Tropical Ambrosia Melomel

Classification: mead, melomel

Source: Charlie Moody (chmood@photobooks.com), Mead Digest #503, 10/13/96

NOTE: I pretty much left it alone all summer, except to rack both carboys into a single 6.5 G & let it sit. Average temp 85F. Color is of apple juice, only richer & deeper, and clear as a bell. Flavor is mellow, fruity, and rich (IMO), still, and just sweet enough - no bite, no off-flavors. Delicious and refreshing - especially chilled!

Ingredients:

14-1/2 # orange blossom honey
4-1/2 gallons spring water
2 pineapples, peeled, cored & chunked
4 mangoes, peeled and chunked
1 tangerine, sliced and seeded
2 cups dried cranberries
7 ounces ginger juice
1 cup strong black tea
zest of 2 limes
zest of 3 oranges
3-1/2 tsp. yeast hulls
7 yeast energizer tablets
1 quart of yeast starter ( - bread yeast, 3 packets - water, boiling, 2.5 pints - honey, generic, 1 cup - yeast, RS Premier Couvee, 2 packets)

Procedure:

I heated 2 gallons of water, then added 5 quarts of the honey, got it all stirred in, then brought the temp. up to about 180F. Kept it there for 30 min. Everything went fine until I started adding the fruit to the must. I quickly realised that the pot I was cooking in was running out of room, and I still had plenty of fruit to go!

I grabbed my half-gallon pyrex cup & scooped out about 3 pints, and added the rest of the fruit to it, stuck it in the microwave & zapped it several times, stirring after each zap, while struggling to get a completely-full 4-gallon pot off the stove and into to sink to cool. *sigh* Not all the must made it.

The stuff was thick as anything and *extremely* sweet (apparently even more so than my first must (SG=3D1.1225)), so I figured I'd better dilute it some...oops, then I had 6.5 G of must filling up my 6.5 G fermenting bucket! *sigh* Now it's a two-carboy batch...at least there was room for the yeast!

Ever try to pick up a *full* 6.5 G bucket & pour it *all* into a funnel perched on top of a carboy? *sigh* Of course you haven't, and neither have I: I started bailing into the funnel, and making an incredible wreck of the kitchen...which I then managed to track all over the carpet....

By this time, I had fruit clogging the funnel, pools of fresh honey-glue creeping across my kitchen counters and floor, sticky spots on the floor throughout the house, and two open carboys, but I finally got the fruit distributed between the bottles, got the fruit *rammed* through the funnel and *into* the carboys (*grrr*), locks installed, and everything cleaned up (or at least, wiped down).

Tropical Ambrosia Melomel

Ingredients:

Procedure:

Specifics: