Harvest Berry Meads

2014 has been a slower year for meadmaking for me. There are a variety of reasons for this, and it’s OK. One of the issues is storage space…. I have to have physical space to store all the bottled mead I am aging!

But, it’s harvest time. This means berries in my part of the world. I got 2 quarts of lovely raspberries from a friend who had them growing, and my wife and I (mostly my wife) spent all summer picking blackberries as they were ripe from our property in the woods. So this time, I did 2 batches: Raspberry Harvest and Blackberry Harvest.

I began with my normal chaga decoction, with a staghorn sumac infusion. As always, this tea has a very rich color that looks like coffee, although it will fade somewhat in the final mead:

A chaga decoction and staghorn sumac infusion. This tea is richly colored and looks like coffee.
A chaga decoction and staghorn sumac infusion. This tea is richly colored and looks like coffee.

I ran into a bit of difficulty, because my honey had solidified/crystalized! Believe it or not, as common as it is, this had never happened to me. I started by dunking my bucket of honey into a sink filled with hot water, to gently heat the honey and cause it to melt, to make it more usable:

A 5 gallon bucket of crystallized/solidified honey, resting inside a sinkfull of hot water to help liquefy the honey.
A 5 gallon bucket of crystallized/solidified honey, resting inside a sinkfull of hot water to help liquefy the honey.

Even still, tonight’s meadmaking was much more labor intensive to get the solid honey to melt and dissolve easily. Once the honey was softer, I was ready to go.

Raspberry Harvest Mead

I added about 1.5 gallons of my chaga/sumac tea into my mixing pot, along with a quart of the most vibrant raspberry juice ever:

2 quarts of fresh raspberries makes about 1 quart of juice. Gorgeous!
2 quarts of fresh raspberries makes about 1 quart of juice. Gorgeous!

I then mixed the raspberry juice, the tea, and enough honey and additional water to get me to 3 gallons, with a 17.5% initial alcohol potential:

17.5% initial alcohol potential for the raspberry mead.
17.5% initial alcohol potential for the raspberry mead.

I can’t wait to see how this one comes out! I haven’t made a raspberry mead since the Raspberry Damiana Mead from 2011! These raspberries had a wonderful tartness to them, that should translate well into a semisweet or a sweet mead.

Blackberry Harvest Mead

I made the Blackberry Harvest Mead the exact same way, just with the different berries. I started with a quart of fresh blackberry juice:

A quart jar of fresh blackberry juice next to my 3 gallon pot.
A quart jar of fresh blackberry juice next to my 3 gallon pot.

Then, I added the juice, the chaga tea, and enough honey and extra water to get to a 17.5% initial alcohol potential:

A 17.5% initial alcohol potential for the Blackberry Mead.
A 17.5% initial alcohol potential for the Blackberry Mead.

Similarly, I haven’t made a Blackberry Mead that wasn’t a cyser since 2010!

Harvest Berry Meads

These will be fun. I didn’t use any additional herbs in these meads (apart from my customary chaga and sumac), so the flavors should be crisp and pure as they go. They look gorgeous:

Raspberry Mead on the left, and Blackberry Mead on the right!
Raspberry Mead on the left, and Blackberry Mead on the right!

I can’t wait to see — and taste — how these come out!

UPDATE: Feb 21, 2015

I finally racked these meads tonight. They are both delicious, and sweet, coming in at about 14.5% ABV with 3% remaining alcohol potential. The Raspberry Harvest has more overt fruit flavor, probably because raspberries have a more intense flavor than blackberries. The Blackberry Harvest is smoother at the moment. The color of the Raspberry is more vibrant as well, which isn’t a huge surprise. I can’t wait to see how they age!