New Mead in the Primary

Another mead has been started. This one will end up being St. Crispin's Blackcurrant Mead, batch number 8. I used 2 gallons of water, 2 gallons of apple cider, and 1 gallon (12 lbs) of local clover honey. To add a nice tart acidity I added 1 cup of pure cranberry juice (not the diluted and sweetened cranberry juice cocktail). It is fermenting as we speak with a Côtes-du-Rhône strain of wine yeast, as with the previous mead. Technically this is a cyser right now, but I added the apple juice mainly for nutrients and a boost of gravity. When fermentation slows, this will be racked into secondary upon a bed of blackcurrants, where it will stay for some time, melding the flavours of a crisp honey wine with those of the potent blackcurrant. I saw a recipe for "blackcurrant wine" that was simply blackcurrants and 8-10 pounds of white sugar, but that seemed quite unpleasant to me. I'd rather add natural sugars, like juice, honey, malt, etc. That said, I have used brown sugar in two ales, but thats more for a nice caramel/molasses taste.

The clarifying agents appear to have worked marvelously with the barleywine...a thick yeast sediment, previous absent, now rests at the bottom of the carboy. I'm actually a bit worried the heavy yeast suspension could have thrown off the gravity reading, but I think that might be rather unlikely. It's going to be a sweet, thick, and rather strange barleywine, and I've come to accept it. It's a bit of a roll of the dice as to whether it will be worth the effort, but we'll see.

I've got to clean bottles to make ready for the Wee Heavy, that peat-smoked monster of an ale, as I don't know if I've got a lot of money for new bottles. That said, to the two guys who have been sampling St. Crispin's, if you've got empty 22oz bottles still, hang onto them as I can use them.