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Mead Lovers Digest #0590
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #590, 2 September 1997
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #590 2 September 1997
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
liquid _vs_ dry yeasts (Dick Dunn)
Pears/Fermenter size ("Grant W. Knechtel")
Re: Maple Mead (Dave Polaschek)
Re: yeasts? (Dave Polaschek)
Maple Syrup Mead (Gordon & Cindy Camp)
Preservatives, retardants, etc.... (Charlie Moody)
Apple cider (US definition) and E. coli (Matthew Arnold)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #589, 26 August 1997 (Charles Hudak)
Campden tablets (Charles Hudak)
Re: Melomel? (Peter Miller)
cider digest & AMA (Kim Christensen)
Fruit in Braggot, ageing (Nathan Moore)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #589, 26 August 1997 (blood@teleport.com)
sweet mead yeast horror! (PickleMan)
Lalvin ICV D-47 yeast? (ilixi@tezcat.net)
Prickly Pear Cactus Mead ? ("John L. Heubel")
Bottle sizes (Matt Maples)
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: liquid _vs_ dry yeasts
From: rcd@raven.talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: 26 Aug 97 22:26:05 MDT (Tue)
Several comments from the last digest, sparked by earlier comments from
Charles Hudak and myself...
> ...The quality of your wine yeast smack packs aside, live, liquid
> cultures of yeast tend to be cleaner, healthier and all around better than
> dry packets...
I understand "healthier", if for no other reason than that the drying
process can't be easy on the yeast. But I don't see why they'd be any
cleaner (does the drying process introduce contamination?), and there are
certainly liquid yeasts with reps of being contaminated.
>...The best solution is to brew frequently enough that you can
> repitch the slurry from one batch to another; start with a dry yeast and
> then keep using it (ta-da, instant liquid yeast) by harvesting from each
> batch...
Part of this I don't follow, and there are problems with it...
* I don't follow how fermenting from a dry yeast is going to clean it
up. I'd expect it to be more vigorous, but I'd expect that undesirable
strains present would either increase or decrease depending on their
relative vigor, and I wouldn't expect any contamination (bacteria) to
decrease. Would it? Why? (Winemakers who do add yeast don't go from
one batch to another, and most brewers only carry yeast forward for a
few batches before going back to their master cultures.)
* If you're going to gather slurry from one mead to re-pitch the next,
you'd need to get it early on--say at the first racking. Otherwise,
the yeast are going to start mutating in response to the high (to them)
alcohol levels. This would push you into a very ambitious meadmaking
schedule indeed. If, say, you take off that slurry in a racking at one
week, and you're taking two or three months to complete fermentation
and clearing before you bottle, you've got up to a dozen batches of
mead going all the time. (Not that this is a bad thing, mind you! But
it starts to sound like work...;-)
* Once you start making different sorts of meads (melomels, metheglins,
etc.) you've got to deal with carrying flavors across in the slurry
from one type to another. The slurry from the green chile mead may not
work well in that light peach melomel.
>...Are you telling me that after spending $20-30 on honey and god
> knows how much more for fresh fruits that you're going to skimp on the one
> thing which more than anything else determines the finished product?
> That's what I call penny wise and pound foolish...
Hey, c'mon...ease off a little. The yeast isn't the biggest factor. A bad
yeast will spoil a mead, but a good one (which can be had as a dry yeast)
will do the job.
Anyway, I'm not skimping! I'm just not going to pay extra, and deal with
an extra nuisance, unless I can get a better result. I tried the liquid
yeasts, because I'd used some with beer and because they seemed like a
reasonable idea worth trying. I got results that were no better, and in
some cases worse, than with dry yeasts, so I stopped using them. I don't
think that's foolish; I think that's "learning from experience." I think
it *would* be foolish to try to convince myself that they're better just
because they cost more.
