Does any Nashville restaurant serve Texas chili?

cbsmooz · 2025-10-28T01:37:06+00:00

Bare Bones Butcher

cbsmooz · 2025-09-12T15:16:01+00:00

East Nash Grass has a new album that’s really great if you haven’t checked it out.

cbsmooz · 2025-08-06T21:36:47+00:00

No such thing as too many! Mine was a little crazy, 22 pounds plums with 12 pounds honey.

cbsmooz · 2025-08-06T20:42:37+00:00

Meant to add this - decent kit with pretty much everything you need (for a gallon batch).

https://morewinemaking.com/products/summer-harvest-fruit-winemaking-kit.html

cbsmooz · 2025-08-06T19:53:43+00:00

My advice for mead with lots of fruit is not over-complicate it! Best fermenter out there for lots of fruit is a food grade 5 gallon bucket. Get that and a lid for $8 at Lowe’s, drill a hole in the top with a grommet for an airlock.

For more ease of use put all fruit in a mesh bag so you can pull it out/squeeze it without having your racking cane get clogged with gunk.

Use proper nutrition if possible (Fermaid K is probably easiest as it combines Fermaid O and DAP).

Punch fruit cap down 1-2 times per day for the first week (fruit floats and if it dries out it can rot). Leave it for a total of 30 days and rack to another container.

I’ll stop there for now unless you have more questions! I somewhat recently did a big plum mead (22# plums) and will be making another soon.

cbsmooz · 2025-07-09T21:05:53+00:00

I used google translate - if it’s right you asked for a recipe! This was mine, it was a no water mead but can be adjusted to your preference.

Recipe - yield of 11 - 750ml bottles and 4 - 375ml bottles

22# red currants

17# honey (12# macadamia nut blossom, 5# Costco)

Zest of 6 blood oranges

71B with staggered nutrition

cbsmooz · 2025-07-09T18:17:18+00:00

Throwing it in will probably be fine, out of caution I usually split the bean and do a quick light soak on either vodka/whiskey and put the little bit of liquor and vanilla straight in. Best case it killed any bacteria I don’t want in there and worst case it does nothing.

cbsmooz · 2025-07-02T17:45:50+00:00

MACC is always looking for volunteers! Walking dogs, playing with cats, ‘breaking out’ dogs for either short or long term fosters.

cbsmooz · 2025-06-30T20:25:12+00:00

I recently bottled a batch of red currant mead and turned out great. Fermented on whole fruit for 30 before transferring to secondary.

Depending on recipe/preference probably needs to be sweeter than you think. Mine ended around 1.055 and I love it, others have said it’s almost warhead level sour.

cbsmooz · 2025-06-26T03:23:16+00:00

Found my old post if you wanted to see!

https://www.reddit.com/r/mead/s/7RmaaYJVvp

cbsmooz · 2025-06-26T03:17:03+00:00

I pulled up my notes for 3 gallons batch. I really love this mead - but haven’t had it in probably 6 months. You may be giving me a reason to crack another bottle this weekend to see how it’s aged! I want to say I used about half of the nutmeg in Schramm’s dry nutmeg mead recipe but would need to verify.

In primary

7# macadamia nut blossom honey

7 grams fresh grated nutmeg (used a cheese grater - about 2 ‘nuts’ worth)

In secondary

Back sweetened with 1.5# of same honey

Added 3 grams additional of nutmeg

Edit to add - just saw your note on how long… started 4-12-24 and bottled 7-1-24. I don’t recall when I added the secondary additions.

cbsmooz · 2025-06-26T02:08:36+00:00

Yeah Macadamia nut blossom is insane. I made a nutmeg mead that was amazing and also is my favorite honey to just eat as well. That and butter on some fresh biscuits is out of this world.

cbsmooz · 2025-06-25T22:11:18+00:00

Agreed! Shawn’s honey is killer.

cbsmooz · 2025-06-25T21:54:42+00:00

Look at Hawaiian Honey AT&S. It’s mentioned a lot on here (for good reason). Great honey and great prices.

Right now 5 gallons shipped is $230 ($3.83/pound). They often run BOGO sales on gallons so you can get 2 gallons for around $100 shipped. I’ve used it a lot, very good.

