On 2/10/04 11:30 AM, in article
, "Don S"
> wrote:

> Greg,
> Since I don't want to fool around with sorbate at this
> point I'd like to stick with fermenting dry. What was
> your favourite dry melomel other than the orange which
> isn't finished? Do you have the recipes online as well?
>
> Don
>
>> I will generally add 1/4 tsp per gallon of tannin to anything I make that
>> doesn't have much tannin naturally in the fruit. At this level, you can't
>> really taste the astringency but I think it does add something to the mouth
>> feel. I do like meads. I made a couple early on that were really nice - one
>> with fresh mango fruit and one with blueberries. I like my cranberry melomel
>> very much. All of those had a bit of residual sweetness added back, so they
>> were off dry. I have an orange melomel going now that is dry and really
>> tastes good. Can't wait for this one! I think it will be one of my better
>> honey wines. By the way, I made it using frozen orange concentrate. It
>> fermented well and cleared beautifully by itself. I really need to get my
>> recent wine logs put on-line. One of these days real soon.

To be honest, I haven't made that many dry melomels. The one apricot melomel
was pretty good, but I used sulfured dried apricots, and it had a lingering
sulfur taste that spoiled it. One of the best dry honey wines I have tasted
was made by a winery in North Dakota (Pointe of View Winery). They added
dried elderflowers (just a bit) and aged it in oak barrels. It has to be the
nicest dry mead ever.

My older logs/recipes are on-line, but I don't have the 2003 and 2004
bottlings put up yet.

--
Greg Cook
http://homepage.mac.com/gregcook/Wine

(remove spamblocker from my email)