#14 Cara Cara Orange Wine

Racked and topped off with some distilled water. I'll top with some orange juice the final racking, I think.

SG 1.005.

#3 Spiced Cyser

Sulfited and sorbated in preparation to bottle.

I'm not up to making any fancy labels, but I'll try to think of a name for it.

#15 Chestnut Varietal Mead

Siphoned under glass and airlocked. Added just under 1/4 tsp grape tannin and same amount of yeast nutrient. I ended up with one full gallon and a 20 oz or so glass container that is also airlocked.

SG 1.09. It's actually lower, the fermentation gasses were pushing up the hydrometer. So probably 1.08 or so.

#15 Chestnut Varietal Mead

Huge, thick head of foam on this one when I woke up. I added 1/4 tsp nutrient.

I think I'm going to call this one Homenaje a Cataluña.

#15 Chestnut Varietal Mead

3.75 lb Italian chestnut honey (approx)
1/4 tsp yeast nutrient
water to a few ounces over a gallon
D-47 yeast

Chestnut honey is amazing. I had some in Catalonia and remembered liking it a whole lot, though I was too drunk at the time to do much more than hop up and down or something. It's pretty pricey back here in the states, but I saw it on sale and decided it needed to be in mead. The honey was better than I remember. Think smoke and toasted wood, roasted coffee and a touch of spice, perhaps maple.

I'm making a little over a gallon so I have some reserved for topping off purposes.

OG 1.122

Mass Racking

#3 Racked. Very tasty. The oak did this one a good turn. Honey and apple are pretty balanced and there is a mid-to-back palate spice. It tastes ready to drink to me.

#2 Racked. Sort of. Godfuckingdammit. I slipped on some water. I saved enough to fill a 50 oz small jug. This one is super dry and very vinous (the raisins I used overpowered the whole thing, I think). I'm not too disappointed, I didn't know what I was doing when I started this one. I'll possibly do another coffee blossom varietal someday, sans raisins.

#1 Racked. I may have, um, overdone the vanilla on this one. It's dry (champagne yeast does that) and floral (the roses) and the aftertaste is straight up, full on VANILLA. No honey presence that I can detect.

#11 Racked. Racking is hard when you only have a gallon to work with. This mead hasn't really cleared as much as I'd like, and there was a layer on top of what looked like proteins or even wax particles from the honey. Trying to rack from under that and over the sediment layer meant more loss than I'm happy about, unfortunately. We'll see. The flavor is good, it's obviously too young to drink, but I can taste that buckwheat honey very clearly, which is nice.

#10 Racked onto heavy toast oak. This one is pretty sweet and still burn-y. I caught the maple and some low, rich, honey tones. This one is about as clear as the buckwheat show mead, which is to say, not so much.

#6 Racked. Sweet, tart, tangy, very pomegranate-y. Good stuff.

#12 Racked. Warm, spicy. Ginger and saffron apparent, apple and alcohol dominating. Just a hint of honey.

To Do List:

#4 Rack Mid-March. Final racking. I am putting this one off because it's D-47 and I'd like a little sur lie aging.
#7 Rack in April.
#9 Rack early April.
#14 Rack early April.