>...I won't ever waste an
> entire day brewing a batch of beer and pitch a $0.70 pack of god knows how
> old dry yeast into it. Unfortunately, as you point out, there is a lack of
> quality liquid wine yeasts out there ...
Right. I'll readily agree that the current situations with beer yeasts and
wine yeasts are worlds apart. I did actually see a source of what seemed
like reasonable liquid mead yeast cultures a while back, but supply was so
undependable on that one, I haven't tried to hassle with it.
> And yes, you would be better off using a starter when using dry yeasts.
> You'll eliminate the lag time and give the wee beasties less opportunity to
> spoil your nectar.
I give dry yeasts a rehydration and quick boost. No problems with lag time
there...I've only had long lags with liquid yeasts (and yes, with starters)!
> Please untie me from the whipping post now. Thanks
Gee...I thought it was just getting into a real discussion. No attack
intended, but I think there are some views that need to run into one
another, particularly on the dry-vs-liquid yeast question.
from another item:
> Dick you mentioned that overall you have had better luck with dry yeasts
> than liquid. Could you, and anyone else, list those yeasts
> with which you have had the most success...
I've used Red Star "Premier Cuvee" (I believe the same strain was formerly
labeled "Prise de Mousse") many times; also their "Champagne" yeast. They
used to package a "Flor Sherry" yeast (which may or may not have contained
a real flor strain--I can't tell) which gave interesting character. I
would recommend against their Montrachet for mead--gave me an odd/
unpleasant phenolic sort of taste. I don't think that's a bad yeast, just
not a good one for mead.
I've done some experiments with Lalvin wine yeasts, with results that are a
bit hard to interpret. The D-47 seemed promising with straight honey but
I got some notes I didn't like in a couple of melomels. I didn't care for
results with 1122. I have notes that say 1116 worked well, but for some
reason I haven't gone back to it.
That's a start from one person's experience...and I've rambled too long...
> As a side note the best sweet meads I have made have been with the 3184
> sweet mead from Wyeast, but as noted here it is a pretty finicky yeast.
> It does not always finish...
I've used it and liked the results too. But I've had it take seemingly
forever--I don't like a 3-month fermentation. If it doesn't finish the
job, what good is that? You're stuck with "maybe I bottle and it restarts
fermenting and I've got a hassle" _vs_ repitching, but if you repitch with
a different yeast, you might as well have used that yeast in the first
place!
- ---
Dick Dunn rcd, domain talisman.com Boulder County, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: Pears/Fermenter size
From: "Grant W. Knechtel" <GWK@hartcrowser.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 23:41:49 -0700
Dick Dunn rhetorically asked:
>For that matter, have
>you ever tried to get *any*thing with pear in it to clear?
I made a gallon of pear cyser-like mead last year. Pectic enzyme seems to have
done the trick. Was I just lucky? It did seem to clear with more difficulty
than apple cysers I've made.
Charles Hudak says:
>BTW...a cube is a cube is a cube. Increasing a container's size doesn't
>change it's geometry, merely it's size. While some physical differences
>will be noted (nod to the heating cooling effect), the effect on mixing
>theoretically is nil.
Surface area increases as a factor of the square of the size, while volume
increases as a factor of the cube. Think about a cube 1 foot square vs. a 2
foot square cube. Volume is 8 times larger but surface area is 4 times larger.
This will most radically effect heating/cooling but there are other effects on
turbulence and mixing such as friction with the walls. What this means is that
a 1 gallon fermenter with the same geometry will not ferment the same as a 5
gallon. The effect may not be large, *if* temperature of the fermenting liquid
is maintained the same, but won't be nil. For those of us who don't have the
advantage of glycol cooled tanks, the effect of differences in heating/cooling
due to differences in size stepping up (or down) from 1 gallon jugs to 5 gallon
carboys may well be larger than the effect of differences in geometry, and will
be almost impossible to tell apart.
