First Time's the Charm

[Foothiller]

Judging in the El Dorado County Fair was today, with entries throughout Northern California. I don't have my other results yet, but my Peach Melomel (mead) won first place in a category that also included spiced beers, fruit beers, and ciders. I went on to get an honorable mention in the final Best of Show round. Notably, this was the first time I have made a mead, so the experience of lots of experimentation in brewing beers and some dabbling in winemaking, together with a fair amount of research before I started this batch, paid off. I'm looking forward to getting my comment sheets from today and from the California State Fair in a few weeks, to refine things and start the next batch. Meadmaking is a long process, with this batch spending about 9 months in a glass carboy between fermentation and bottling, then a few weeks in bottles.

[Gymrat]

Nice work Congratulations!

[BigPapaG]

That's Awesome News!

Congratulations!

[Inkleg]

That's fantastic Foothiller, Congratulations!!!

[John Sand]

Wow! Extremely cool!

[russki]

Congrats! Care to share the recipe?

[FedoraDave]

Well done! Congratulations! Sometimes the first time is a charm. It happened to me with my very first lager.

Be sure to post the comments when you get them. Those judges sheets are pure gold.

[Beer-lord]

Congrats man! That is great news. Keep up the great brewing.

[Foothiller]

Sorry to be so slow to reply to Russki's request for the recipe, but I have had a lot of business travel recently. The recipe was simple enough (honey, bottled peach nectar from Whole Foods Market (100% peach, pasteurized, no preservatives), white grape juice, vanilla extract, yeast nutrient, and Lalvin 71B-1122 wine yeast), but I think the process was as important as the recipe, adding the honey in increments to keep from over-stressing the yeast.

Initially, I used 2.7 lb of honey, 1 quart of peach nectar, and 1 qt of white grape juice in an initial 1.75 gallon volume with OG = 1.069. Fermentation started quickly, with 25% attenuation after 1 day, so after 1 day I added 1.5 lb of honey, heated in water to dissolve the honey, plus yeast nutrient. After another day, I added another 1.2 lb of honey dissolved in water, and more yeast nutrient. After another day (the 3rd day) I added a second quart of peach nectar, 1/2 tbsp of vanilla extract, and more yeast nutrient. I racked from the LBK to a carboy after 2 weeks and added 0.7 lb of honey to fill the carboy with CO2 from additional fermentation. After another 5 weeks I racked to another carboy and added boiled water to fill the carboy, and let it age for the remainder of 9 months after the initial brewing, before bottling. The calculated OG of the combined ingredients was 1.081, and apparent attenuation of 95% produced FG = 1.004.

Now, promise that no one will use this to compete against me

With more complete results out since the competition, it turns out I also placed second in the same category, with Cherry-Apple Cider. I will post that in a separate thread. I don't have the score sheets from my beer entries yet, but as one of the judges in this competition, I know that we had many excellent beers, with 3rd place often having scores of 39 to 40. We have some excellent brewers in my homebrew club (including multiple National-rank judges and a Grand Master judge), in addition to other brewers from other parts of Northern California.

[BigPapaG]

That's awesome! Looks like a great recipe too!

Congrats!

[russki]

Thanks for the recipe - I'll have to try this!