Brewing - First-Quarter Mead Batch Status Update

 As discussed way back when I started this blog, we laid down eight gallons of mead in January, and another two gallons in a small batch in February.  We taste-tested all three batches of mead, and the results are as follows:

Orange blossom honey, no additives - Semi-dry, still minor fermentation occurring, flavor profile well-balanced.  Sweet comes through.  Plan is to save several bottles in dry state, for people who prefer their meads dry, and to back-sweeten, probably a quart of honey to the remaining three gallons of mead.

Orange blossom honey, ginger and orange - Dry, but an exceptionally good flavor.  So far this is the best batch that we have done.  Fermentation reaction is complete, no remaining fizz.  Plan is to pull the remaining solids off the top, save several bottles in dry state, and back-sweeten remaining three gallons at same proportions as listed above.

Bochet - Sweet, almost but not quite on the point of Neil Gaiman's "sweet pickle juice" description.  Very complex flavor profile.  Not getting the expected notes of caramelization, but it is definitely a more intense and more complex flavor than a standard mead.  Plan is to bottle, and then take one or two bottles for a further experiment in frost distillation.

Frost distillation is one of the earliest forms of distillation, wherein an alcoholic beverage is frozen, then the remaining liquids after freezing are poured off.  Because the freezing point of alcohol is lower than that of water, it results in a higher alcoholic content.  Especially without modern, targeted yeast strains, it is a way to achieve the kinds of alcohol levels we hear described in, for instance, "Egil's Saga," as most meads without specialized yeasts top out at wine strength (I think my strongest has run at about 16-18% alcohol by volume, at the top end of wine strength).  While that level of drunken behavior is possible to achieve with wine, it is faster at higher strength.  This is a significant factor in this case because what is described in Egil is a stingy host who only grudgingly opens his stores - if you could get the entire party drunk with less wine before murdering them, it is a win-win.  Frost distilling is a way to achieve that.

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