Oaked Acerglyn (Maple Mead)

Oaked Acerglyn (Sparkling?)
(Maple Mead)

Ingredients
5 gal water
10 lbs Honey
2 packet Red Star Cote des Blancs Yeast
1 Medium Toast American Oak Spiral in secondary
2 x 32 oz Grade A Vermont Maple Syrup

Directions
In a large brew pot, simmer 3 gallons of water.
Remove pot from heat and add 10 lbs honey and 32 oz maple syrup and 3 tsp yeast nutrient. Stir until fully dissolved.
Rehydrate the yeast warm water set aside
Add the must to a 6 gal primary fermenter along with 2 gal cold water. Aerate it, and pitch the yeast when temperature is under 100F
Take OG reading. Mine was: 1.082 g/ml
Seal fermenter with airlock and store in a dark place at a temperature of about 70 degrees.

After 3 days, add 1 tsp yeast nutrient or not and aerate do this again after another 3 days.

After another week, add the remaining 32 oz of maple syrup and aerate.

Wait another week, then with a siphon, re-rack the mead into a sanitized 5 gallon carboy. Add the Oak Spiral at this point

After another 3 weeks, re-rack, then let age for 2 months, with sampling suggested

Bottle still – move totally fermented mead into a sanitized bottling bucket and bottle as you would beer but without the bottling sugar. Cap and store for 4 months in a temperature controlled place. Kitchen is ideal.

Sparkling - Dissolve the corn sugar in 2 cup warm water, add to carboy, and stir lightly.
Fill sanitized bottles and let age for 4 months, storing in the same manner.

Original Recipe: http://meadist.com/making-mead/mead-recipes/sparkling-oaked-acerglyn-maple-mead-recipe/


My Experience:

Heated 3 gallons of water on the stove to 140F added 10 lbs of honey and found that my pot was full and if I went to rapid boil I would have overflowed. I sanitized and poured the stock pots contents into the bucked, added 32 oz of Maple Syrup stirred and waited for cool down. At or around 92F I took a gravity reading which turned out to be 1.084 give or take a bit. Adjusting for temperature, I was not getting the gravity I was looking for I added enough water to make 5 gallons in the bucket and then waited. I pitched the waiting yeast, I used two yeast packets due to messing up with too warm water for the first starter, thought I may have killed some yeast in the too warm water of the flask. Turned out fine however. Bubbling started less than 24 hours later and bubbled strongly for 8 days. I checked gravity again and after 8 days of fermenting at 66-67 degrees the gravity was 1.100??? Obviously my OG was off by some points. I was supposed to be at 1.108 and I think that was probably more like the OG than I calculated it to be. Then I added yeast energizer 2.5 teaspoons and the rest of the maple syrup (another 32 oz) and stirred vigorously.

Pre-new-syrup 1 bubble/18-20 seconds, 24 hours after 1 bubble/6 seconds.
Back on track.

December 5th 1 bubble/5 seconds
Sniffer detects -- the butterscotch is less but a sweet maple smell is clearly there. :)

The Maple mead has been racked off into the secondary with a French Oak curl to continue fermentation. Rate of fermentation has slowed dramatically in the past week from 1 bubble/32 second to twice that now but still she ferments and will likely continue at temperatures of 62 -65F.

Original Gravity: 1.108 g/ml
Current gravity 1.010 at week 5 under fermentation (Dec 29th)
Calculated current gravity= 14.22%

(Projected 15.3 -15.8% ABV)

The rack off date 12/30/2917

I will let the Oak stay on the mead for 6 weeks, then check flavor on approximate date: 1/13/2018.

This is taking a lot longer than the recipe called for.

The third and final racking should happen on 1/13/18 into the glass 5 gallon carboy for clarifying. I have to be very careful and not push this last step. I am thinking maybe two weeks and and bottling the end of January. Allocating most of the batch for still mead and some for carbonation.


Sampled with new wine thief. Tastes of oak and and honey and a hint of maple. Slightly carbonated. Nice balance. Not too acidic as before. Mellowing is a good thing. Tastes like Chardonnay it really does and therefore I decided to halt the fermentation at 15.5% ABV and keep the residual sugars

5 Gallons plus a half gallon went into the carboy on 1/13/2018
FG 1.00
15.5% ABV
Added yeast stabilizer 1/2 teaspoon per gallon to arrest fermentation (Potassium Sorbate)
General color was foggy light yellow.
Waiting for the wine to clarify.
Projected bottling date 1/21/2018

Actual bottling day 2/10/18

"Assuming you are using classic corks, prepare them with a brief soaking in water before insertion if they have been stored for a long time, three months for example, in an open container. Opinions vary about the benefit of adding a bit of standard sulfite solution (two ounces potassium metabisulfite in a gallon of water). Diluting the standard solution to a ratio of about five to one with water softens the corks and eliminates the risk of contamination. In any case soak all corks, even those ordered directly from suppliers. Do not substitute chlorine for sulfite solution; it might lend itself to cork off-flavors. Soaking for an hour or less should suffice. Incidentally, use only new corks that are grade "extra first" or at least the equivalent. Extra first is considered medium grade. There are a lot of inferior corks out there, and these can ruin the wine’s flavor. It is worth the cost to use corks that will protect the wine and allow it to age under ideal conditions."

"After filling, leave the bottles standing cork up for three to five days. This allows the inside pressure to equalize down to normal, so wine won’t push or leak when placed on its side. It also lets the corks dry from the pre-bottling soak and breathe off any residual sulfite. Then store the bottles on their sides or upside down in the coolness of your cellar. After 30 days (okay, we all stretch that a little!), try one bottle to assure yourself all went well. After that, it is up to you when you drink the wine. Almost all wines benefit from three to six months in bottle, some for much longer.

Remember that wine ages in two ways: aerobically, while it is fermenting, being pressed, racked, and prepared for bottling, and anaerobically after bottling, when the myriad subtle chemical changes occur away from the air (other than what is dissolved in the wine at bottling) and produce true bouquet and complexities of flavor. When the wine is best is up to the winemaker, but a little patience is well worthwhile.

If you can creatively bend the rules and develop a method you can live with, by all means do it. Cleanliness is next to Dionysusness!"

I used a carboy siphon for the first time ever and wow this is the total way to go. I have been making beer since 2003 and avoided due to cost and stubbornness this device. Man!

I had to buy corks a case of empty wine bottles, and a corker.

Yield in bottles
17 Wine bottles
3 1/2 Wine bottles
6 Grolsch bottles
1 Bombardier 32 oz
1 12 oz beer bottle full

Wine makers cut maybe 12-14 oz

Usually I go for the stats but here I want to focus on how it tastes.

Being the first Acerglyn and the second ever wine making experiment, I want to savor the flavor and pat myself on the back for making THE oldest beverage in the world, plus a bit of Adirondack Maple Syrup.

Tasting notes:

Color: Light Amber
Clarity: Clear as a bell
Mouthfeel: Good body with ever so slightly effervescence.
Taste: Semi-sweet to dry with Maple and Honey flavors and a bit of tannin.
Finish: Clean, crisp not cloying and with a hint of citrus.

Final ABV: 15%

A new record for me.