- -Grant
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Maple Mead
From: Dave Polaschek <davep@best.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 97 08:12:49 -0500
In Mead Lover's Digest #589, Randy Reed writes:
>I've just returned from vacation in Maine. Started thinking about
>using pure Maple Syrup for a mead, and bought 5 quarts. Now I am
>wondering if anyone has had good experience to share when making a
>maple mead. What yeast, other ingredients, examples, ideas...etc.
Here's my maple mead recipe:
5# lt. clover honey
2# dk. wildflower honey
6# maple syrup
water to make 5 gallons
2 tbsp yeast nutrient
1 vial yeastLab sweet mead yeast
I heated the water to make things dissolve easier. It might've gotten as
warm as 170F before I started pouring in honey, but no attempt was made
to heat & hold to kill bugs.
After 7 months, the final comment in my log is: "Incredibly yummy" at
which point I quit taking notes on it.
I'd call that a success, except for the not making enough part.
With 5 quarts (quick mental calculation says that's 11-15 pounds,
depending on how far down it's been boiled), you've got enough to scale
the batch up to 10 or 12 gallons with no problems.
The dark wildflower honey is a Minnesota woodland blend. I suspect it was
actually made of mostly of honey from trees. The only other clue about
its exact composition I have is that a mead made just with that dark
honey ended up tasting of anise, in spite of no noticeable anise quality
to the honey, and no weirdness during the fermentation.
- -DaveP
Dave Polaschek - home:davep@best.com or davep@mn.uswest.net
http://www.best.com/~davep/
------------------------------
Subject: Re: yeasts?
From: Dave Polaschek <davep@best.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 97 08:12:53 -0500
In Mead Lover's Digest #589, Olin Schultz writes:
>Could you, and anyone else, list those yeasts
>with which you have had the most success.
<http://www.best.com/~davep/mme/yeast.html> has my personal notes on
yeasts. I should probably expand on them, since they don't cover all the
yeasts I've used, but it's a starting point.
- -DaveP
Dave Polaschek - home:davep@best.com or davep@mn.uswest.net
http://www.best.com/~davep/
------------------------------
Subject: Maple Syrup Mead
From: Gordon & Cindy Camp <revcamp@epix.net>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:19:27 -0400
Randy Reed Asks:
>I've just returned from vacation in Maine. Started thinking about
>using pure Maple Syrup for a mead, and bought 5 quarts. Now I am
>wondering if anyone has had good experience to share when making a
>maple mead. What yeast, other ingredients, examples, ideas...etc.
Well I've never used Maple in a mead, but a few years ago a friend of mine had
just come back from Vermont with 15 lbs of maple syrup and wondered what to do
with it. I had just read about how early settlers to the new world had used
pine needles i n place of hops and wondered what if? So we treated the maple
as if it were malt syrup and picked a quart jar (tight pack) of pine needles.
We rinsed the PNs and boiled them for thirty minutes, then strained added the
MS and boiled for an hour. We topped off to 5 galls and pitched an ale yeast.
Bottled a week later. Aged 1 month tasted awfull. Aged another, and was
excellent. Clean, crisp piney, nuts and maple aroma. We brew this every year. I
know it wasn't exactly what you asked for, but what I am trying to say is, "Go
for it!" I look forward to hearing your results.
Gordon Camp
------------------------------
Subject: Preservatives, retardants, etc....
From: Charlie Moody <chmood@mindspring.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 10:48:27 -0400
> > Re: Jeff and his tiny bubbles.
> > I don't use any preservatives (isn't that why we make our own,
> > to avoid the commercial gunk?).
> That's a good reason, but I suspect that for a lot of folks, a more compel-
> ling reason is to have mead at all!
Just wanted to contrast my experience here. Sulfites, etc, in order to have
mead at all? I don't get it. Seems that the bulk of the folks on the list
who use these things use them as a matter of course...and, for the most
part, they seem to be the ones who take a technical, engineering-style
approach to mead-making. On the other hand, I approach it more as a cook:
I've been cooking by the seat of my pants since I was 7, which gives me 40
years (next month) of feeling my way arouns this kind of off-the-cuff
chemistry. I've been making mead for a year and a half now, with several
very successful batches under my belt (so to speak!). I mention all this as
prelude to my first main point - if someone can't produce mead without
extraordinary preservation methods, how can they *feed* themselves???
