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Mead Lovers Digest #0709
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Errors-To: mead-errors@talisman.com
Reply-To: mead@talisman.com
To: mead@talisman.com
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #709, 21 November 1998
Mead Lover's Digest #709 21 November 1998
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Yuk! :P Dry Mead ("Tim Green")
Commercial Mead (Nathan Kryger)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #708, 17 November 1998 ("Belinda Messenger Ph.D.")
Any use for 5 gallons of maple vinegar? (Stan Wood)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #708, 17 November 1998 (Bryant Johnson)
Hydromel (Nathan Kanous)
AHA Board of Advisors ("Michael L. Hall")
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Yuk! :P Dry Mead
From: "Tim Green" <timgreen@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 10:22:32 -0500
Astringent and tannic is a good way to discribe a young dry mead. Other
people, myself included, tend to describe it as a rocket fuelish taste.
Those rough tastes will mellow out incredibly over time!
As for the dryness, brewing more honey/water to top up the carboy would be
good for a number of reasons. The first is to help prevent the oxydation of
the mead. Obviously it will also add sweetness to the mead. If it will cause
additional fermentation in your mead, that will depend on if the yeast has
reached it's alcohol tolerance or not. If not, it may ferment out dry again.
Another method to sweeten your mead is to add a stabilizer such as potassium
sorbate to it. Note that this is only useful for stopping renewed
fermantation, not fermentation in progress. Once it is added, then add
boiled honey water to the m ead a little at a time until it has reached the
sweetness you desire.
Hope this helps...
Tim
------------------------------
Subject: Commercial Mead
From: Nathan Kryger <nathan.kryger@CyberSafe.COM>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 10:21:20 -0800
Several people here have been asking about commercial mead. There is a
winery in Washington State called Bonair winery (www.bonairwine.com) Last
time I checked they had a dry mead and a semi sweet mead. I bought a
bottle of each. I thought they were pretty good even though they were
heavily filtered. The dry mead was actually dry and the sweet mead wasn't
overly sweet. I spoke with the winemaker and he said that he had been
making mead since the age of 15 (and he is much older than that now.) I
think their meads are about $10 a bottle.
Nathan Kryger
North Bend, WA
- ------------------------------------------------
: Nathan Kryger
: CyberSafe Corporation, Issaquah, WA
: nathan.kryger@cybersafe.com
: Opinions expressed here are my own and do not
: necessarily reflect those of my employer.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #708, 17 November 1998
From: "Belinda Messenger Ph.D." <belindam@agraquest.com>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 11:27:58 -0800
>Subject: Yuk! :P Dry Mead
>From: Faulconess@aol.com
>Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 18:45:44 EST
>
>I have a 6 gallon carboy full of "new" raspberry melomel (i.e., less than 2
>months old.) During my last racking, I noticed that the mead had already gone
>from sweet to dry.
I, too, prefer a sweeter mead, so often add honey (diluted with water) to my
meads when the fermentation has slowed down. You didn't mention the type of
yeast you used...if it was champagne yeast, those little beasties will eat
up vast quantities of honey (I added a total of 17# of honey over a 6-month
period to a batch of cherry vanilla melomel and it was still not very sweet!
FG=1.004!). So, I'm planning on adding more honey at one time, rather than
a small amount several times, to see if I can retain more sweetness. I've
also started with a much less attenuative yeast (Flor Sherry). For your
raspberry melomel, the astringent/tannic flavor of the berries is generally
masked by sweetness. Aging (and sweetening) seems to improve that. Sounds
like you have plenty of room for more honey, so I'd go for it.
Good luck,
bEL
------------------------------
Subject: Any use for 5 gallons of maple vinegar?
From: Stan Wood <agecwood@showme.missouri.edu>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 18:20:51 -0600
Hi all,
I was racking my Batch #13 (uh oh, bad omen) when
I noticed a particularly strong vinegar odor from the
carboy. Heres the history, then follows the questions.
5 lbs of honey, 1 gallon of Pure Maple $yrup (dark amber),
2 packages of Red Star Premier Champagne and 3 tsps of
yeast nutrient. Spent 7 months in the primary (I know
this is too long!). Racked on 31 Oct. Has a nice maple
smell in addition to the vinegar. Clearing well, too.
Now the questions. When a mead "goes south" and becomes
vinegar, does this happen quickly or slowly? Is there
any chance of "rescuing" the mead or should I just plan
on vinegar and oil for my salads for the next 5 years?
