Mead Lovers Digest #0116

eZine lover (@eZine)

Published in 

Mead Lovers Digest

 · 7 months ago

 

Mead Lover's Digest #116                            Fri 16 April 1993 

 
        Forum for Discussion of Mead Brewing and Consuming 
               John Dilley, Digest Coordinator 

 
Contents: 
  blackberries/raspberries (acp!mark) 
  Re: Mead Yeasts (Steve Dempsey) 

 
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Date: Thu, 15 Apr  14:27:58 1993 
From: chp!acp!mark@zoo.toronto.edu 
Subject: blackberries/raspberries 

 
regarding Dennis B. Lewis's disapointing raspberry mead. I have mad 
a raspberry mead with frozen raspberries put in the secondary and it 
was a great success. I think we have one bottle left. (2+yrs). 

We also use the Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast. It's the easiest for 
us to get our hands on. It does give a much drier acidic taste to mead than 
anything commercial i've ever tried. Mind you I've not tried to make sack 
mead, which seems to be the most common commercial product. 

If you're going to use raspberries again then I think you can expect a 
very acidic end product. a local brew-pub makes a pale rasberry-wheat 
beer in the summer and it's murder on your stomach if you drink too much. 
I don't know if blackberries are as acidic. Seems to me that they won't be. 

I'd also like to see some blackberry recipes. 

cheers, 
mark 

 
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Date: Thu, 15 Apr 93 14:32:47 MST 
From: Steve Dempsey <steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu> 
Subject: Re: Mead Yeasts 

 
In digest #115 Dennis B. Lewis <dblewis@jscprofs.nasa.gov> writes: 

> I'm still very novice at this, but from my beer brewing 
> experience, the yeast will make or break your product. As such, I 
> have the following questions: 
> 
>     Are there mead yeasts out there? (I'm sure) 
>     What company cultures them? 
>     Where can I get some? 
>     What are their flavor characteristics? (Avoiding strong 
>                                             sherry-like;-)) 

Vierka produces a yeast designated for making mead.  It's one of my 
favorites for a sweeter mead, but it's difficult to work with (low 
viability).  Among the new liquid cultures distributed by GW Kent is 
another purported mead yeast, which I have not tried yet. 

I have tried most of the popular wine yeasts marketed for hobbyist 
use.  I would consistently use the following for the different 
types of mead: 

    traditional, dry        Red Star or Wyeast Prise de Mousse 
    traditional, medium     Red Star Montrachet 
    traditional, sweet      Vierka mead 
    melomel, sweet/medium   Red Star flor sherry, Montrachet 
    melomel, dry            Red Star or Wyeast champagne, Lalvin EC-1118 

The prise de mousse seems to go dry without the acidity or astringency 
of the champagne yeast.  The sherry yeast imparts its own flavor but the 
`sherry' flavors associated with sherry wine comes from oxidation late in 
the fermentation, or post-fermentation, which should not be part of your 
meadmaking process.  Montrachet seems to be a fairly neutral general 
purpose yeast, but takes much longer to dry out than the champagne or 
prise de mousse (in my experience).  All these are available from various 
mail order sources, and your local shop should have at least a couple 
of them. 

I've been disappointed by ale yeasts, which don't tolerate the alcohol. 
They work ok if you like the old style fresh mead of low gravity, which 
is consumed practically out of the fermenter.  Also, yeasts which have 
high phenol production like the german wheat beer yeasts don't work well 
with mead [I have 3 gallons of sparkling Listerine/medicine flavored mead 
if anyone wants to try some]. 

I think most wine yeasts are rather neutral as far as producing weird 
flavors, as long as they are not abused.  All of my undrinkable meads 
except the failed wheat beer yeast experiment have had flaws resulting 
from other factors.  These include using the wrong honey (eucalyptus); 
mold, wild yeast, or bacterial infections; poor nutrients including 
aeration; or improper acid balance.  Unless the recipe and process are 
sound, the yeast usually cannot be blamed for ruining the product. 

 
================================    Engineering Network Services 
Steve Dempsey                       Colorado State University 
steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu    Fort Collins, CO  80523 
================================    +1 303 491 0630 

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