Christa's Strawberry Green Apple Mead - Surprisingly Good!

we got some fruit that was on sale so we're making a fruit sale me so stick around for that recipe coming up right after [Music] this hey everybody and welcome to another episode of meeting of the minds I'm Dave and I'm Kristal and uh you know that's what we're here to do we're here to make a me what we got here some fruit we got on sale so we decided you know what let's throw it in now here's what we got so what we acquired here was roughly four Granny Smith apples now these came out of um a large conglomeration of apples so if you walk in sometimes they'll have some uglier fruit that they'll throw into a big bag and sell you to it sell it to you super cheap yeah that's where these Granny Smiths come from they didn't look great but after I sliced them up and froze them and now they're throwing they look worse but they'll taste fine we also have some fresh strawberries here that we got cut up froze and unfroze now those are going in as well here's our fermentor it's three gallon a large or wide not large but a wide mouth fur monster and we're going to be using the made for this specific occasion bag no fermentation weights cuz again whatever you do you I don't care they don't work right so we're taking these sale fruits and this regularly priced honey throw it in there and see what we get now the honey we're using is clover honey because I wanted to pick something neutral that wasn't um going to be too flowery not going to be too Woody like the mosquite or bring us anything that would overpower the apples or the strawberries so let's start putting our fermentor together and get everything underway the cool thing yeah you're probably about this is that this fur monster has a spigot on it so we can rack it um from the spigot with a tube instead of the whole siphon and stuff with minimal Lees transfer but I don't know the more I use this versus the one without it it it seems like six to one half dozen in the other because you got to tip this to get the last little bit of liquid out if you're going to be greedy you I'd love to hear how you feel about it but I don't feel like I'm necessarily gaining or losing much one way over the other yeah it's a nice option to have some manufacturers to do this solid but on the tap here it'll say on and off the one you can see is the one it is so don't get confused if you see off it's definitely off it's not like oh if I turn it on will it go on then no if it says on it's on don't ruin your floors all right ah so the bag the bag right I'm not a huge fan of bags but whatever when you go to the bruise door you got to cut corners and save money somehow and jars are expensive another thing I'm not keen on about the bags is with a jar here's the thing you know I like to complain about a lot of stuff and about shaking and oxygenating I go oh why bother but the truth of the matter is I know that I'm built or I have that built in typically cuz when we're using it from a jar or a Jugger or whatever we're shaking it like an insane amount typically a couple of times of Cycles to get all the honey out of there so I'm just doing it in a smaller Thing versus having to do this but since we're doing this I don't have that luxury so we're going to have to use the giant paddle The Petal and like with the bag we can't or with unlike the bag we can get all the honey out of a jar can't necessarily get every last bit of the honey out of this bag yeah there needs to be like one of those big '90s toothpaste squeezers to get all the yeah just every time we use the bag I feel like if I have thought ahead I'd hang like a clothes line and just have a a little pin hold this and just let it go overnight but you guys don't have that kind of time and neither do we oh man I'm just going to give this a few more squeezes then we'll be on our way cuz you guys don't want to see me here ringing out a bag for the rest of your life and mine all right we'll call that good since we're going to be adding fruit I'm not worried about the sugar lost here even though I am just a little bit so hypothetically there's our 3 lbs of Honey now we're going to be watering with this whole gallon cuz if we were in a one gallon fermenter maybe add water to a gallon I don't want to stop where I think it is I'm not worried about the avv being super high or super low we're just doing it we're just doing it guys I mean if you have a specific gravity you can add more honey later like if I wanted to I can go crazy but yeah they crazy now if that ain't oxygen I don't know what it is here goes the paddle I will say that as you dive deeper into this you start using different Honeys from different trees and different flowers exclusively you'll start to notice the like the subtle but different different colors of each like cuz to the untrained eye the orange blossom might look a lot like the Clover we used but I think in solution here you can see the color really comes out in the orange blossom it would be much paler and obviously the mosquit goes super dark MH but there's also not a whole lot of variety in the the floral notes or whatever cuz it's just going to be Clover so it's just that regular old honey smell with basically nothing else behind it right but that's why I wanted it cuz I wanted to sort of keep the strawberries and the apples true and they're probably going to bring a little tartness to it I feel like that's close I might do more later we'll see what happens there's our must so now let's get our yeast nutrient and our nutritional yeast into it so full disclosure I went and got a little bit of fade o cuz it's you know everybody's raving about it so I got some I read the uh ingredients and correct me if I'm wrong but is it just ground up yeast cuz I'm looking at it here it is I bought it and it's like oh it's a blend of inactive yeast did that's what nutritional yeast is well that's thing maybe there's something I'm missing here but I feel like I read that label a lot cuz I really wanted to know what was in it and why it everybody thinks it's so great versus FID K or fermax or any of