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Mead Lovers Digest #0560
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #560, 9 May 1997
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #560 9 May 1997
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
honey agar media/acid vs pH (Daniel S McConnell)
Mead Beginners ("Jeff M. Ashley")
Peach Pyment/Clarity ("LARSONC%DOM13.DOPO7")
Cranberrie Melomel ("Linda or Darin")
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: honey agar media/acid vs pH
From: danmcc@umich.edu (Daniel S McConnell)
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 20:45:52 -0400
From: smurman@best.com
>I'm also moving to mead from beer, and I'm wondering what is the
>best medium to grow yeasts for mead. Generally, the medium should
>contain the components the yeast like, such as maltose for beer.
>Does one make a honey-agar mix for mead, or a sugar-agar mix?
>I'll likely be starting with some type of champagne yeast.
The best general medium for all Saccharomyces yeast (beer or wine) is YMA
IMHO. YMA contains maltose so it is good for brewing yeasts to keep them
in practice fermenting maltose, but works well for most types of yeast.
Yeast store well on YMA. I suppose that you could make an media that
contains honey, nutrients and agar, but I don't know how good the long term
storage would be or how well they would support bacterial growth. It might
be fine for making plates to clean up cultures and fun to try some of these
plates. A trial recipe might start at 50 gr honey, 1 gr yeast energizer
and 15 gr agar/L.
=-=-=-=
From: Derrick Pohl <pohl@unixg.ubc.ca>
>Went to one of the local supply stores, and they have an acid testing kit
>........ The results obtained are not given
>in pH value. Rather, it gives a result in grams of acid per litre.
>Is this appropriate for controlling pH levels in a fermenting mead, and
>what would the desired figures be in grams of acid per litre to be
>equivalent to the optimum fermentation pH of 3.6 to 4.0? Or do things like
>amount of buffering agent make the figures not readily convertible to pH?
An acid testing kit measures titrable acidity (the number of acid
functional groups present in the sample and expresses them as tartaric acid
equivalents), not pH. pH measures the number of H+ ions in the sample.
These are not the same, nor can they be converted from one to the other.
DanMcC
------------------------------
Subject: Mead Beginners
From: "Jeff M. Ashley" <jashley@emeraldis.com>
Date: Sat, 3 May 1997 19:19:32 -0400
You experienced guys & gals bear with yet another beginner, but the
questions I've seen so far lead to believe there's a lot of new mead makers
out there and I'd like to help them avoid some of the mistakes I've made so
far. To the REAL experienced mead-makers - feel free to add your comments.
SO here goes.
A few of the things I've learned making mead (I've started my fourth batch
now):
1. Make sure you use champagne yeast. Wine yeast isn't alcohol-tolerant
enough. I use 2 packages of dry yeast, reconsituted, and have expereinced
good results so far.
2. Make SURE you let the mead ferment to completion. The only way to know
this is by regular hydrometer readings. Otherwise, you'll have glass
grenades.
3. I hope you have more success than I have in staying out of your mead
for 3 or more months before drinking it all. It really is worth the wait.
To all mead lovers - How about some of your favorite recipes ???
I have access to more than 200+ beers and many homebrew kits, but MEAD is
the best thing I've come across !! I've decided to exclusively concentrate
on making the best mead I can.
Does anyone know of a wholesale distirbutor of GOOD mead ?? The only
commercial mead I've found was a "dessert wine" that was disgustingly
sweet.
Jeff Ashley
Owner
Martine's Specialty Beer & Fine Wines
(& Homebrew Supply)
Greenwood, South Carolina
(864) 227-1170
------------------------------
Subject: Peach Pyment/Clarity
From: "LARSONC%DOM13.DOPO7" <Erik.Larson@MS01.DO.treas.sprint.com>
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 09:03:45 -0400
Date: 05/05/1997 09:02 am (Monday)
From: C. Erik LARSON
To: EX.MAIL."mead@talisman.com"
Subject: Peach Pyment/Clarity
Meading Collective:
Three months ago I made 5 gallons of peach pyment with:
7 lbs Wildflower honey
8 lbs Alexander's Chablis concentrate
2 oz acid blend
1 oz Yeast Nutrient
1 96 oz can of Demonte Sliced Peaches in light Syrup (no preservatives)
I didn't boil, just heated the obove in 2 gallons to 180F. and topped off
with real cold bottled water, upon reaching 80F. I added 2 packets of
Lavlin #1116 White Wine Dry yeast.
The brew has been in secondary for two months without any
appreciable clearing (it looks rather much like a HefeWeizen). The taste
is just right, but I wanted a crystal clear, sparkling final product.
I've seen pectin enzyme at my homebrew supplier's shop -- but nobody
at the store seems to know just what it's used for. Will adding a bit of
this enzyme to my brew (with an additional racking) help to clarify it?
Any other ideas? Should I try fining with Polyclar, Gelatin, or Bentonite?
Cheers,
Erik Larson
Ellicott City, MD
(erik.larson@treas.sprint.com)
------------------------------
Subject: Cranberrie Melomel
From: "Linda or Darin" <mtss@ptw.com>
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 20:54:33 -0700
I'll try to keep this short, but I would like to introduce myself.
My name is Darin, and I lurked for Digests #384-441 when my dear wife
had internet access at work. She brought me hard copy every week,
which I 3-hole punched and turned into what amounts to my referance book
on mead making. All my recipies are stuck in the pages. If the house
was on fire, I would grab the book.
So I have ever since felt I have a debt to repay, to give back to the
wellspring of wisdom and knowledge I had happened upon. Humbly submitted
is the recipe for the best mead I've made to date. (IMO)
Pitched 12/26/95, consumed 12/24/96
2# local orange blossom honey
1# local sage honey
24oz cranberries
pinch of pectic enzyme
melted Yule snow to make 1gal
standard D47 starter
The cranberries were frozen, then thawed enough so that it didn't sound
like a handfull of ball bearings in the processor when I chopped them
sufficiently to break most all of their skins.
When I scaled it up to 5 gallons, I had to substitute plain old water, as
it only snows on Christmas once every 10 or 15 years here in California's
high desert.
The starter is about a third of a package D47 yeast, a tablespoon sugar
or malt extract, and a pinch of yeast energiser, in a cup of water, done
the day
before.
I let it go for about three weeks, then racked it off the fruit. Poured
the fruit into a nylon and squeezed the juice out. Racked it again in
about a week. Again a couple more times over the next few months.
Oh, ya. I pasturized the honey and poured it over the chopped fruit in
the primary.
Darin Trueblood
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #560
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