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Mead Lovers Digest #0247
Mead Lover's Digest #247 17 December 1993
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Coordinator
Contents:
Recipe book name redux (Gary Mason)
Mead Recipies - name (C. William Shirley)
Methode Champenoise, sparkling mead in wine bottles (Kelly Jones)
priming (incl priming w/honey) and bottles misc (Dick Dunn)
Gnu-bee wants to make Sweet Mead (Brett Charbeneau)
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Subject: Recipe book name redux
From: gmason@jmjm.hq.ileaf.com (Gary Mason)
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 07:34:35 EST
I suggest "Cat's Mead-ow", but I suppose that is a long way to go for
naming consistency across the two digests. What did you expect from a
Blackadder devotee?
Cheers...Gary
--
* Gary Mason - Sales Consultant - Interleaf, Inc. - Strategic Accounts Group *
* Voice:617/290-4990 X2100 FAX:617/290-4981,4985 Internet:gmason@ileaf.com *
------------------------------
Subject: Mead Recipies - name
From: bshirley@gleap.sccsi.com (C. William Shirley)
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 08:31:50 -0600
> > (Something better than "The Cat's Meow," hopefully).
> The Bee's Bonnet?
> Sting o' the Bee?
> Home, Hearth and Honey?
> Wassail 2: beast of the net?
> Mead Lover's Digest Recipe Collection?
Mustings
Recipies You Must Try
I'm new to mead, as well. That would be a wonderful resourse.
-bill
---
Home: BShirley@GLeap.sccsi.com Houston
Work: Bill_Shirley@atg.WilTel.com v713.364.4124
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Subject: Methode Champenoise, sparkling mead in wine bottles
From: Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 93 17:05:20 -0700
A couple comments on John Wyllie's post yesterday re: sparkling
wines/meads:
First, _never_ plan on storing a sparkling mead/wine/beer/whatever in
wine bottles, they simply are not built to take the pressure. Use
beer bottles for pressures up to 1-2 atm, champagne bottles for
anything from 2 - 5 atm.
Second, re: removing sediment from bottles of sparkling
meads/whatever: I have done this with my champagnes, the technique is
known as the methode champenoise. The bottles should be capped with
crown caps for bottle conditioning. I let my champagne sit on the
sediment for months or years, the yeast is part of the flavor profile of a
champagne. Anyway, the bottles are stored upside down, and
"riddled". Riddling means grasping the bottle, giving it a quick
twist to dislodge yeast from the sides of the bottle, and dropped a
couple inches. This is done daily for about 2 weeks, until all of the
sediment is collected in a pile atop the crown cap. The bottles are
then refrigerated as cold as you can get them, and the tips placed
into a freezing mixture. The last time I did this I used dry ice.
This was probably overkill, as the yeast plug froze in about 15 sec.
Next time, I'll probably use an ice/salt solution (like you use on ice
cream freezers). The bottle is then pointed in a _safe_ direction,
the crown cap removed, and a plastic stopper pounded in. (If
necessary, the bottled can be topped up with dry wine first.) Later,
the stoppers should be wired down. I think it would be much more
difficult to do this with a corked bottle, as the metal crown cap
helps conduct heat out through the end of the bottle, freezing the
yeast plug quite quickly.
Kelly
------------------------------
Subject: priming (incl priming w/honey) and bottles misc
From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: 17 Dec 93 00:29:16 MST (Fri)
John DeCarlo <jdecarlo@homebrew.mitre.org> wrote:
> My single data point. I bottled my mead that had been in various fermenters
> for about 14 months. It has only been three weeks since bottling, but it
> isn't very carbonated. I added one cup of honey heated up in one cup of water
> and I stirred it pretty well to mix it up. I didn't add any more yeast.
Assuming you're referring that cup of honey to a 5-gal batch size, I think
you are going to end up with some very powerful carbonation eventually...
I'd keep a close watch on those bottles!
