Soulfree, Careless.

Edit 9/24 - Meh. I mean, I'll drink it, but I'm not going to try and win anyone to the mead camp with it.
Edit 8/10 - Bottled, some with ginger liqueur, some not. Some with a bit more honey, some not. Dry, tart.
Edit 5/30 - 490g fresh ginger, sliced thin; 400g fresh pineapple, big chunks; 1 medium lemon, sliced 'n' stabbed real good, some bits of peel included. Vodka to the top of the above ingredients in a jar...about 500mL of Smirnoff.
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蜂蜜酒 四番
ショウガの蜂蜜酒
--2キログラム　蜂蜜
--500グラム　麦芽エキス
--12グラム カスケード　ホップ (20分)
--8リットル　水
イースト：　11.5グラム　「Safale 04」

Mead Batch #04
Ginger Mead
--2kg Honey
--0.5kg Light malt extract, dry
--12g Cascade hops, 20m boil with malt
--8 L water (for total volume of 9.4 liters)
--11.5g Safale 04 dry yeast
OG: 1.080-1.085 (estimated, no hydrometer at the moment)
FG: Didn't measure
ABV: I don't know, probably, like 10%
IBU: 4

Dissolve the malt extract (for some nutrients) and boil with hops for 20 minutes. Preferably hops that weren't just sitting on the shelf for months at Tokyu Hands. I'm not convinced this will have enough beer character to be called braggot. Mix everything together and pitch your yeast. I'd prefer 05, but my options were 04 or lager yeast. It's going to be a hot summer.

Now, you may be asking where the ginger is. That's for later. I will be making a splendiferous cocktail of lemon and ginger, with a little more ginger, and some ginger thrown in for good measure. This will get blended with the mead after fermentation slows.

And yes, my first brew/mazing day in Japan. :D i mean... (^-^)

Dunkelweizen

Blackberry Stout tasting.
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It was brewing day here on Matadero, so I've been busy. I really wanted to do a recipe that was entirely my own, and decided to try making a Bavarian dunkelweizen. If you've never had the style, I can strongly recommend both the Franziskaner and Weihenstephaner. It's a german wheat beer with more emphasis on the malt that I think makes it more drinkable than your average hefeweizen. My numbers missed the style parameters by a few gravity points and several IBU, but I'm optimistic. I also decided to try using filtered (Brita...took forever, buy at the store next time) water instead of tap. It was also my first time using a dry malt extract, which has a hot break that liquid extract doesn't. I picked out two caramel malts for color and sweetness, as well as a roasted malt to push the color closer to a dunkel. Hop selection was a bit limited, so I list below both what I used and what I wrote into the recipe. This difference in hops accounts for the added bitterness.

Batch #4
Dunkelweizen (extract), Hefeweizen Ale Yeast (White Labs P300)
--3 lbs Wheat Malt Extract (dry)
--4 lbs Ultralight Malt Extract (liquid)
--8 oz Crystal 40L
--8 oz Crystal 80L
--2 oz Roasted Barley [4oz Rostmalz]*
--1 oz Palisade 9.7%AA (60min) [1 oz Tettnang 3-6%AA, 60min]*
--1 oz Santium 5.8%AA (5min) [1 oz Fuggles 3.5-5.5%AA, 5min]*
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.016 after 21 days in primary. No secondary.
ABV: ~5.4%
Calc. IBUs: 29.4 [14.6]*

[]* Intended recipe, substitutions made based on availability.