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Mead Lovers Digest #0269
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #269, 22 February 1994
From: mead-lovers-request@eklektix.com
Mead Lover's Digest #269 22 February 1994
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Re: UNYHA annual competition (Forrest Cook)
Smell (adhudson@eos.ncsu.edu)
maple mead recipe(s) (RON)
honey prices and such (Dick Dunn)
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------------------------------
Subject: Re: UNYHA annual competition
From: Forrest Cook <cook@stout.atd.ucar.EDU>
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 14:38:28 -0700
kaltenbach@aol.com writes: (Tom Kaltenbach)
>12 HOMEBREW STYLES WILL BE JUDGED:
>
>British Ale Light Lager Porter
>North American Ale Amber Lager Stout
>Brown Ale Dark Lager Specialty
>Belgian Looks Like "Saranac Black & Tan" Mead
Um, "Mead" ? isn't that like having a category for "Wine" or "Beer" ?
It seems to me like you should at least have a category for "Sweet Mead"
and "Dry Mead" if not for "Spiced Mead" and "Honey Only Mead"
I'd hate to put one of my best dry meads up for competition only to find
out that the judge only likes sweet mead. Not to rain on your parade,
but 'round these parts (of the net) we don't just think of mead as an
afterthought, it's a way of life :-)
Forrest Cook
email:cook@stout.atd.ucar.edu
ham:WB0RIO
------------------------------
Subject: Smell
From: adhudson@eos.ncsu.edu
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 94 18:03:53 EST
I have a batch of Blackberry mead which is now about 2 months old. After
the initial fermentation it tasted good(if not lacking a little body)..
Now after being in the secondary for a month, something has gone wrong. It
smell totally of yeast. Any ideas on how this happended/ways to fix it?
It does not have many Blackberries, about 5 pounds for 3 gallons, but I've
never had any other mead smell like this....(2.5#'s honey/gal, champaine yeast
,nutrients & tea).
Thanks,
-Giles Candy is dandy, but liqour is quicker.
------------------------------
Subject: maple mead recipe(s)
From: RON.admin@admin.creol.ucf.edu (RON)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 14:12 EST
----------------
Maple Mead
----------------
6 lb Canadian Honey
32 oz container of Canadian Grade A Dark Amber Maple Syrup
1 tsp. gypsum
3/4 tsp. pectin
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
1 tsp. table salt
1 tsp. acid blend
1 pkg. M&F ale yeast in 2 cup wort - yeast starter
1 oz. Saaz cube hops (1/2 boil, 1/2 fin)
Added gypsum and salt to 1.5 gal filtered water, boiled,
removed from heat, added honey and maple syrup, back to
heat, hops added (10 min), pectin, yeast nut., acid blend
added (25 min), yeast starter started, boiling well,
skimmed off albumin (sp?), heat off and fin hops(45 min),
chilled in ice bath (~30min), put in 6 gal carboy,
pitched yeast and enough water to make 5.5 gal.
Racked in 2 weeks. Bottled 10 weeks later w/ 1/3 cup
corn sugar + 1/2 cup Florida Orange Blossom Honey.
OG: 1.080
FG: 1.005
3 weeks after bottling had a dry - light "Bristol Cream"
taste. Now has a great light mead flavor with a tangy
maplish dry undertone.
Now I think 10 lbs of honey, light boiling and a different
yeast to sweeten it up a bitand would make for a more
flavorful maple mead.
Before getting the MLD and limited reading on the subject,
I made my 1st batch of mead. I was impressed with the
results and thought that Joyce might want to add it to
the other recipes being gathered.
----------------------
MeadBerry Mead
----------------------
1/2 gal Motts apple juice
1/2 gal Fresh Apple Cider
10 lbs Clover Honey
5 tsp yeast nutrient
3 tsp acid blend
1 - 12 oz pkg frozen Blueberry
1 - 12 oz pkg frozen Raspberry
2- 12 oz pkg frozen Blackberry
1 lb fresh Strawberry
1 lb+ fresh Cherry - pitted
juice of 1 orange
1/4 orange peel (boil) OG: 1.070
1/4 orange peel (fin) FG: 1.000
Macerated fruit and cider in blender, boiled everything
for 45 min, added yeast nut. and acid blend last 5 min.
Ice bath for around 30 min. Poured the wort (must?)
through cheese cloth and ran boiling water through it
and squeezed the remainder out. Used a M&F Ale yeast
starter. 4 weeks racked - tasted like cough syrup,
acidic. 8 weeks bottled with 1 cup same Clover Honey
above to 4.1 gal of secondary - had a dry fruity port
taste. 6 months later - low carbonation, fruity,
very tasty. 1 year - carbonation varies from bottle to
bottle, very tasty has a Lindermans Framboise Lambic
(sp?) taste and carbonation. 2 years&2months later
had last one. carbonation was little low for my liking
but a very good after dinner mead with desert.
A must to repeat, no pun intended.
------------------------------
Subject: honey prices and such
From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: 22 Feb 94 21:28:18 MST (Tue)
suda@vrg.toronto.edu (Dave Suda) wrote:
> Susanne Price of the American Mead Association is looking for mead recipes
> which use either catclaw cactus or star thistle honey...
which reminded me...
She has started selling these two honeys, at least in this area (Colorado
front range) via homebrew shops. One of the shops had some that I could
sample. One was quite distinctive; the other had a much milder character.
[Argh--I didn't write it down clearly!] I think it was the catclaw that
had the unusual character.
But anyway, although it was interesting honey, I was somewhat taken aback
at the prices--they seem to be running $8-9 for 3 lb. Larger quantities,
about a gallon (12 lb) of orange blossom were $30. In other words, this is
$2.50 - 3.00 per lb.
It's got me curious just how much people pay for honey. I'm afraid
this is going to end up USA-centric, although I'd like to know whether
folks in other countries are paying a lot more or less than we are.
Good honey, carefully handled, is worth a premium...but how much? I don't
know. I tend to pay anywhere in the range $.90 - $1.20 for the bulk (sic)
of my honey, by buying from beekeepers, orchards, and health-food stores.
(These seem to be the sources that offer best prices and least processing
of the honey before sale.) Slightly less common honeys seem to start up
around $1.40, and there's an apparent "price point" at just under $5 for a
3 lb jar (call it $1.65/lb). I saw some blackberry honey at $2/lb
recently, but I think it's the same source that was selling at $1.40 last
summer. $2 feels like it's past the top end for what I'd like to pay. Am
I living in fantasy-land?
I don't mean to assault everyone with a barrage of figures; I'm just
tossing out what I've paid recently and wondering how it sits with other
peoples' experience.
---
Dick Dunn rcd@eklektix.com -or- raven!rcd Boulder, Colorado USA
...Mr Natural says, "Get the right tool for the job!"
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #269
