Mead Update and Perry

My two meads finished primary fermentation about two weeks ago. Today I racked them to secondary to continue aging. I had a sneaky taste of them as well. The mead fermented with the ale yeast is the sweeter of the two. The samples I tasted had a lot of yeast still in them so that might not be the best indication of taste.

I made perry about four months ago using pears from my Dad's garden. I froze them and they were left in the freezer for a long time (a few months) which was probably too long. I eventually got round to juicing them. Juicing was a real pain and they didn't yield much juice so the 1 gallon demi-john had to be topped up using apple juice. I used Lalvin EC1118 yeast which I used in a cider before and it worked well. I got round to bottling the perry this evening. It smells a bit vinegary and tastes only a little bit better than it smells. I think maybe the pears introduced a bit of wild yeast or something. The new husband reckons we stash the bottles in the shed and go back to them in a few months to see if they are any better. I admire his optimism and hope that it gets better.

I used my new mini bottler for the first time this evening. It's a great little gadget. It's a tap and a wand with a valve at the end. You just put the wand in the bottle and the little valve moves up and fills your bottle. I think this will save lots of time and hassle while bottling beer.