Grapefruit Mead*

* technically it's called a melamel when you add fruit to a mead

Following up on previous mead brewing attempts, I decided to attempt a mead flavored with grapefruit.  Basically I followed Charlie Papazian's recipe from The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing, p. 344 "Antipodal Mead".  What I used:

~13.5 lbs. honey (Dutch Gold Orange Blossom)
1 Tbsp. gypsum
4 tsp. acid blend
2 whole grapefruit, peeled, separated, pith removed as much as possible
1/2 gal. grapefruit juice
2 packets champagne yeast
2 tsp. yeast nutrient

Steps:

1. Bought supplies from Modern Homebrew Emporium - thank you!
2. Poured the honey into the pot - kind of crazy to see 13.5 pounds of honey in a pot.
3. Added water to the pot get the level approximately 1 inch below the top of the pot
4. Added the gypsum and acid blend
5. Heated over medium-low heat on stove while stirring and monitoring the temperature until it reached 180 F, then removed from heat
6. While it was heating:
1. Sterilized equipment:  a 5-gallon carboy, thermometer, airlock, airlock/carboy cork, and funnel
2. Removed the skin and pith from the grapefruit, separated into individual pieces
7. Put the grapefruit pieces and grapefruit juice in the bottom of the carboy
8. Added the hot honey-water mixture (the wert?  for beer it would be called wert) to the carboy
9. Added cold water to the carboy to bring it up to the 5-gallon mark
10. Put the carboy in the garage to cool for ~15 minutes
11. Noticed that the bottom of the carboy was still very warm, while the upper part was cool - therefore stirred vigorously to mix  
12. Measured the temperature - it was 84, so pitched the yeast - more vigorous stirring
13. Brought the carboy inside, added yeast nutrient
14. Put on the airlock
15. Wait!

The 2 brewers, mead in fermenter, 16-week old nephew/helper with carboy brush, and previous batch of mead nearby (we followed Papazian's advice: relaxed, had a homebrew)
"Kid, let's see how you do cleaning first, then we can talk about moving up to sanitation"