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Mead Lovers Digest #0601
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #601, 9 October 1997
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #601 9 October 1997
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
First Time Mead Disaster (j&a)
Fruitless? ("Paul A. Hausman")
Sasparilla update ("Curtis,Dave [St. John's]")
North American Fruit Explorers ("John R. Bowen")
Yet another oak chip question ("Hy Ginsberg")
Re: Jasmine Mead?? (Marc Shapiro)
Tomato Mead (nathan_l_kanous_ii@ferris.edu)
mead (Kirk Jones)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: First Time Mead Disaster
From: j&a <mrpookey@mindspring.com>
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 1997 14:07:35 -0500
hey now,
well, i brewed my first batch of mead this weekend. due to some unfortunate
turns of events, i don't know whether it will come out alright or if i
should dump it. :-(
everything was going okay...i had the 12 gallons of sage honey in the pot
and holding at 190F for 30 minutes. finally got the temp to 160F and added 4
pounds of blueberries and 2 pounds of raspberries. then realized i forgot to
put the fruit in the grain bag. duh. i shrugged that off and figured it
wouldn't hurt anything.
i was in the process of cooling down the must when my work pager went off!
the dreaded emergency one. when it goes off, i gotta get to work post haste,
pronto, quick. i didn't know when i would get back and didn't want to leave
the must just sitting in the carboy. i tried to take a specific gravity but
the fruit had clogged the plastic buckets spigget. so i added the sweet
mead yeast at 90F. *sigh*
this was at 6pm on saturday. by 7am sunday (when i got home!!!) it was
bubbling away very nicely. today it's still bubbling at 1 every 4 seconds.
my questions are:
1) the raspberries have come apart letting the seeds out. how bad will the
tanin acid from the seeds be?
2) what detrimental effects will i have from pitching the yeast at 90F? it
was in a healty, 20oz starter before pitching.
3) i'm going to siphon the mead off of the fruit in a week. how can i go
about this when the spiggot is clogged? i guess through the top with a siphon?
4) does this mead have a chance of being any good? should i stick to brewing
beer? :-)
thanks,
jonathan
*****************************************************************************
Willow sky, whoa, I walk and wonder why.
They say love your brother, but you will catch it when you try.
Roll down the line, boy, drop you for a loss;
Ride you out on a cold rail road and nail you to a cross.
- --Unbroken Chain by Robert Petersen
*****************************************************************************
------------------------------
Subject: Fruitless?
From: "Paul A. Hausman" <paul@lion.com>
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 16:38:07 -0400 (EDT)
> ...at the local market, I
> saw Dole 100% fruit concentrate in cans (like O.J.), and they had
> raspberry, peach, and the like. My question to the collective is can
> I use these in place of fruit? Do they have the necessary sugar,
> considering my honey stock, and most importantly, for those who have
> used it, does the end result taste funky? I would like to make the
> mead (my first), but don't want to ruin the batch...
My best mead to date was an "A&P Cyser". Pure luck, I guess, because
I violated every rule I've heard on this digest. It was my second mead
ever, and I was kinda disappointed in my first, so I wanted it simple
and cheap. Used Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast (re-pitched from my first mead)
which seems to be highly derided by many on the mead digest. Made a
3 gallon batch with 8 # of Golden Blossom brand supermarket honey.
Added 2 cans of frozen apple juice (I think it was Motts, but all
the ones I looked at were pasturized and unpreserved). The frozen
juice even helped to cool down the hot must (which I had home-pasturized
at 175 oF for 20 minutes).
- --
Paul A. Hausman <Paul@Lion.com>
Lion Technology Inc., Lafayette, NJ, USA
------------------------------
Subject: Sasparilla update
From: "Curtis,Dave [St. John's]" <Dave.Curtis@EC.GC.CA>
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 08:44:50 -0230
Hello again
I posed a question a couple of digests ago regarding a terrible smell I
had using berries (and seeds) in the primary fermentor. I had one
response which thought I should have been using the roots but I was
again reassured that the berries were what my grandfather had used.
I wanted to write back as I tried what my friend suggested and that was
to rack off the juice from the seeds/ skins. The smell is now actually
a nice sweet aroma very pleasant to the nose. I will also add that the
fermentation is now more typical with lots of fine CO2 gas being
released. There are no big oily/soapy-like bubbles anymore (sorry for
the weird description).
Whichever way this works out, it seems to be going in the right
direction this time, so my fingers are crossed and I'll continue to
update you.
Take Care and Happy Brewing
Dave Curtis
Microbiology Technologist EPB/NF
E-mail: Dave.Curtis@ec.gc.ca
For non government recipients:
"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official
position of my
employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."
