Peppermint

Process

• Heat about 1 gallon of water and add/melt the candy canes

• Let the water cool, then add your honey to it

• Add the must to your bucket, then top off to 3.5 gal and mix

• As fermentation completes, but before racking, add dried hibiscus and toasted cacao nibs.

• (The timing here is just to avoid dealing with these additions going through a narrow carboy neck - you can add them in secondary if you want).

• I racked into a bucket right before bottling and added my tartaric acid there, since I didn't want to mix in the plastic carboy I was using

Color

As you can see in the graduated cylinder reading taken near the end of fermentation (below, left), the bright red color we saw while mixing up the must on brew day has faded into a brownish yellow. The hibiscus I added in a relatively small amount (especially for a batch this size) was intended to bring the red colors back out in the brew without altering the flavor profile too much. The hibiscus and cacao nib brags can be seen in a brew with a much more red hue only hours later (below, center). A day later, the brew's color in a small taste test sized sample appears much more pink (below, right).

The hazy pinkish red that came out of primary ultimately clarified into a wonderfully brilliant red (above, right). It's a lighter red than brews like Heartbound or Dragon's Blood, which I think is right on the money for candy canes. If I do this again, I will likely keep the same process for coloring.

Finishing

I didn't necessarily expect this to be heavy on tannins, but a friend who really enjoyed the early taste tests agreed with me that the tartaric acid additions were really helping. Personally, I think this is a weird brew and I'm still not entirely sure what to make of the gimmicky flavor - and since she enjoys it, I'm just going with her pallette, which means I don't have a ton to say about the taste tests.

What I can tell you is that I used the standard amount of tartaric acid for a 0.1% acidity increase per the package instructions (3.8g per gal). My friend said it really hit the spot and helped clean the mead's flavor profile up. Neat!

The cacao nibs didn't end up imparting any noticeable chocolate flavors, but I wonder if perhaps their presence still caused an increase in tannins that lead to the necessary acid balancing?

Either way - I'm not sure that I would recommend assuming tartaric acid is needed on this one. Rather, do a bench test, and determine for yourself if tartaric acid is helpful for your specific combination of your version of this brew and your taste buds.