Austin's Medium Raspberry Melomel

Ingredients
1 packets of Lavlin EC-1118
Go-Ferm
Fermaid K
DAP
12 lbs of honey
3.5 gallons of water (approximately)
Clarification agent (not sure which yet).
Camden Tablets
Potassium Sorbate
Approximately 1 Gallon of Raspberries

Preparing the Raspberries
Treat in water with 2 Campden tablets for 24 hours

Rehydrating the Yeast
1. Raise 6 oz of water to 110 degrees F.
2. Add 4 tsp of Go-Ferm and stir.
3. When temp has decresed to 104 degrees F, add 5 grams yeast and stir.
4. After 15 minutes, add to must (must temp = 75-80 degrees F).
5. Aerate.

Making the Must
1. Put 12 lbs of honey in carboy
2. Add 3 gallons with distilled water
3. Power stir until there is no stratification of honey
4. Take SG reading
5. Add 1 Gallon of raspberries and stir
6. Top off with water
7. Rehydrate Yeast (see above)
8. Pitch yeast solution
9. Add 1 tsp of Fermaid K
10. Power stir / aerate
11. Add bung and airlock

9/26/2010 - 7:00pm
Started treating raspberries.

9/27/2010 - 10:00
Made Must, Pitched Yeast
OG = 1.085
Temp = 78 degrees
Note: Kind of messed up on OG. Forgot to measure it before adding fruit, so I measured it after. Nevertheless, 1.085 is pretty close, and it is acceptable for a dry-to-medium show mead. I'll keep it from getting too dry by adding a little more honey later if necessary. As it stands, if I finish it at 1.01, it will be a medium-ish mead that achieves about 10% ABV.