that stuff if I'm missing something can someone please let me know cuz the directions just make me feel like we're already doing that yeah I don't know what's in this though I forgot to read the directions not the directions but the ingred ingredients I mean it smells like nitrogen if you know what that smells like so we're doing a teaspoon of each of those thereo all right I'll give another little swirl [Applause] here all right so now that's all mixed in now is probably the best time to take a gravity reading but here's the thing if you want to get super technical or as close as possible what we should probably do is put our sanitized bag in throw the fruit in let all the juice that's leeched out into the must and get a more accurate reading I don't think it's going to change a whole bunch but since I don't want to take two readings let's do that so it'll just make it easier I don't know how much is going to fit in this bag but cuz we got four of these Granny Smith green apples I'll let you do those I'll get these strawberries going they're so mushy yeah yeah these were sliced pretty thin and then we uh froze them intentionally to make them pretty sloppy oh sh just out all I it smells the honey I should have smelled it earlier they smelled like [Applause] apples now this kind of feels a little um I want to say like a '90s flavor combination like green apple and strawberry but I was going to think like green apple not green apple like kiwi and strawberry that might be nice like '90s fruit punch throwback yeah and we've got so much fruit in here this is a disaster I mean you guys see what's going on here right it's a problem so what do we do do we pivot throw some more honey in here of a different variety because that's all I have of the Clover to make sure this all gets wet or what cuz we can't leave it like this I refuse to leave 6 in of free just hanging out not being exploited I'm not worried cuz the CO2 curtain will sort of be protecting them from stuff but that sucks to lose so much yeah dang all right yeah we're going to have to Pivot which maybe it'll be okay because here's the thing we've got two pounds ready to go cuz everything else is either bigger or I don't want to use it for this we got two lbs of Wild Flower uh whoops okay what if now just is just speaking off the cuff and we can we have some apple juice my heart wasn't set on a sizer but I guess that would be I mean here's the thing we're off the rails we're in Uncharted Territory cuz this is not and here's the thing before we even started I was like I don't have any Brew bags save for this one and this one is always dicey because of the here you see why yes I thought well maybe I'll just throw the fruit in without a bag that's always a hassle this is a hassle as well dang it yeah we're going to put some apple juice in here I guess it's going to be easier so what we have here is some Martinelli apple juice we used on a different project didn't use it all obviously and now it's going to go in here so retooling from the ground up I'm going to throw the juice in there first let's get a gravity read see where it's at and then we'll think about adding the honey to where it should be but I at least want to get enough of this in there that it's going to cover that fruit up you see that when God fills a bag he squeezes an [Laughter] apple all right we're still going to be a little out of the liquid but that is typical for this bag and plus it's going to float up anyway so I'm not going to sweat it any further that being said let me give it a little bit of a mix here and then we'll take a little gravity reading see where we're going to be at because I'd like to be at least 10% if not like 12 or above move this stupid slip sock out of the way and gently drop this very new hydrometer into a very old graduated cylinder there we go remember to sanitize your stuff in Star sand if you see any bubbles that aren't from me beating the must up it's from that don't fear them okay it doesn't like you know you see how much stick is out it doesn't look terrible and maybe we'll just call it okay cuz we're at 1.0 70 which I think will probably put us at around 10% is yeah I think so 9 and 11 we'll call it so I was you know usually I like to shoot for 100 points of gravity because it's a nice round number but also with the fruit it could be right there'll be a little bit of sugars in there but I don't think we're going to see a huge cuz you how much is going to get extracted how much are available these I was eating some of these strawberries earlier and they didn't seem particularly sweet so I you know we're in sort of Uncharted water here however that base line of 70 points is good enough for me now since we are using apples and now we're doubling down with apple juice um here's the thing let me tell you a quick story about CET yeah so we go to the brew store and here's how you need to approach people's opinions and recommendations go to the brew store but three or four trips back back buying a bunch of yeast D behind the counter super nice dude he goes whoa guess what everybody is making ciders using cvet and I go whoa apples cuet we started using cuvet for apples most recently same dude same happy go-lucky look in his eye goes you know what everybody's using for ciders Premier Blanc coat to blanc no cat to Blanc yes yeah not Premier not the yellow one code DE Blan C de Blan oh really both or what did they suddenly switch right so and here's the thing I've used both Blanc and cvet you may be seen we maybe even used up both on this channel with apples they both work fine is what I'm getting at now maybe he mistakenly recommended couet for apples and I just found that it really worked don't know Mor the story is you know were they right or were they wrong I don't know what was best for apples for you and because I could have had the exact opposite experience right oh I actually tried Cub it sucked yeah right didn't it was fine but we're going to throw about a half pack in here there me roughly so that's it it's not too outlandish I was you know strawberries and apples shouldn't