Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Mead Lovers Digest #0384
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #384, 6 February 1995
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #384 6 February 1995
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Bee Trivia (Michael L. Hall)
pear-mead sorbet (Clif Kussmaul)
Secondary ferment saves fruit aroma/taste (John Gorman)
Mead Chemicals (Bob McDonald)
Blending (Zachary Kessin)
NOTE: Digest only appears when there is enough material to send one.
Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead@talisman.com.
Use mead-request@talisman.com for [un]subscribe/admin requests. When
subscribing, please include name and email address in body of message.
Digest archives and FAQ are available for anonymous ftp at ftp.stanford.edu
in pub/clubs/homebrew/mead.
------------------------------
Subject: Bee Trivia
From: hall@galt.c3.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall)
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 95 09:56:48 MST
I've got one of those page-a-day calendars which has bits of
trivia on it, and recently I turned past this item:
A beehive produces between 100 and 200 pounds of honey
a year. How much does a single worker honeybee manufacture
in its lifetime?
Answer: 1/12 teaspoon.
-Mike Hall
------------------------------
Subject: pear-mead sorbet
From: kussmaul@dunkel.ucdavis.edu (Clif Kussmaul)
Date: Wed, 1 Feb 95 09:53:25 -0800
Thought I'd pass along the results of a recent culinary experiment.
I've made several batches of mead along the lines of a recipe in
Papazian's book - 12 lbs honey, 4 gallons water, yeast, nutrients,
and irish moss. I bottle it after 3-4 months, and it clears a couple
months later - the first batch is still getting drier and better-tasting.
I adapted a recipe from the Frog Commissary Cookbook for a Pear-Riesling
sorbet (a bottle of Riesling, several pounds of pears, 3/4 cup sugar)
and used a pint of mead, 5 pears, and 1/2 cup sugar (since the mead
was sweeter than the Riesling, though not nearly as sweet as the few
commercial meads I've had). Peal, core, & chop the pears, mix with
the mead and sugar, and boil while stirring. Once the pears are soft,
pulverize everything to a homogeneous liquid, chill in the fridge,
and the freeze according to direction in an ice-cream maker.
The result was good, though a bit too sweet - next time I'll use less
sugar, or a drier mead. The mead flavor goes nicely with the pears!
Clif
Clif Kussmaul | kussmaul@cs.ucdavis.edu | Lots of diff'rent means;
Center for Neuroscience | clkussmaul@ucdavis.edu | The end is always the same.
UC Davis, CA 95616 | 916-757-8865 -8827(FAX) | That's evolution!
------------------------------
Subject: Secondary ferment saves fruit aroma/taste
From: john@north.rsi.com (John Gorman)
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 12:02:03 AST
Hi all!
> Subject: Yeast info request
> From: t.duchesneau@genie.geis.com
>
> After making several Barkshack Ginger Meads with various fruit flavors,
> I'm planning a batch of more conventional strawberry mead - 15# honey and
> 10# IQF strawberries.
I highly recommend doing a secondary ferment for any fruit.
Last summer, I made two 5 gallon batches with fresh ripe
local strawberries (10# apiece). During the ferment, they
smelled wonderful!
Unfortunately, that wonderful smell was the strawberry essence
blowing off with the CO2! The result was very disappointing.
It had the *taste* of strawberries, but almost no *aroma*, which
is to say that one could barely tell that it was strawberry mead.
We usually taste and smell simultaneously, so we don't realize
that most of what we "taste" is really the taste plus the aroma,
with the *aroma* making up the majority of the "taste" of fruits.
Strawberrys without aroma don't "taste" like anything much at all!
So now I ferment the honey alone in a 5 U.S. gallon (19 liter)
carboy, with little enough honey so that the yeast doesn't die, and
the mead ferments dry. In my case, that is 12# of honey (4 U.S. quarts)
with Lalvin K1V yeast.
When it is finished, I put my fruit into the bottom of a 6 U.S
gallon (23 liter) carboy. I stir up the sediment in the plain honey
mead to get the yeast back into suspension. Then I siphon the dry
mead along with all of the yeast into the 6 U.S. gallon carboy on
top of the fruit. Leave head space for the secondary ferment.
There will be a short (one week) secondary ferment. When it is
complete, rack off of the fruit back into the 5 U.S. gallon carboy
(fruit rack). While avoiding siphoning the fruit, I cannot really
also avoid the yeast, so there will be another rack to get off of
the yeast (yeast rack). You can finish as usual. I personally
clarify with bentonite, so I can bottle a fruit mead 6-8 weeks
from yeast pitching. Use yeast nutrient for a fast dry ferment.
