I made up a new batch of mead. My first batch, which was a short mead meant to be consumed right after brewing, was a melomel style, honey with any fruit, in this case oranges. It just misses qualifying as a pyment, which is honey with white or red grapes; I used California raisins with the oranges. Second batch used almost the same recipe as the first, just in larger quantity. Actually, it ended up being almost a bochet, which uses caramelized honey. You see, I had let the honey crystallize and had to turn it back into liquid in a double boiler; that almost didn't go well. Also, I swapped out the raisins in favor of blackberries, pushing the recipe towards a bochetomel.
This new batch is a complete departure from the citrus-fed bread yeast of the past. I am using real champagne yeast, for one thing. That is definitely going to change the flavor of the end product. It's still a melomel mead, using peaches as the fruit.
Oh, this one has been an adventure. It takes a while to ship twelve pounds of honey anyway, but when your order also includes a new recipe kit by famous actor and internet personality Wil Wheaton, well, things get delayed. Parallel to that, I had ordered 25 pounds of peaches from a food coop and when the honey and yeast didn't arrive alongside the peaches, I had to scramble to slice and freeze the fruit. Eventually, all the ingredients were present but then thawing the peaches made a mess due to cheap plastic bags.
Here's where the title comes from. In the middle of laying up the must, I decided to run the thawed peach slices through the blender to make them easier to pour into the carboy. For next time, I think I'm going to puree the fruit first before freezing. I could also can the slices to preserve them that way, in case I don't get all the ingredients together at the same time again.
Anyway, this peach melomel will be a short mead and I'll write a follow-up on my impressions when it's done fermenting in a few months. There's a few other varieties I want to try out in the future. Being so close to Hatch, N.M., a capsicumel is a definite must try. I'd also like to try fermenting a braggot, a morat, and maybe even an intentional bochet. I have a few rose bushes in the yard so a rhodomel is also an option. Keep brewing. Salud!
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