Pomegranate Pineapple Mead

I have read that hibiscus in primary brings out the tart flavors, and in secondary it brings out the moral floral flavors. I am considering it for the floral components, since pom+pineapple is already tart. Furthermore, I don't want to deal with hibiscus messing up fermentation by throwing the PH out of whack, but I do want to be able to stabilize and backsweeten this. Hibiscus making it inhospitable to further fermentation would actually be beneficial in secondary.

However, it's also noted that overextracting hibiscus gives vegetal flavors, so I should be careful with how long it steeps for.

Also of note - rose petals or hips could potentially work as well. I'll revisit what I want to add in secondary after fermentation is done, or at least close to it so I can see how these flavors taste after being exposed to fermentation.

Timeline Pitch to Bottle

04/13/2021 - mix & pitch

Not much to say here that won't be on the video, but just for future reference, the juices alone (before adding honey) had a gravity of about 1.056.

The pineapple flavor seemed a little stronger than the pomegranate to me, so we'll have to see what happens when they ferment. It may need more pomegranate or less pineapple next time, since the original intent was more of a pomegranate mead with a little something extra, and at the moment it tastes like it may be more of a pineapple mead with pomegranate in the background.

04/14/2021 - nutrients

Though I mostly use the nutrient calculator instructions I often flip Fermaid K / DAP additions with Fermaid O because of how DAP can't be used past about 9% ABV or so.

Fermaid K: 1.4g
DAP: 2.7g

04/15/2021 - nutrients & SG

Fermaid K: 1.4g
DAP: 2.7g
SG: ~1.090

04/16/2021 - nutrients & SG

Fermaid O: 1.55g x 2
SG ~1.040

We've blown past our 1/3 sugar break here, and broken 10% ABV as well. It's a good thing I flipped the order of the inorganic and organic nutrients here. On the normal nutrient schedule, today would've been the first dose of FermK/DAP, and I would've had to skip them entirely because they can't really be properly utilized past about 9% ABV. Ideally I would've already put all the nutrients in before the 1/3 sugar break regardless, but I went ahead and just put both the FermO additions in here since they're organic and hypothetically still usable by the yeast as they finish fermentation.

I'm also planning to try to confirm this theory on the Yeast Overload Experiment, but I will need to sterile filter this mead to backsweeten it, so if there does happen to be any unused Fermaid O in solution, I expect it will get filtered out, and thus will not be present in the end product, so it doesn't really hurt anything to add a few grams of it now even if it might be too late.

04/23/2021 - SG

SG: ~1.002

Looks very close to dry, but not quite there! Might be an excess of bubbles lifting the hydrometer up those last 2 points, but even with some spinning and tapping I couldn't get it to settle any lower.

04/25/2021 - floral additions

Heather: 0.20 oz
Hibiscus: 2 oz

Added some dried flowers today for a little extra complexity to the flavor. Didn't want to over-extract their flavors though, so I did it only about 24 hours before I intended to rack. I planned to rack using the hop cage to leave the herbs behind during racking (which ended up working great the next day).

04/26/2021 - racked

Racked 1 full gallon and 1 mason jar, then did a bit of bench trialing and ultimately added quertanin sweet powder to the mason jar. I the ppm I chose was on the upper end of the suggested end per Laffort's documentation. I also selected a powder that specifically advertises itself as being able to take out "green" flavors, since the hibiscus addition had imparted some minor celery flavors.

It's possibly a little early for balancing, but knowing that this was all fruit juice (no skins for tannins) and both tart fruits, I fully expected that this was going to need some tannins added. During the raw tasting I described it as "hot, sour, and acidic". The addition of cocktail bitters made the sample smell sweeter, but it was still incredibly tart in the mouth. A touch of sugar made the brew more palatable, but I want to wait on the sugars until the tannins finish melding and the brew has aged a bit.