> > Don't ever use sulfites in my meads (used it once to sanitize some
corks).
> I don't either (except for some experimentation to learn about it), but
> does it mean there aren't *any* applications for them? Some folks say they
> are using them against oxidation. That makes some sense to me.
And yet, there have been reports in the digest about bottles found in attics
that had blown their corks in ages past, whose contents had no taste of
oxidation. In fact, of all the complaints I heard addressed in the digest,
oxidation has probably taken up the *least* space.
> There's also the matter of styles. If you always ferment your meads out
> bone-dry, you've got no worry about renewed fermentation. But there's a
> place in the world for mead with residual sugar, and you need a way to
> cope with that.
I combine the methods: I ferment my meads out bone-dry, feed 'em some more
honey, let *that* ferment out, feed 'em some more...until I acheive the
sweetness I want. True, it DOES lend itself to production of high-gravity
meads, but so what? I don't give it to kids...too good for 'em. I use this
method because I like a strong, lightly-sweet mead, and I don't mind being
patient.
> There's also a reason to want to clean up the act if you're making a
> melomel...sulfite on the fruit is one way around the delicate dance
> of using enough heat to kill wild yeast but not so much as to set pectin.
One way, yes...but despite what other ways there are of coping with this or
any of the other possibilities & eventualities, I've yet to hear a
compelling, or even thought-provoking, reason for sulfiting, etc. It all
seems to me to boil down to fear. It strikes me as the same motivation
behind stuffing beef cattle full of antibiotics: we worry that something
*might* happen so let's take extraordinary pre-emptive measures - and we
don't worry about what might happen as a result of those pre-emptive
measures.
m> > ...A well made mead should be very stable without all of these
m> > sanitizers and preservatives and antioxidants et. al....
> Well, you don't put sanitizers in the mead (I hope!) but you might use
> something to prevent fermentation from restarting in a sweet mead. Anti-
> oxidants? I don't know...might be worthwhile for a mead you're going to
> keep for a long time. Or perhaps you don't need them either (and perhaps
> this is Charles's point) if you get to sufficiently careful procedures.
> > ...If you wait long enough, like you should, there should be no "tiny
> > bubbles" in your mead *years* from now.
I think this *is* his point.
> That assumes you're making a dry still mead, but what about other styles?
> How would you prevent fermentation from restarting--and *know* beyond the
> shadow of a shard:-)--that it won't restart?
And how can you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there will be NO
long-term side-effects of any kind to the extraordinary chemical procedures
used to make sure?
It's not my intent to belittle the concerns and efforts of others; however,
modern history is filled with examples of technological fixes gone awry. My
bottom line is I'd rather put my faith in my own skills, my own patience,
and in the nature of the process itself, than in any easy techno-magick.
Surely that must be $0.02 worth by now....
- --
Charlie Moody http://www.phoenix.base.org/center.html
PGP Fingerprint: 7F 0D 9E 8C 7E DF 33 11 2C 2B B8 19 6C 0F 2C 02
------------------------------
Subject: Apple cider (US definition) and E. coli
From: mra@skyfry.com (Matthew Arnold)
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 15:17:29 GMT
In today's (August 27) Green Bay Press-Gazette there was an Associated Press
article about the Food and Drug Administration asking makers of unprocessed
apple cider (U.S. definition of cider, non-alcoholic) to warn customers about
the potential of E. Coli infection. The article says that one person (a child)
died and 66 were made sick because of it. It goes on to say that pasteurization
(including flash pasteurization) will kill it.