You will be very happy with the result! The secondary ferment
is short and does not blow off too much of the fruit aroma.
My current passion is 11# (5 kg) of IQF red raspberries! All of my
friends love it, and I cannot make enough of the stuff. By the way,
purchase your IQF (Individually Quick Frozen) products at the big
industrial food service warehouses. Just walk in with cash and
they will fill your order even though you are not a restaurant.
Another approach that I have experimented with is *no* fruit
fermentation at all. In this case, I make a 15# plain honey
mead that ferments until it kills the yeast completely. Then
I add the clarified mead to canning jars filled half way with
fruit and wait a week or two.
If the mead is completely dead then there will be no fermentation
in the canning jars. For this you really have to know your yeast
alcohol tolerance and/or use sulfites. I usually serve right from the
canning jars, although it also works to bottle the result.
The canning jar approach is particularly appropriate during the
summer when one can get lots of different types of berries
such as black currants, but not in big enough quantities to
justify separate fermentations.
Now I have to ruin a perfectly nice post by saying that there
is no need to boil or heat the honey or the fruit. Since this
is not beer, you will have no problems with contamination. Ever.
No heat means no haze, and no aroma destruction, which is really
critical for berry meads.
There is also no need to add any acid. Just try the natural
product once, and you will never add acid again!
I think of the above two paragraphs as overcoming the beer brewer's
hangover and overcoming the wine maker's hangovers respectively.
We modern meadmakers can chart our own path!
John
------------------------------
Subject: Mead Chemicals
From: Bob McDonald <rmcdonald@ansremote.com>
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 95 10:09:04 EST
t.duchesneau@genie.geis.com writes about making a strawberry mead and asks
about a decent yeast and then about amounts of certain chemicals to add to the
must. I use the Epernay 2 yeast all the time with excellent results. However,
as with any wine yeast, the residual sugar depends on the starting gravity,
alcohol tolerance of the yeast, ... you get the picture. Read some back issues
of this digest and the equally informative cider digest for some information on
sweetening both sparkling and still before bottling. Please be very careful
when you are doing this as you can very easily end up with glass shrouds flying
at unbelievable speeds in your house. As for the chemicals, as far as I have
read, gypsum basically has no place in meads. My sources tend to assert that
meads are far better from soft water and only call for the addition of
chemicals to change water attributes in extreme cases. One exception might be
epsom salts. It seem that honey musts tend to lack Mg and can be supplimented
by adding epsom salts. Some people also recommend vitamin B1 (10 mg per gal.).
At any rate, get an analysis of your water if you are concerned. If you live
in a city, they are required to get it done periodically and will usually give
you a copy of the results if you let them know what its for and are real nice
to them. As for acid blend; again you are better of doing a test to see if you
need it in the must you are going to ferment. An acid test kit is less than
ten dollars and will make it really easy to figure out how much acid you need.
If you don't need it, don't add it. If you do, add the right amount.
TTFN,
Bob
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From the CDC, AIDS is now the largest cause of death in the U.S. of people
between the ages of 25 and 44. In 1994, there were over 80,000 new cases
of AIDS reported. There have now been over 470,000 cases of AIDS in the U.S
.
and over 270,000 have died so far from this disease. Are we talking to our
children yet?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert E. McDonald, Jr. (rmcdonald@ansremote.com)
Sr. Telecom Programmer/Analyst Tel: (616) 376-6081
First of America Services - Technology
K-A12-3F
One First of America Parkway
Kalamazoo, MI 49009-8002
Trustee of The ENCORE Dance Company - Decatur, MI.
------------------------------
Subject: Blending
From: Zachary Kessin <zkessin@tiac.net>
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 1995 11:45:20 +0000
I have a question, I made last summer a gallon of raspberry wine, the
problem is that when I racked it a week or two ago I found it has
much to strong a raspberry flavor. I thought though that I might be able
to make a nice raspberry mead by mixing that 1 gallon with 5 or 6 a
simple mead. I was thinking that something like 12 lbs raspberry honey
to 5 gal water would work.
What do people think, will this work? How long should I age them
together before drinking? Or should I just start over and make
raspberry mead from scratch.
Zach
zkessin@tiac.net
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #384
