bryan wrote: ↑Sat May 26, 2018 7:07 pm
Not looking forward to having to let it age ;_;
Guess I never updated
Can't find any pictures.. but after the fermentation slowed down to a crawl, I bottled the gallon of mead into a few bottles (already opened bottles w/ screw caps) of various sizes as well as 3 or 4 little 2oz bottles and put into the refrigerator. The 2oz bottles served to allow me to taste the aging, bottle-conditioning without opening the bigger bottles. I can't remember exactly how long until I opened the first bottle.. about 4 months?
Wow! It was incredibly, incredibly good. I was seriously shocked at how good it was. Not too sweet, not dry, just enough carbonation, and quite high gravity but you couldn't tell from the taste. I'd had about five different meads before, and mine definitely came out on top of those!
I rationed the bottles surprisingly well, but I was definitely wishing I had made another gallon or two. As far as the change in taste over time.. I didn't notice much; maybe the very first bottle was a bit different than the later ones (I think I drank the second bottle after another two months?). I was able to hold onto my last bottle until about May 2019 (so about a year from brewing) before drinking it.
Haven't brewed much since.. Last week (cabin fever) I did collect a bunch of chinese privet berries, washed them, mashed them, boiled in some water for a bit, drained/filtered/squeezed the juice out, added some sugar and water, and pitched with bread yeast on hand. Fermented in a plastic bottle (screw cap not all the way tight) on the counter for a few days then refrigerated (after slowing to a crawl). If I were being serious I would have filtered through a coffee filter or something before that, since the mixture was very dark and surely had a lot of fine bits suspended. Popped it open after a few days and had a spit taste (yes, I knew going in that it would be poisonous, so I was never really planning on drinking it). The taste and carbonation up-front was very nice but pretty quickly the taste went quite bitter. After spitting, rinsing/spitting some water, the bitter taste still lingered for a minute. Soo.. meh. Something to do during stay-in-place. Maybe next time it will be something that won't result in cyanide poisoning.