Now to my question. I was thinking of buying some cider from a local (as soon
as I locate one) apple grower and trying an experimental 1 to 2 gallon batch of
cyser as my first official attempt at a mead. Should I pasteurize it myself if
it is not already? Will sulfites kill it? It would certainly cut my fledgling
brewing career and even more fledgling mead-making career short if I would come
up with a nasty case of death.
N.B. I do not want to start an E. Coli thread a la the botulism thread on HBD.
I would just rather play it safe, even if the threat of infection is very low.
Did I mention that this is my first post to MLD?
Matt
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #589, 26 August 1997
From: Charles Hudak <cwhudak@mail.adnc.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 13:54:07 -0700
In response to Dick's latest whipping:
1) Sulfites are sanitizers (call them preservatives if you want; they
still kill wee beasties) The most common antioxidant used by homebrewers
is Vitamin C. Though Na2S2O5 (sodium metabisulfite) is pharmaceutically
considered an anitoxidant, it still releases SO2 gas which makes it a
sanitizer (preservative).
2) If you have to *stop* fermentation by adding sulfites or any other
preservative, you're doing something wrong (with *very* few exceptions).
If you've done everything right: aerated sufficiently, provided the yeast
with plenty of nutrients, pitched a healthy quantity of yeast and waited
long enough, there will be zero chance of fermentation "restarting".
Healthy yeast will ferment to their attenuative ability and then quit.
Period. If fermentation "restarts" then it was never finished in the first
place and shouldn't have been in a bottle. Trust me, I've made bottle
bombs before too!! You can have a mead with alot of residual sugar without
using preservatives. If you don't want to use so much honey that you get
rocketfuel mead, simply pick a yeast that isn't so attenuative. Sometimes
using beer yeasts works, especially if they are strong fermenting. They
can get a mead of O.G. 1.100 which isn't terribly high, down to 1.010-1.020.
3) Sulfite on the fruit? Again, not necessary. I steep my fruit in the
must at 170=B0 for 30 minutes which is sufficient to kill any microbes which
could be a problem and is much too cool to set any pectin.
4) If you are using sulfites, you are putting *sanitizers* in your mead.
Campden tablets are sodium metabisulfite.
5) As far as clarity goes, yes I do use clarifiers on occasion for those
*stubborn* meads. They are relatively innocuous though clay (bentonite)
and gelatin, and don't remain in the finished product (ok maybe a tiny bit
makes it through the racking).
Charles Hudak
cwhudak@adnc.com
Brewer, Chemist and Know-it-all at large
------------------------------
Subject: Campden tablets
From: Charles Hudak <cwhudak@mail.adnc.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 14:12:50 -0700
Mea Culpa,
Campden tablets can be either sodium or potassium metabisulfite but are not
(as I wrote) sulfite.
Charles Hudak
cwhudak@adnc.com
Brewer, Chemist and Know-it-all at large
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Melomel?
From: Peter Miller <ocean@mpx.com.au>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 97 10:28:50 +1000
>>From: haafbrau1@juno.com
>>Sent: Friday, August 22, 1997 4:51:10 AM
>I'm getting ready to make a melomel? soon, using Welch's white
>grape/peach in the mix. With my last three pmeads I put all the honey in
>at once (12-15 lbs per 5 gal) with no ill affects.
>>snip<<
>I've only recently heard of this
>gradual honey addition stuff. When you are predominately your own
>teacher, you tend to repeat alot of mistakes that others have already
>done and learned from.
Adding honey gradually is really just a way to get your final alcohol
content up as high as possible with the yeast you are using. You raise
their tolerance a little bit at a time and it gets higher than if you
dump in all the honey at once. You're then less likely to end up with
something that hasn't fermented to a reasonable end strength and is
sickly sweet. It's not really necessary to do it though - if you use a
recipe and don't tax the yeast by giving it too much honey initially in
the vain hope that it will just continue to ferment anything still in
solution you will almost certainly have success.
I use both methods depending on what I'm trying to achieve.
