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Mead Lovers Digest #0657
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #657, 18 March 1998
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #657 18 March 1998
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Freezing mead ("Jim Hodge")
Ultrafiltration (Louis Bonham)
Split batch of Mesquite Melomel (AlexMVSC)
Potassium sorbate (fitzhugh@students.uiuc.edu)
apimondia (Mark Winston)
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Subject: Freezing mead
From: "Jim Hodge" <jdhodge@worldnet.att.net>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 12:37:37 -0600
SM wrote:
"I was wondering if freezing would work. Cooling to 32F should freeze
the water, while leaving liquid alcohol. In theory anyway. In practice,
does anyone know how much water remains unfrozen?"
Freezing would not be a particularly good way to determine alcohol content
either. As ethyl alcohol is completely miscible in water, cooling your
mead to a temperature below 32F will give you a mixture of 'ice' and
'water', but there will always be some alcohol in the 'ice' and some
alcohol in the 'water'. As water has the higher freezing point of the two
liquids, the alcohol content of the cold liquid will always be somewhat
higher than the alcohol content of the frozen solid. (This freezing
technique can be used to increase the alcohol content of the liquid (as it
is in eisbiers), but could involve you in some legal entanglements if you
were to use this to make a mead brandy.)
Jim Hodge
------------------------------
Subject: Ultrafiltration
From: Louis Bonham <lkbonham@phoenix.net>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 13:16:11 -0600
Jim Liddil recently asked what molecular weight cut off is used in the
ultrafiltration (UF) process for making mead. If I recall correctly, Dr. Kime
used a 50,000 dalton filter, but in private communications with me a couple of
years ago he suggested that a 100,000 or even 200,000 dalton filter would
probably be sufficient.
To my knowledge, nobody has ever done an article or paper detailing exactly what
would be needed to set up a small scale UF setup; i.e., one that could prepare
20 liters or so of honey must in a few hours. (I seem to remember that Dr.
Kime's otherwise excellent article is rather scant on detailing exactly what is
needed and where to get it.) As some of you may know, I'm currently doing a
column (The Experimental Brewer) for BT, and this might be good fodder for it.
Has anyone out there actually set up a small scale UF setup? From scanning the
Millipore catalog, it appears that Millipore's Prep/Scale cartridges (TFF2 (0.23
square meters of filter area) or TFF6 (0.55 meters)) at 100,000 daltons would
work (they include their own housing and input / outflow ports), and that all
else that would be needed would be a peristaltic or small magnetic drive pump, a
needle valve or two (to set the flow restrictions on the retentate (and possibly
filtrate) outflows from the filters), some medium or heavy wall, food grade
plastic tubing, and perhaps a pressure gauge to help optimize the valve
settings.
Thoughts, comments, remarks? Ideas for alternatives to / equivalents for the
Millipore cartridges (when I checked a few years ago they were in the $200-300
list price range)? Anyone seen any recent articles on UF production of mead?
Lemme know . . . . .
Louis K. Bonham
lkbonham@phoenix.net
------------------------------
Subject: Split batch of Mesquite Melomel
From: AlexMVSC <AlexMVSC@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 21:07:54 EST
I am new to the digest, but I have been brewing mead for a couple of years. I
would like to throw a question to this knowledgable group:
I brewed an experimental batch of Mesquite melomel using mesquite honey and
the "fruit" of the mesquite tree (they're everywhere here in El Paso). By
fruit, I mean the boiled down mesquite pods that can be used for making jelly.
Anyway, I had two gallons in two jugs. I brewed it back in September using 5
1/2 lbs of mesquite honey, approx. 2 quarts of mesquite pulp and liquid sweet
mead yeast. It's been racked 4 times since then. Now, I have one gallon of
clear mead and one gallon of cloudy.
I'm stumped. Could my clear batch have just stopped fermenting prematurely?
How would I tell? Or is there something wrong with the cloudy batch? I'm
thinking of throwing them back together for a while to see what happens, but
I'm afraid that would be disastrous. Any ideas and suggestions would be
appreciated.
Thanks,
Alexamdra Ceely
alexmvsc@aol.com
------------------------------
Subject: Potassium sorbate
From: fitzhugh@students.uiuc.edu
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 02:32:28 -0600
Okay, so I've done a dejanews search and have looked through a number of
web pages on mead making and have not been able to find a definitive
approach to adding postassium sorbate to mead. I'm sure that this is
because it is no doubt a simple proceedure, but I'm amazed at the lack of
information I've been able to easily locate regarding my questions about my
first attempt at making mead. (Namely the "strange odors" coming from the
fermenter--very few people mention that this is common although I worried
like hell when I first noticed it). Anyway, my mead is too dry and I would
like to add about a pound of honey to sweeten it. It's stopped
fermentation for about a month or so. Do I simply add 2.5 tsp. of potassim
sorbate to my 5gal of rasp. melomel, wait 2 days and add the honey or what?
It's been racked and I can't see any sedimentation left in the carboy but
I just want to make sure I'm doing it right and all. Also, I kinda would
like to bottle and serve [some of] this within the next couple of months
(it's starting to taste good--hell of a lot better than a month ago). Is
this cool? Will I need to rack again? How long before I can bottle?
Thanks in advance!
Bryan
------------------------------
Subject: apimondia
From: Mark Winston <winston@sfu.ca>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 07:13:41 -0800 (PST)
I am seeking some suggestions for potential speakers at the upcoming
Apimondia conference, to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia in September
of 1999. Any suggestions you might have for national and international
experts in the areas of mead production, marketing, styles, quality
standards, or history would be highly useful. If you have some ideas, I
would appreciate names and full mail addresses for speakers, as well as
phone/FAX/e-mail addresses, and some description of what they might cover in
a talk. Thank you in advance for your help.
Mark Winston
Mark L. Winston
Department of Biological Sciences
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6
Canada
phone: 604-291-4459
FAX: 604-291-3496
e-mail: winston@sfu.ca
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #657
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