It's hard to measure out such a small amount of powder, so this was slightly overpitched, but here it is:

Quertanin sweet: 0.095g in the mason jar

05/16/2021 - tannin adjustment

Quertanin sweet: 0.39g

After ~3 weeks or so to let the powder meld in the mason jar, it was significantly improved compared to the 1 gallon. It's important to note this was not the case early on - after only about a week or so I tried it and was concerned to find the gallon tasted better. So, contrary to Laffort's documentation, I wonder if this powder needs quite a while to meld. Or perhaps the brew was just too young early on and the tannin levels were more appropriate with a little more age on it?

Either way at this point in the brew's development, I was satisfied with the mason jar's results and confident it was a good direction to pull the brew in, so I added the same ppm to the gallon I had used on the mason jar.

This is still very tart, almost sour, so much so that I kinda wish I had brewed this as a sour from the get-go. I'm playing around with balancing it with more sweetness, but I think, tentatively, it might actually be better left fairly dry. The sweetness doesn't - per my tentative tests - actually balance the tartness, so much as it fights it. This may require further bench tests and aging to sort out, but for the time being I'm going to leave it alone for a while to meld with the tannin adjustment.

I'm not getting a ton of the floral notes, it's possible if I wanted those to come forward that the flowers should've been left in longer. But I am also not sure whether I would actually want them to be much more prevalent, either - it might detract from the pom/pineapple if I bring the florals too forward.

07/18/2021 - racked, blended, filtered

Today I racked the mason jar and the gallon carboy together by filtering them through the buon vino minijet coarse filter pads and through to another carboy. I had more product than would fit in the gallon carboy, surprisingly, but only maybe 16 oz, so I didn't think it was really worth keeping.

I did another taste test and at this point, it's really just tasting like a sour. It's almost aggressively target, but my bench trials have all indicated that sugar doesn't actually balance this out well. It makes the beverage more crushable - but it loses a lot of its flavor in the process. A sweeter version of this mead just isn't anywhere near as interesting as the dry version, where the tartness is allowed to shine.

I think maybe the solution here is to bottle condition this so it drinks just like a sour beer. Sour beers aren't exactly my favorite thing, but I drink them often enough that I feel like this would actually perform reasonably well if it were treated like one.

That said, I may still sit on this idea for a little bit before pursuing it, possibly ask some friends for their input, etc.

07/21/2021 - splitting, bottling, backsweetening

Today I split the batch into two, both at roughly 1/2 gallon volume.

Sparkling Mead

One half-gallon was bottled with 0.5 oz table sugar to prime it for bottle conditioning. Because the pomegranate pineapple combination is so remarkably tart, this tastes quite a bit like a sour beer (as previously mentioned), and I really wanted to see how well that would come to fruition (or not) if I tried to carbonate it.

Still Mead

The other half-gallon received what was intended to be 7 oz of pumpkin blossom honey, and also stabilized with potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite per package instructions so that fermentation (hopefully) does not restart. The goal for this half is to get a still, semi-sweet mead, which will help offset the remarkable tartness of the pomegranate pineapple combination. I haven't measured the gravity on it yet, but if I got anywhere close to as much honey in there as I was trying to, it should be about 1.030 (6 oz honey in 1/2 gal would've been 1.028). I am also hoping that the richer pumpkin blossom mead can stand out against the incredibly tart fruit flavors better than additional clover honey.

This half of the batch has been left in secondary while I wait to ensure fermentation doesn't restart.

Tasting Notes

I had some leftover mead after bottling that my roommate helped me taste test. The leftovers were from the bottling side, so it was not back sweetened, but I tried to backsweeten the leftover sample with some of the spilled pumpkin blossom honey (which was spilled onto a sanitized surface, by the way!) just to see how that honey was playing with the mead.

I don't think I was able to sweeten it quite as much with the scrap honey as the main half gallon was sweetened, but it did still noticeably improve the balance from the perspective of a still mead. My roommate also pointed out that this particular mead served chilled also helps take the edge off of the tartness - in fact, so much so that combined with the extra sweetness, it's practically juice. We put the last bit of the leftover sample on some ice and wow is that drinkable.