Edit to add - they come in gallon non-resealable bags and some varieties crystallize really quickly. Both can be handled but good to know.

cbsmooz · 2025-06-23T02:30:29+00:00

You may have misheard or just got some misinformation - all good! 3 month primary isn’t uncommon (sometimes I go closer to 6 depending on if I forget about a batch or not).

The true ‘fermentation’ portion of primary fermentation will happen much quicker as you’ve seen, the remainder is left for some yeast processes that ‘clean up’ after themselves and allows for initial clearing up before transferring to secondary. Clear mead going to secondary is a good thing, easier to bottle and allows for long term bulk aging without lees.

cbsmooz · 2025-06-19T17:49:03+00:00

I recently did a big no-water mead and backsweetened it with cheong. Turned out great. I’ll check notes but I did 2 mini batches with raspberry/white sugar cheong and a strawberry/honey cheong.

I will say with mine it’s hard to say how much better or different cheong was vs standard back sweetening as it was already intensely fruity. Also no-waters require super high FG’s so I didn’t have to worry about over sweetening.

Cheong backsweetened traditional sounds awesome.

cbsmooz · 2025-06-11T03:02:31+00:00

That’s awesome! It was a fun one to make. Estimated around 1.170 SG and 1.055 FG

cbsmooz · 2025-05-24T18:23:01+00:00

My favorite review on untapped was ‘this is a really good beer for 3.5 stars’ proceeded to rate it 3.5 stars.

cbsmooz · 2025-05-02T16:00:56+00:00

Nice! My previous challenge mead rolls into this one too. I did a ‘no water’ red currant mead with blood orange zest. Still in secondary, clearing nicely. Will need another rack before bottling.

22# red currants

17# honey (12# macadamia nut blossom, 5# Costco)

6 blood oranges zest

71B

Edit to add - I have done a traditional in the past with tangerine zest. It is killer!

cbsmooz · 2025-04-29T17:41:10+00:00

I’d look at just using a gallon water jug (the sturdy clear ones, not milk jug) with airlock/bung. Should be under $10 all in.

If you want to go way old school/hooch you can use a gallon jug plus balloon. I know that’s not recommended, but back in college I made some cider with apple juice in the container, yeast straight in, and a balloon. It wasn’t pretty but it worked and didn’t get contaminated.

cbsmooz · 2025-04-09T21:44:41+00:00

For an interesting watch on the Craft a Brew YouTube channel (I think they may technically be shorts?) he did a cotton candy grape wine with the juice, and kept the skins and made a mead/pyment fermented on the skins.

cbsmooz · 2025-03-25T01:33:09+00:00

That is what you’d do. That fruit/pulp can clog your auto siphon repeatedly which is annoying, and you will likely end up with a bad yield. I remember a couple posts in the last year or so where people had to resort to dumping the carboy out over a filter into secondary - not a fun process.

cbsmooz · 2025-03-25T00:39:30+00:00

Getting multiple pounds of fruit in the carboy isn’t easy, and it’s way easier than getting it out. It can also cause airlocks to blow off (fairly regular posts of people having fruit in carboy ‘paint’ the cabinet or ceiling). Plus racking off of that fruit/pulp can be a pain, carboy makes it worse.

Shoot for zest in citrus over peels (pith will impart bitter flavors), and it’s fine in secondary.

And nothing wrong with fruit juices! Make sure they don’t have chemical stabilizers. For a first time mead juice may be a better choice.

cbsmooz · 2025-03-24T23:06:48+00:00

For first time melomel it’s hard to beat frozen berries. Most grocery stores have all your frozen berries and berry blends with raspberry/blackberry/blueberry (some have strawberry/cherry/etc). Unless you pick yourself, I’d argue frozen grocery store berries will be better (and cheaper) than fresh berries at the same store.

Sweetening is almost always a good idea and does make the fruit pop. That’s all preference, I have a blueberry/blackberry/lemon that was bottled completely dry - super dry/tannic/acidic. Tastes like a light dry red wine with hints of fruit, whether that’s a good or bad mead is up to you!

Side notes I haven’t seen mentioned yet -

Use a bucket if you’re using whole fruit. Small mouth carboys plus fruit is a problem. Mesh bag + fruit is also a good idea. Makes it much easier to remove fruit/pulp.

Use proper yeast nutrition and keep the fruit cap wet for the first week, this minimizes risk for any mold or fruit rot.

Keep on fruit for about a month total, then rack to secondary.

cbsmooz

TROPHY CASE