Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Mead Lovers Digest #0257
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #257, 17 January 1994
From: mead-lovers-request@eklektix.com
Mead Lover's Digest #257 17 January 1994
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
open bottles... (stiletto@iastate.edu)
Re: Rasin Mead (Jacob Galley)
new book/Yeast nutrient ("Dave Polaschek") (Philip Cutone)
The Meadery (duncan@vt.edu)
a traditional(?) mead ("Steven W. Smith")
PLEASE FOLKS [coordinator's plaintive plea-du-jour]: If you have a vacation
mailer, be sure it's set up not to send responses to -request addresses!
Most of the mead list does *not* care that you're on vacation.
Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead-lovers@eklektix.com.
Use mead-lovers-request@eklektix.com for subscribe, unsubscribe, and admin
requests. When subscribing, please include your name and a good address
in the message body unless you're sure your mailer generates them.
There is an FTP archive of the digest on sierra.stanford.edu in pub/mead.
If you have email access but not ftp, it will accept "listserv" requests.
Send email with message "help" to listserv@sierra.stanford.edu.
------------------------------
Subject: open bottles...
From: stiletto@iastate.edu
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 94 13:44:10 -0600
Greetings all, I have made several batches of a few kids of mead. The ones
I have tasted so far are wonderful. But I have a problem, with one batch, I
used a champagne type cork, so I can easily open it. This cork also shot off
like a champagne bottle would shoot it. My question is, how do I safely open
my other bottle of this batch that have their corks pushed almost flushed with
the opening of the bottle? And do so without killing someone?
Thanks...
Stiletto
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Rasin Mead
From: Jacob Galley <gal2@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 94 22:33:35 CST
I made a mead very similar to the one posted, and it was by far my
best. We drank it all before it was a year old:
8 lbs clover honey
1 lb raisins, chopped
Boiled the honey for an hour, and added the raisins at the end.
Fermented with Red Star Champagne yeast. Yum.
This reminds me of something my dad used to make when I was a little
kid. He made a sort of apple-wine (totally dry cider) by simply
adding raisins (2-3 lbs?) to a carboy full of fresh cider. Apparently
the wild yeast on the raisins will make you a tasty drink if you let
them. Has anyone tried this with mead? I think I might.
Jake.
Philosophers cannot purely and simply forget what psychology, sociology, ethno-
graphy, history and psychiatry have taught us about the conditioning of human
behavior. It would be a very romantic way of showing one's love for reason to
base its reign on the disavowal of acquired knowledge. <-- Merleau-Ponty
------------------------------
Subject: new book/Yeast nutrient ("Dave Polaschek")
From: pec@tmc.astm.cmri.cmu.edu (Philip Cutone)
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 1994 08:12:48 -0500
The new recipe book was mentioned earlier, when/where is it available?
There was mention of egg whites being used as a yeast nutrient. I
have seen a few directions using egg white in the mead... it
recomended whipping till foamy and stirring in before the yeast was
added. so the temp should probably be under 38C deg. i'll see if i
can find the exact directions.
philip
------------------------------
Subject: The Meadery
From: duncan@vt.edu
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 94 09:04:13 -0500
Greetings all!
In response to a question about The Meadery in New York, I was reminded of
an advertisement I saw by them recently. After digging through my desk (I
used to be organized, really!) Here's a summary of it:
They sell a sampler pack containing one bottle each (size not specified) of
traditional, dry, spiced, apple, raspberry, and blueberry mead for $39 post-
paid ("with a copy of this ad," although I'll bet you could get that price
without the ad - tell them you saw it in "Tournaments Illuminated" [SCA
publication]). Their address is:
The Meadery at Greenwich, Inc.
Greenwich, NY RR4 Box [that's it - no number after "Box"]
phone: (518) 692-9669
Note that I have no connection with these folks, nor have I ever tried their
products - I'm just passing along what I've seen.
Regards,
Tom Brady
duncan@vt.edu
------------------------------
Subject: a traditional(?) mead
From: "Steven W. Smith" <SMITH_S@gc.maricopa.edu>
Date: 17 Jan 1994 07:48:26 -0700 (MST)
I've mostly brewed beer, but I'm getting the itch to create another mead.
In the past I (basically) followed recipes from Papazian's TNCJOHB. This
included boiling the must, and adding spices and hops (I've since decided hops
are a big no-no).
One thing that always bothered me were the wonderful spicy smells that
emanated from the boiling must for the first 3 minutes of the boil then
disappeared. It seems like some great flavor and aroma componants of the honey
are lost by boiling (maybe that's why the spices are needed?).
I've heard that by not boiling the must I'd risk having problems with the
mead being "cloudy" - that thought doesn't particularly bother me compared to
the potential flavor gains.
I'm probably going to try out the following recipe, "maybe" scaled down to 1
gallon. I'd appreciate any suggestions, as I suppose someone out there
has tried this. BTW, I'm shooting for a very strong (high alcohol) but
sweet mead - not the sort of thing you'd want to drink 1/2 liter at a sitting.
The proposed recipe: 12 pounds filtered honey, mixed with enough bottled
drinking water to make 5 gallons (no chlorine), 1/2 tsp yeast nutrient, shake
wildly to aerate, add yeast (from a day old starter).
I'm prepared to let this "lager" in the carboy for the better part of a year
before bottling. I've used Vierka(I think) dry Polish Mead Yeast in the past,
it seems to have an incredible tolerance for alcohol; is there something more
appropriate for this venture? Can this possibly be made non-cloudy without
boiling and skimming? TIA
_,_/|
\o.O; Steven W. Smith, Programmer/Analyst
=(___)= Glendale Community College, Glendale Az. USA
U SMITH_S@GC.BITNET
smith_s@gc.maricopa.edu
"They can't fix your brakes. You ask them 'where's my motor?', 'Well, it was
eaten by snakes'... _Flakes_, Frank Zappa
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #257
