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Mead Lovers Digest #0241
Mead Lover's Digest #241 7 December 1993
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #232, 11 November 1993 (Gary Shea)
Botulin & honey (Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu)
Uncl: Newbie Question ()
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Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #232, 11 November 1993
From: Gary Shea <shea@cs.ukans.edu>
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 11:59:58 CST
> Subject: re: 9:1 meads
"Dennis R. Sherman" <sherman@trln.lib.unc.edu> writes:
> When I make a 9:1 mead, the yeast gets pitched, and as soon as the
> first burst of activity dies down (2-3 days, no more than a week) it
> gets bottled. After no more than a week in the bottle, it goes in the
> fridge and gets drunk as the occasion arises. I've done it without
> bottling into a tight bottle (gallon milk jug with loos cap) and it
> tasted fine, as long as you don't let it go on for too long. The
> alcohol content is low enough even my tee-totaling wife will drink it.
This reminds me of a Finnish drink called 'sima' or maybe 'simha',
made only for May Day celebrations. The recipes for it that I've
seen (and made) are all pretty much like
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
add water to make a gallon, boil
squeeze two lemons into the mix and throw 'em in, quartered
when it's cooled enough add 1/8 tsp of yeast (I used bread yeast)
allow to ferment for a day or two at ~65-70F
bottle, adding a few raisins and a tsp of sugar to each bottle
allow to sit at ~65-70F until the raisins are sitting at the top (< 1 day)
refrigerate or place in quite cool place
Drink in a couple weeks. So far I have only done one batch and I drank
it over the course of two weeks. It keeps getting better and better.
Plastic Calistoga bottles are what I've been using, they work great
and seem to have no flavor.
I don't drink alcoholic beverages much, and the strenth of my first mead
(which is about 2 months old now) was way beyond what I like. Sima
has little intoxicating effect :)
Are there yeasts that can only take very small percentages
of alcohol, like 3% or so? That way I could make a mead more to
my taste... the champagne yeasts are virtually indestructable!
When you respond to a digest message, do you folks hack in your own
"X <xx@xxx> writes:" headers and all (which is what I did above), or
are there mail clients that are smart with digests?
Gary
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Subject: Botulin & honey
From: Spencer.W.Thomas@med.umich.edu
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 93 16:31:35 EST
Another reason to add acid to your mead. The spores won't grow in an
acid medium. Besides, just boiling isn't sufficient to kill the
spores -- you need to raise the temp to at least 250F for at least 10
minutes.
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Subject: Uncl: Newbie Question
From: <DU213@ACADEMIC.CALPOLY.EDU>
Date: 06 Dec 93 17:01:35 PST
From: Jon Gibbens
Programmer, Admissions Office
Howdy!
I've got a question regarding my first batch of mead. I brewed up a batch
of Barkshack Gingermead, ala Papazian. In one week, the mead fermented from
OG 1.060 to 1.005...which translated out to about 7% alcohol. I wanted it
to have a bigger alcohol hit, so I heated up 3 more pounds of honey in
a half gallon of water, dumped it into an clean empty carboy, and racked my
mead into the carboy. My problem is: The new honey wasn't really
dissolved, so its just sitting down at the bottom of the carboy. Will it
eventually break down and ferment, or should I rack my mead off of this
honey layer and try again? The mead is bubbling away like mad, but there
is this half-inch layer of honey down at the bottom.
Thanks..
Jon
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #241