------------------------------
Subject: North American Fruit Explorers
From: "John R. Bowen" <jbowen@primary.net>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 1956 13:15:10 +0000
We have had some small discussion of the North American Fruit
Explorers (acronym: NAFEX) on the cider digest, and I thought those of
you interested in fruit meads might also find it an interesting
organization.
It is a non-profit association of individuals,
professionals and hobbiests (like me), who are interested in growing
and consuming fruit (and nuts). The emphasis is often on minor/wild
fruits and lesser know varieties. You wouldn't likely find anything
on growing Red Delicious apples in Washington State. But you would find
articles and letters on bagging apples in Japan and the USA, organic
orchard practices, pollinators, variety trials, a beginners section,
and articles on gooseberries, currants, paw paws, grapes, jujubes,
mayhaws, chestnuts, etc. There is an exchange page for scions/seeds
and a lending library. I don't know how large the organization is,
but there is an annual meeting. The quarterly publication runs about
70 pages.
The members are enthusiastic, if not zealous, about their fruit/nut
growing, and most would welcome your comments and questions about
fruit utilization in meads. You might even find sources for some
interesting fruits. Anyone up for a paw paw melomel?
>From time to time I may post a NAFEX letter here, or vice versa, as
permitted.
Membership is $8 USA ($12 Canada/non USA) /year for 4 issues,
seemingly a bargain to me.
Contact NAFEX, 1716 Apples Rd., Chapin, IL 62628
------------------------------
Subject: Yet another oak chip question
From: "Hy Ginsberg" <hy@sover.net>
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 15:00:08 -0400
What are you folks using for oak chips? Do you just go down to the
lumberyard, pick up a hunk of oak, and go at it with an axe for a while, or
is there some sort of homebrew quality mail order oak chip supplier out
there? Or are oak chips just something I can buy a bag of at Home Depot?
All this talk has got me itching to experiment...
Thanks - Hy
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Jasmine Mead??
From: Marc Shapiro <mn.shapiro1@mindspring.com>
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 1997 23:27:34 -0400
> Subject: Jasmine Mead??
> From: "Mike Kidulich" <mjkid@ix.netcom.com>
> Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 11:06:32 -5
Mike,
Whenever I make a citrus melomel, I use herbal and fruit tea as the
base, instead of water. Just make the tea to the strength that you like
for the full volume of water that you will need.
Wassail!
Marc Shapiro http://www.mindspring.com/~mn.shapiro1/index.html
*** BTW: Lots of new links added ***
"If you drink melomel every day, you will live to be 150 years old,
unless your wife shoots you."
- --Dr. Ferenc Androczi, Winemaker of the Little Hungary Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Tomato Mead
From: nathan_l_kanous_ii@ferris.edu
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 05:40:13 -0400
Someone who knows I brew gave me a recipe yesterday and insists I have to
try it.
12 lbs tomatoes
12 lbs sugar
5 boxes golden raisins
2 oranges cut in half
2 packets dry yeast
2 gallons warm water
Boil the water with sugar, add other ingredients, pitch yeast when cooled.
Etc., etc., etc..
Any thoughts?
Nathan in Frankenmuth
------------------------------
Subject: mead
From: b-man@aliens.com (Kirk Jones)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 1997 07:47:12 -0400
Hello meadmakers,
I have enjoyed reading some of your posts and would like to ask for some
assistance in mead making.
Some background: I'm a beekeeper in Northern Mich. (and Florida too) and
have been making mead for about 10 years. Most of our mead making has been
in tandem with enjoying our last mead and we have got a little too loose.
Some of them were great and some were duds.
Lately I have been doing some more research and following the mead digest
and have picked up a great amount of info with much more to glean ahead.
Now I'm brewing in 55 gallon plastic drums and racking to SS tanks with
those adjustable lids.
I have one tank that has fallen clear and is very dry. I used about 2.75#
of honey per gallon and Lalvin d-47 with some yeast energizer(I repitched a
couple weeks later with a champagne yeast because I thought there was no
activity; actually everything was just fine, the gasket on the barrel had a
little leak and the gas trap showed no action)
It has a great nose; very floral. It's pretty dry, I think it was .994. I
thought it could use a little more *acidity* and just a hint of sweetness.
I wondered what would be the best way to handle the task. I have followed
the thread on using acid before vs. after fermenting, and decided to adjust
after.
A problem I've encountered in the past is accidental secondary fermentation
in the bottle(meads with residual sugar). I visited some wineries in the
area and they told me they:
1)sulfited
2)sorbated
3)filtered to remove yeast
Well, we'll give it a try.
*Kirk Jones/ Sleeping Bear Apiaries /971 S. Pioneer Rd./Beulah,MI 49617
*Sharon Jones/ BeeDazzled Candleworks /6289 River Rd./ Benzonia, MI 49616
e-mail b-man@aliens.com
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #601
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