be too wild however I don't think we've ever done a combo like this before we've never used Granny Smith apples before right and so that's another weird thing that is you know my rule of green things this may or may not be you know what I mean I love Granny Smith apples they are my favorite Apple I think it'll be okay we've been focusing a lot of our recent experience other experiments around what works good with apples because the Lucy roses and the cosmic crisps we've been using have been dynamite and we accidentally stumbled into you know cuz you get stupid you run out of containers and you go well let's just throw it anywhere so I had a jar of Apple Ambrosia gold Apple oo sacrum we get this much blueberry left what do we do with I say throw it in there I don't care it'll whatever we'll drink it later awesome total by accident apples and blueberries just sings but those were Ambrosia Golds and these are going to be tart this might end up being like a rhubarb pie I feel because of all the sourness maybe but we'll see so yeah let me throw the lid on this we're going to throw this into the Brew closet and between 10 and 15 days if I forget or whatever however the schedule works out we're going to pull this out of here so you can see all the colors is going to be leeched out of those strawberries we see also how it affects the liquid so uh we'll see you in just a few moments after this has been through some fermentation okay so it's been 13 days with the strawberries and the green apple in suspension and during the whole thing I kept making sure I shook it and I would get in there and sort of make the bag go in it I'm pretty sure it went okay it looks pretty good it's clearing relatively well so now next step is to get it into this and this or one of those and this I don't know how much we're going to extract it's probably going to be closer to the two gallons but let's get to [Music] racking all right as far as we could that was almost perfect almost okay so we got pretty close to two gallons I probably could have pushed a little more we were getting into that LE and n danger zone totally fine this one will just take a little bit longer to clear this was the first one I mean it's negligible but we're going to take a reading and see where we're at cuz the air lock has been pretty stagnant for a while yeah and I mean for strawberry and apple I feel like in 13 days like this looks really good clear Clarity wise obviously it's not clear clear but right I mean relatively it didn't go crazy did we put p can s in this or no okay we thought about it and then decided against it I think that might have been for the best cuz everything looks pretty much intact yeah okay any guesses here we go oo I'm going to guess 1. we're like 999 or 998 we're somewhere in there but close enough so that's like 72 points of gravity we lost yeah we started at 1.70 so here's the thing like young strawberry ferments have a weird smell and flavor so I'm going to advise against tasting it I don't think we're going to do that here when we were racking it and like the smell from going from that to the bottles I was like yeah I don't know if I want to taste that strawberries always bring a weird a weird Funk that is all their own it ages out eventually but while it's there it's like it's part of the same principle that leeches all the color it leaves them like these gray blobs but almost like a little bready or a little too well that's like sometimes we've made strawberry stuff that had an aftertaste of like popcorn yeasty which is probably kind of what that smells like yeah a little bit not as bad as like the first few ones cuz this doesn't have as as much strawberry as we've used in other recipes when we go heav the strawberry it is Big Time there yep but yeah it's totally fine it went uh what do we got okay so what do we sitting at ABV wise we are sitting at 9.72% so it's like a it's okay it's yeah what we we lb of honey why was the it was 070 because well you know we didn't count for the sugars and the right but three oh yeah oh right cuz we had this I forgot we had to supplement this with the cider or the Apple Juice I mean this was I told forgot about that we had to add the the apple juice the Martinelli's apple juice to make sure the bag stayed wet Ah that's why we soow and we didn't record it yes we added half a gallon of Martinelli's Apple Juice I think we did record that right maybe we did you that if we did I'm pretty sure we did because I had to go oh no yeah so the the Martinelli is what dropped the ABV or the the the um gravity and thereby the ABV as well H well whatever so it's probably wrong no it's probably right that's probably what we it was probably it would have been higher if it had stayed at a gallon of water but we had a supplement to keep that fruit huh this is a weird one guys well anyway I'm going to put this back in here we're going to put some air locks on these and uh you know take it from there all they need is time we'll see what they do to clear up and so on and continue W all right so here we are in the future you you know you saw us put it in the bucket we didn't really record any of the other stuff cuz mostly forgot yeah we have so many things going but you know whatever went from a bucket into these things so as you may or may not remember I didn't we use clover honey T yeah you probably just saw that anyway so we're going to get this you know moving we let it sit on the fruit the apples and the strawberries for about 17 days 13 13 days they think about 10 to 15 so we're right there in The Sweet Spot now you guys know me and green apples there's strawberry in here too so let's do a reading see what we got and take a test of our taste variety I don't know where my baster is found it all right I love green apple but I'm very excited that he uh I wouldn't say allowed I mean because I don't care that's I'm not going to drink this stuff like it's totally fine whatever you want to make no you know this stuff and he might like it you don't know we don't know we don't but we pretty much fall on opposite sides of the fence like