My linden honey mead No.051524 survived the trip with some very minor leaks. I knew it wasn't 100% done fermenting but close enough to done that I wasn't worried about sealing it in bottles for a little while. No disasters occurred. One bottle did leak a tiny bit, but that was less too do with fermentation CO2 pressure build up, and more to do with the fact that It was a honey jar with a metal lid that wasn't quite as airtight as the lids/corks on the other bottles I was able to pack. Just a tiny wet spot on the packing paper I wrapped it in. No damage to the items in my suitcase.

I finally got a hydrometer reading on it (I forgot to bring my hydrometer with on my trip) and it's not quite dry yet, but the D-47 yeast I used is taking a long time to ferment that last tiny bit of honey so I added a little EC-1118 yeast to finish it off. I didn't rehydrate it properly first. Hopefully it still gets going.

I'm pretty sure I left my wine thief (which is actually a stainless steel turkey baster I am using as a wine thief) at my sister's house. Oops.

The rubber stopper on my blackberry honey mead No.011324 was ajar when I returned. I tasted it. It doesn't have that wet cardboard taste that comes from oxygenation, but it doesn't taste good either. I bottled it in any case. I'll try it in a couple months and see if it tastes better or worse.

As you can see in the photo, the color of the pomegranate wine (right) is almost exactly the same as the forbidden rice wine (left).

I also racked the blackberry blossom honey mead from a gallon wide mouth fermenter into 2 half gallon bottles. One ended up much fuller than the other, and there were about 16 oz of pomegranate wine+lees left in the pomegranate fermenter after bottling, so I added the pomegranate dregs to the less full half gallon bottle.

Technically that makes that bottle my first attempt at a melomel.

I racked the December batch of hōjicha tea mead yesterday. It tastes young. There are no off flavors, but it needs more aging to help the flavors mellow. It has a sharp alcohol kick that you feel but don't really taste. Just a burning sensation in the throat as you swallow.

I tried experimenting with some acids I bought (lactic, malic, tartaric). I determined that this mead doesn't need any acid additions after all. Of the three, the tartaric acid was the only one that didn't make it taste worse, but it also didn't make it taste better. Hōjicha tea naturally contains gallic acid, which is also found in oak apples (the fruit of the oak tree), aka gall nuts according to its wikipedia page. There's actually a tannin powder brewing suppliers sell made from gall nuts.

The mouthfeel is a little thin. I'll wait until June to see how much it improves on its own and then maybe add some maltodextrin if I'm still not happy with it.

I plan to submit this one to the Mead Stampede competition.

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A while ago I split the blackberry blossom honey mead into two batches, and blended one with my pomegranate wine.

I bottled the blended batch now that it has almost entirely cleared.