Total success again with this lightly sparkling spruced mead - I think swapping out one jar of honey for some Demerara sugar has made a subtle improvement in body and sweetness and I soft pedalled the spruce tips flavour - they go a long way. This is one I can reproduce consistently. ~5.8% ABV
The spruce tips are sourced from a wonderul woman on Etsy who collects them in the English countryside, they transform the mead (I use cheap honey cause I’m going to flavour it).
She’s selling Rowan syrup with an almond flavour and I’m excited about incorporating that to build depth into the drink.
reproducibility supposedly is the problem with meads.I tried 4 times using the same recipe, and got 4 totally different outcomes. only 1 which wasn't drinkable. but it made me give up on it. if you can consistently reproduce, more power to ya!
A hydrometer, it measures how much *sugar* is in the solution - you measure at the start and at the end of fermentation and a formula allows you to calculate how much sugar has become alcohol. There’s a world of different options but a floating glass hydrometer is the simplest and most reliable.
I had a pile of spruce tips I’d bought for another recipe which is where I got the idea from, they used to use them instead of hops for adding citrus bite to sorghum and molasses beers, this is in the Americas maybe 18thC
I knew that they used creeping charlie instead of hops for clarifying beer, but not spruce tips. Very interesting! I imagine the taste is unique but bright.
*very bright* if over done, but with an interesting resinous undertone, thinking of mixing it with some kind of almond flavour to add that deeper flavour and draw it out from the honey
