Started a new batch of something today. Needed something easy to do, my attention wouldn’t have held. It’s a 1 gallon Zinfandel rose. The packet says it’s ready in 4 weeks! 
a 5 gallon red batch will be made after this one.
Work still has me in it’s grasp and I’ve basicly given up the idea of racking the mead until early september. I might get a chance in Auguest but other work I do goes in to over drive. I do noise control for a festival in Tullamore called Castlepalooza at Charleville Castle. It doesn’t stop me from coming up with ideas though!
A mint/lime flavouring is on the list now, sounds intresting but could be more of a summer drink but at least it will have time to age a bit The mead lager experiment I was going to try might be on hold until after winter, I’ve an idea it’ll get too cold in the castle during those months to keep fermentation going even for a lager yeast. I really don’t want it to freeze, I’ll leave that until next year if the Ice Wine process can be applyed to mead or it’s just for grapes Ice wine is a really sweet wine made in Canada where they leave the graps on the vine until the freezing weather comes in and freezes them, they extract the juice from the frozen grapes which contains much more sugar than they normally would. It can be fairly expensive but it’s great if you have a sweet tooth.
Well work is being a pain in the ass but I’ll try not to go on about that. I finally got a day off! A weekend off even. The sunday was quite hungover but I’ve found a new project to work on while the mead settles in to something that tastes nicer (and when I get around to racking it)
Nettle beer! Tasted nice, I have an area that has a lot of nettles I can harvest and it ferments pretty fast with a 2 week turn around. Awesome. Have to try a nettle lager once I finally pin down some lager making steps. I have a cold storage going to waste!
Nettle lager, yum. (hopefully)