fruit juice to it after fermentation had completed. The results have turned out wonderfully so far and we are definitely looking at making this in a bigger batch size in the future.

Stay safe and remember to love one another!

~ The Forge meadery