BeerBorg

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.

Nice work Congratulations!

That's Awesome News!

Congratulations!

That's fantastic Foothiller, Congratulations!!!

Wow! Extremely cool!

Congrats! Care to share the recipe?

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.

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

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.

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

Congrats!

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