But generally, if you want to make a high alcohol mead dose it
gradually, if you want to make a don't-have-to-meddle-with-it-too-much
number just choose an appropriate amount of honey for your intended
finishing strength.
Peter
----- < ocean@mpx.com.au > -----
Perpetual Ocean Music & Sound Design
http://www.mpx.com.au/~ocean/
------------------------------
Subject: cider digest & AMA
From: Kim Christensen <gyrefalcon@mindspring.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:38:00 -0400 (EDT)
Greetings all,
Is anyone here on the cider digest? I have tried
to subscribe but it said I had a bad address. If anyone
can give me any info on it I would appreciate it.
I would also like some info on the AMA. I
havn't talked to anyone who belongs to it, I have only
seen it mentioned in the digests. Any information beyond
what is available on the Mead Maker's Page would be
lovely. I've not got anything new because all my carboys
are full...(isn't that a wonderful picture!!!)..
Thanx bunches...
__________________________
Kim L. Christensen
gyrefalcon@mindspring.com
spinner, weaver, mead - maker.
__________________________
------------------------------
Subject: Fruit in Braggot, ageing
From: Nathan Moore <moorent@bechtel.Colorado.EDU>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 12:24:47 -0600 (MDT)
I have 5 gallons of a very strong braggot that has been in the
carboy for three months. The recipe was 8lbs pale extract, 8lbs citrus
honey, 1/4 lb Belgian chocolate malt, and 1/4 lb 120L crystal. I also have
a hell of a lot of blueberries in the freezer. So has anyone tried adding
fruit to a braggot?(Mel-got?). Were the flavors complimentary? I'm
having trouble picturing this one in my head so any advise would be
appreciated.
Also is there a relationship between amount of fruit added and
neccesary ageing time. If I add 6lbs of blackberries to 5 gallons of mead
will it improve quicker than if I add 15lbs.
Nathan Moore
Denver, CO
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #589, 26 August 1997
From: blood@teleport.com
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 02:43:21 -0700 (PDT)
>------------------------------
>
>Subject: Maple Mead
>From: "Reed,Randy" <rreed@foxboro.com>
>Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 09:56:43 -0400
>
>I've just returned from vacation in Maine. Started thinking about
>using pure Maple Syrup for a mead, and bought 5 quarts. Now I am
>wondering if anyone has had good experience to share when making a
>maple mead. What yeast, other ingredients, examples, ideas...etc.
I pondered this same question at the beginning of the year and proceeded to
give it a go. I made a one gallon test batch with 2 lbs honey and 1 lb
organic maple syrup, following a straight mead recipe. The yeast was the
liquid Wyeast dry mead variety.
The mead is a beautiful ambery-chestnut color. It did not ever clear,
despite my having used Irish Moss, but I went ahead and bottled it.
At bottling time the newly-fermented alcohol overpowered any maple flavor
completely, and I wondered if the whole experiment might only produce some
cloudy mead which didn't taste particularly exceptional.
But after some months of aging (It's about 9 mos old now), the results are
great. The maple has moved to center stage, and the mead has a unique and
complex flavor overall. It's a somewhat sweet mead, very rich but not too
heavy.
I'm definitely going to keep experimenting with different maple/honey
ratios, although the above worked quite nicely.
Coincidentally, if you want to see an (empty) bottle of the very mead
discussed here, there is a photo from a local newspaper at:
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/bones/asatrupics/pic23.html
Waes Hael!
Michael
------------------------------
Subject: sweet mead yeast horror!
From: PickleMan <wrp2@axe.humboldt.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 18:06:08 -0700 (PDT)
Everyone in MLD land shout "I told you so!" Everyone warned me
about making a sweet mead with that wyeast by the same name, but I did it
anyhow. Everyone said it would be cloudy and stick. Well, I thought
things were great as I racked the wine a couple days ago. It wasn't very
sweet, but otherwise a terrific mead. Today I was cleaning out my
fermentation closet and found a carbouy labeled Sweet Mead. Quickly I
consulted my records and found I did have two meads brewing! The one that
finished was a mead w/ premier cuvee. The sweet mead looks finished as
well (it clear), but is still at 1.046. I started with 13 lbs of honey
that would give me about 1.012 for starting gravity, right?