Here are a few rough numbers for calculating: Typical priming for a 5-gal
batch to normal beer-like carbonation level is 3/4 cup of corn sugar. In
the usual finely-granulated form sold by brew shops, this turns out to be
about 4 oz by weight. (Side note: for precision in recipes, always weigh
priming sugar. Volume measures are inaccurate; it can compact by as much
as 20%.)
A cup of honey is about 3/4 lb (SG of honey is usually just under 1.5), or
12 oz, and it's normally somewhat over 80% sugar by weight, so let's say it
has 10 oz sugar in it.
So, in effect, you're priming at about 2.5 x the "normal" rule-of-thumb
priming rate. But see below...this isn't necessarily trouble as long as
you've got good bottles and you didn't have much residual sugar before
priming.
As Coyote says, remember that you can expect things to keep slowly
fermenting for quite some time.
Kelly Jones <k-jones@ee.utah.edu> wrote:
> ...I have made several batches of champagne, and go by guidelines
> given by Philip Jackisch in 'Modern Winemaking': Carbonate to no more
> than 4 or 5 atm. This can be achieved by using 12 grams of sugar per
> 750 ml bottle. Use only sound champagne bottles with metal caps or
> wired stoppers.
Note particularly that sparkling wine bottles are manufactured to take
higher pressures than beer bottles...because champagne is more heavily
carbonated. Working through Kelly's figures, to compare with my calcu-
lations above, 750 ml is a standard wine bottle, which is almost exactly
1/5 US gallon...thus 25 bottles in a 5-gal batch suggests 300 g of priming
sugar, or somewhat over 10 oz. This is about the same as John DeCarlo's
priming...and I think I'd recommend not going above that rate.
Another aside: Keep in mind that if you're using American size crown caps
(standard caps for beer bottles) they will fit American sparkling wine, but
they don't quite fit the European bottles (including real Champagne). The
European bottles have a slightly larger diameter lip. You may be able to
cap them OK in spite of the difference, but with just the wrong bottle,
just the wrong capper, or just a bit of bad luck, you'll crack the crown
when you cap the bottle...and you may lose one of your precious bottles of
nectar of the gods to glass shards.
Coyote writes:
> So - a question here: Anyone know how much pressure a wine bottle
> can tolerate? I suppose the pressure buildup could be different
> if the bottles are upright- dry corks, vs laying flat???
Regular wine bottles aren't intended to take pressure. That doesn't mean
they won't...obviously they'll hold a fair bit. It's just that you can't
find a useful lower bound that you can use to figure a safe priming rate.
(I'd think the more likely problem would be blowing corks! After all,
there are wine-bottle openers that work by inserting a syringe-like tip
through the cork and pumping in enough air to push the cork out.) There
isn't any mechanism to secure the cork against pressure from inside, as
there is with a champagne bottle (enormous cork relative to neck diameter,
inverted taper inside neck, wired-down cork) or a "beer" bottle (crown cap
secured over convex-profile lip).
---
Dick Dunn rcd@eklektix.com -or- raven!rcd Boulder, Colorado USA
...Simpler is better.
------------------------------
Subject: Gnu-bee wants to make Sweet Mead
From: bwchar@mail.wm.edu (Brett Charbeneau)
Dear Mead-lovers:
I have only recently joined this list, but I would like to
seek the advice of the subscribers on a problem I have.
During the summer I made up a batch of blueberry beer which
turned out to have almost no residual sugar, so it has a high
squack factor. As I was shooting for something with a lot more
sweetness to it, I am planning to make up a batch of sweet mead
to mix with it before serving.
So here come my two questions:
1. What recipe for sweet mead should I try? I saw the
reference to Dan Fink's recipe in digest number 7,
would this be appropriate?
2. I have available to me the following types of honey:
All of these are in jars marked ''Haddon House''
Wild Flower Eucalyptus
Golden Pure Tupelo
Clover (I hear this is the stuff) Safflower
Alfalfa Orange Blossom
Avocado Buck Wheat
What's the best type of honey to use for sweet mead and
general mead production?
Thanks for any and all suggestions. Feel free to direct me
to the appropriate FAQ, if I overlooked it.
Brett Charbeneau
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #247