I think I can definitely try leaving the herbs on this for a little bit longer next time, if I decide I want that extra complexity. At the moment they are not particularly distinct in the flavor profile or the aroma - I mean, you won't taste this and go "Oh, there's hibiscus in here? And... heather?". However, I do feel that the general category of "floral" has been improved by the addition of the herbs, and that adds a little bit of complexity to this mead. If I decide that floral component is worth keeping, perhaps the herbs should be allowed to steep longer next time. On the other hand, we're fresh off the initial rounds of feedback from Mead Stampede right now, and I know that one of the most common pieces of feedback is many meads lost their honey under the other aromas and flavors. I wonder if perhaps next time, I could drop the herbs in favor of a stronger honey varietal that can still punch through the aggressively tart pomegranate and pineapple flavor.

Regardless of what tweaks I decide to go with next time, I am excited to see how both of these options turn out in maybe a week or so, when the bottled stuff finishes carbonating. I am also hoping it carbonates OK - considering this is at ~15% ABV already, and the yeast's alcohol tolerance is 16%. When I bottled this I thought the mead was at more like 11%, and I didn't think fermentation would have a difficult time restarting from there - but it might from just 1% under its on-paper ABV tolerance.

07/26/2021 - taste testing the carbonated version

Taste tested one of the bottles that's supposed to be conditioning today. It did not carbonate, but chilled it still tastes really good. It's tart, but with just a little bit of sweetness and with the cold cutting into the tartness, the balance comes out remarkable. It's not even really coming across all that much like a sour when chilled, which makes me question whether the carbonation is necessary or would help. Maybe just a touch of honey to backsweeten and chilling this particular beverage is what's necessary to dial it in?

Since I'm writing this update fresh off the Mead Stampede results, I am not sure this would perform super well there, given they taste at room temperatures. But holy crap I might have to look into making more of this, it's really good...

08/30/2021 - taste testing with a friend (carbonated & chilled version)

Tasted the carbonated version (chilled) with a friend who hit the nail on the head. The mead had an ever-so-slightly watery character to it, kinda like a certain brand of orange juice neither of us could remember the name of but which we both recalled. She also commented on how the brew was still acidic, and discussed how I had tried more honey and more tannin, yet both simply neutralized the mead instead of balancing it.

To address these issues, she bench trialed additions of ground pepper and brown sugar, and they worked perfectly. That little extra heat from the pepper meant the mead didn't lose its tart identity as the sweetness increased, especially since that sweetness came from brown sugar with its slightly burnt character. It rounded out the mead flawlessly, making it a fuller tasting experience with more body and an identifiable but less harsh tartness. I'm absolutely going to have to figure out how to add these changes in the next version I am brewing.

This also made the mead much more of a pomegranate mead with hints of pineapple, pepper, and other tropical notes (possibly thiols and such from the X5 yeast). This is good - I used more pomegranate than pineapple with the intent that the pomegranate be flavor-forward but without me needing to spend an absurd amount of money on using pom juice for the entire volume. I'm excited it can be pom-forward without being back-breakingly expensive.

These changes all seem to remove the need for chilling this beverage, although I might still chill it anyway depending on the weather. On a hot day especially, this chilled with those last finishing touches could be amazing.

Retrospective

Process Improvement

This worked out OK in my bucket, but it looks like pomegranate acts a bit like hibiscus, and produces a very thick layer of bubbles while mixing up the must on brew day, and sometimes during early primary fermentation. Make sure there is plenty of headspace in any containers used on brew day or for primary fermentation.

Recipe Improvements

Floral additions do appear to have added subtle amounts of complexity, but they aren't super identifiable. I think they should either be allowed to sit for longer next time, or they should be omitted entirely to make room for a stronger honey varietal to come forward.

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