My problem is what to do now. I see a couple bubbles on the
suurface of the mead, but the airlock didn't move in the several minutes I
stared at it in disbelief. What would be the consequences of adding a
gallon of water to it? Restarted fermentation or watered-down mead?
I still think that wyeast's sweet mead yeast could give results if
I had known how much honey to add. Other than being sickly sweet, the
mead is good.
PickleMan
wrp2@axe.humboldt.edu
------------------------------
Subject: Lalvin ICV D-47 yeast?
From: ilixi@tezcat.net
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 18:05:28 -0700
having used Red Star Premiere Cuvee and Lalvin 1118
strains for some time, I decided to try Lalvin "ICV D-47"
based on Lallemand's recommendation of this yeast in
particular for mead making.
Then - I thought again that it might be wiser to see if
anyone else has tried this particular yeast. I am not a
great fan of white wine, and after having purchased some
of the product, noted that it is also recommended for
dry whites. Ok - maybe I am just not feeling daring this
week in particular.
As to why I am using dry yeast at all, it is because we
pre-culture them in starter to make certain that we don't
pick up some other crufty microbes. So far there have been
no accidents, and no yeast have been pitched DOA (knocking
wood.)
Thanks for any comments...
CEM
P.S. I am interested in recommendations via private mail
of honey suppliers in Northern California with which anyone
has had positive experiences.
- --
C. Ewen MacMillan
West Coast Operations - Tezcatlipoca, Inc.
Vox: (415)256-8328 Whois: CEM
------------------------------
Subject: Prickly Pear Cactus Mead ?
From: "John L. Heubel" <jlheubel@wf.net>
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 1997 11:18:20 -0500
I have yet to make my first mead but have been lurking in the Mead Lovers
Digest for a short while. I managed to pick about 8 pounds of prickly
pear fruits
today. Sliced a couple open and boy are they the most magnificent shade of
magenta. Anyway, I won't have the honey (mesquite) till later this week
and plan on freezing the fruit. Enough blabbering, now the questions:
Do I need to peel them first or leave the skins on for freezing?
Do I need to peel them prior to putting them in the fermenter?
In CP's _HB Companion_ he states that it's important to boil the fruit
even though it will set the pectins because the juice is very mucilaginous
(sticky) and will be more so if not boiled. Anyone out there use them with
no boiling? What happened? I do have pectic enzyme so if I must boil I
can deal with that.
It also looks as if he puts the fruit in the primary fermenter. Can I add
it later in the ferment as I do with fruit beers? If so, how long into
primary (2 weeks?, 2 months?)
I have tasted this mead before and hope this first attempt is as good as
that. Any help certainly appreciated.
TIA,
John
Wichita Falls, TX
------------------------------
Subject: Bottle sizes
From: Matt Maples <mattm@ipacrx.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 1997 09:00:39 -0700
I am really hoping that someone can help with this. I am looking for the
names and volume of the different bottle sizes. Back in the days of old
they came up with names for the different bottle sizes, a much more
colorful way of referring to a bottle of mead or wine than just saying a
5 liter bottle. I can remember most of the names but I can't remember
the size that each represented. I have looked on the web with no luck. I
am bottling up some cyser in a 5 liter bottle for an SCA event and need
to have the proper bottle name. Here are the names in order of size (as
well as I can remember) but I know I am going to hack the spelling and I
don't know the volume. Here goes.......
bottle
magnum
jerabome
rehabome
balthazar
salamanzar
methoozala (sp)
nebacanezar (sp)
Please, please please, if anyone has this information please post it.
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #590
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