the methylin side she takes apples of the green variety and other such things the clarity is really nice it is nice I'm surprised at the color I thought that these strawberries would have made it a little more rossh but it is like it if you didn't know any about it you'd probably just think this is a traditional yeah all right so let's pop it down see what we're looking at barely floating okay so we're like 992 oh so we got to do some math yeah more math than we did before cuz spoiler alert we took a reading when we did this it was 998 yeah it's gone down to 0992 so so what you know there you go it ate a little more of the sugars or something this will be the ABV over here whoa it be over 10% well maybe right I mean six points what we had it at 9.72 so maybe it'll be close let's see what this tastes like be right back all right with tiny taster at hand we're ready to see what this is I love how clear it is I I don't know I just can't get over how clear it is for being like apples like real apples Reg regular strawberries Apple Juice I mean and personally in our experience we've had trouble with strawberries clearing yeah maybe it was the AET of the apple or something that cuz these are all Granny Smiths right yes we had four Granny Smiths so we got like big bushels of apples like there were seconds at the grocery store and of course people are getting rid of the Granny Smith that's where they all went into this thing it smells good yeah it's a little H it smells like strawberries to me yeah I was going to say the strawberry is kind of hidden but it sort of sneaks up on you there in the background it is incredibly clear yeah it's not bad yeah I don't think it's great I like it you like from the first time we tested it taste tested it cuz spoiler alert we did that tooo yeah when it was 99.998 the Apple was so much more pronounced and it was so much less enjoyable this where it stands now it smells like a strawberry fruit snack but it tastes like a watery nothing a little bit it to me it tastes more like strawberry than Apple M I think it's good I think it's a good mix because if we when we made like just strawberry ones you get that weird we have gotten that weird popcorn aftertaste and you don't get that with this it's like popcorn or foot or like strawberries are difficult to deal with maybe or maybe I'm just hand fisted with them but you know since you can see the bottles here we obviously pled on cuz I I personally got these ready because I know Crystal likes it dry and I would say this needs tons of sugar I was waiting for him to be like you know what I think would make this better is if we added more honey hell it's 99 too and there's nothing about it like it's so like it's so clear because there's nothing in it it's pretty insubstantial like for like 10% if it if it's not going to have any body like there's no legs to it it better have something that gives you a kick in the back of the throat this doesn't have that so I'm saying it would need a little sweetness but it's yours you know so that's not if if you think this is good I I'm in try to you know let it stand cuz I'm not I this isn't something I would be like oh boy what's that realistically if you wanted to we could do an experiment and we can bottle one and sweeten another I like it the way it is then we'll just keep the way it is cuz that's thing I even if you made it sweeter and I was like oh now it's sweet and it's still something I wouldn't reach for if you like it then you should keep it the way that you like it it and it may be you know Bland to some or like yeah it doesn't really have legs but if it's cold I would have this like a hot summer day yeah that's the thing it it it serves a purpose like you know like you were saying like this is a summertime drink and a barbecue it's not super high AB it's not going to like stick to the back of your throat or make you thirstier on a hot day yeah it's light enough to have something heavy for food with it like you burgers or ribs and you had just like a nice cold chilled glass of this somewhere totally yeah that's totally fine I even think I would like put some in the big bottles and then have some in the smaller bottles because you could just drink it like cuz it's such a low not such a i 10% drinking out of the bottle [Music] feels maybe you're right whatever let's get this into the bottles and uh yeah you've seen that before but we're going to about you we're going to do it again yeah [Music] and there you have it a delightful pretty light strawberry easy on the apple and that's what I'm so surprised about too now that we're really diving into it the smell of the apple is there but like the acidity has sort of dissolved away to a palatable level I would make this again like there's nothing that I would even really change unless we made it again to add sweetness to see just how much it brings out I'm just I would be worried that it would bring out more of the Apple flavor adding sweetness it may or may not but like that that should be your thing right like the green apple was the whole reason for the season I mean it's there I can taste the green apple there is it's heavier strawberry but it still has a nice you know the green apple is there like yeah I I'm glad we used clover honey because the smell of the that Apple whatever it is it's like a weirdness that's not it's not apple and it's not normal but it comes with fermentation but whatever totally fine yeah this wasn't my idea I'm not a green apple fan if it were up to me I would change it utterly but totally fine if you want to make it like that you know what I mean do it so that's that uh something light for summer you know depending on when you're watching this it could be coming up for us it'll soon so give it a shot and uh you know we'll see you on the next episode of meeting of the mines [Music] bye need a calculator just put it right there we're this tight the one that spits out theing it

Channel: Meading Of The Minds

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Id: 0PUKLZpFQ8A

Length: 31min 56sec (1916 seconds)

Published: Tue May 21 2024