by Brianne McElhiney,  Sunset Assistant to the editor-in-chief

The first round of fermentation for our mead is done, and I am feeling great about it! 
  

We racked our honey-wine for the first time the other week, meaning we siphoned off the vibrant clear mead into a new carboy leaving the nasty looking dead yeast cells and the mysterious brown fleck at the bottom of the old one.

Vanessa and I siphoning the mead into a clean new carboy, while being careful not to disturb the sediment on the bottom of the old one.  

Before we replaced the stopper and airlock on the new carboy, preparing it for the final round of fermentation, we decided to have a little taste test.  I don't want to sing the praises (do, re, mead...)  too soon, but ours tastes pretty good compared to many of the others we have tried, both homemade and professionally made.  Perhaps the mysterious brown fleck was beneficial. 

Tasting mead-  From the left:  Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief Brianne McElhiney, photo intern Vanessa Speckman, imaging specialist Kimberley Burch.  

Our honey has menthol note from the eucalyptus trees in our area, resulting in a slight medicinal flavor in the mead, but the draught is still rather enjoyable.  Meads reach their prime a few years into aging, so we are very excited it tastes as good as it does this early in the game.  

We have now moved the mead into Sunset's wine cellar for another month or so while the fermenting subsides, then we will rack it again and bottle it for aging.  The mead will be ready to drink in a couple months, but it will be best if we let it age at least a couple years.  I'm not sure we will be able to wait that long.