Has anyone ever used a batch turned to vinegar as
vinegar is meant to be used? I've made pickled eggs
before, does a maple-honey pickled egg sound appetizing?
Stan Wood - GIS Specialist, PC Administrator, Mead-maker
http://www.eswood.com/mead
"Give a man a brew, and he wastes an hour...
teach a man to brew, and he wastes a lifetime." from the MLD
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #708, 17 November 1998
From: Bryant Johnson <yarnspinner@nceye.net>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 20:43:36 -0500
> Yuk! :P Dry Mead (Faulconess@aol.com)
>
> Subject: Yuk! :P Dry Mead
> From: Faulconess@aol.com
> Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 18:45:44 EST
>
> Good Gentles All,
>
> I have a 6 gallon carboy full of "new" raspberry melomel (i.e., less
> than 2 months old.) During my last racking, I noticed that the mead
> had already gone from sweet to dry.
>
> I, myself do not LIKE dry mead. However, this batch now tastes very
> astringent and tanic. Is it beginning to acetify, or oxidize, or
> whatever you call it when your lovely honey-brew begins to turn to
> vinegar?
>
> There is about a gallon and a half of head-space left in the carboy.
> Should I just brew more honey-water, top it off and hope that does the
> trick? Or will THAT go dry, too?
>
If your mead has fermented out to dryness, then I would say that your
Specific Gravity must have been low to start with.
If the mead has stabilized (stopped fermenting), you can sweeten it at
bottling by adding sorbate, sulfite, and more sugar (to suit your
taste).
However, IF your mead has already started turning to vinegar, there is
no hope. Adding additional honey-water would only make you more
vinegar. Your best bet is to start over IF you have acetic acid
forming.
The lesson from this is to ALWAYS top up your carboy when the
fermentation begins to fall off. The vinegar-causing bacteria is much
less likely to invade your brew if you have topped off and have
limited surface area. ALWAYS top up and use an airlock with
metasulfite solution in it.
Good luck!
Bryant Johnson
Yarnspinner
yarnspinner@nceye.net
ICQ#: 5822481
------------------------------
Subject: Hydromel
From: Nathan Kanous <nlkanous@pharmacy.wisc.edu>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 08:15:17 -0600
Anybody got any experience with making lower gravity meads? Just curious.
nathan in Madison, WI
------------------------------
Subject: AHA Board of Advisors
From: "Michael L. Hall" <hall@galt.lanl.gov>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 09:59:09 -0700
The following message was posted to the Homebrew Digest. I'm posting
it here (JudgeNet, Cider-Digest, Mead-Digest) in order to spread the
information as far as possible, since many people might be interested
in this that don't read the HBD. Note that the AHA does include cider
and mead categories in its annual competition, and articles on cider,
mead and judging are printed often in Zymurgy.
Mike
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Michael L. Hall, Ph.D. <hall@lanl.gov> |
| President, Los Alamos Atom Mashers <http://hbd.org/users/atommash> |
| Member, AHA Board of Advisors <http://www.beertown.org/aha.html> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
- ------- start of forwarded message (RFC 934 encapsulation) -------
From: "Edmund J. Busch" <filter@rcn.com>
To: post@hbd.org
Subject: AHA Board of Advisors
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 08:43:58 -0500
Ladies and Gentlemen:
The American Homebrewers Association's Board of Advisors
(BOA) has an open seat that we'd like to fill. In order to fill this
opening on the board, the existing board will nominate a slate of
three to five people as candidates for an election by the general
membership, the first time that the general membership would be
so involved. Anybody on the board nominating a candidate will be
prepared to champion that candidate, telling the rest of the BOA
why their nominee is to be considered for nomination. The BOA
will discuss the potential candidates among ourselves and decide
on a final slate. This final slate will be submitted to the general
membership for a vote early in 1999.
Nominated candidates will be asked to confirm in writing
that they want to be candidates. They will also be asked to write
something to be posted on the AHA website about why they should be
members of the board. Although any AHA member can be considered for
the BOA, we need representation in certain areas of the country. We
expect geography to be a significant factor for this vote.
Although the AHA members-only website will be the forum
for the election, we will post notices to other beer-related Internet
sites that this is going on and that members should visit the site
regularly for an update. Nominees and voters must all be AHA members
in good standing. We will ask in our postings that individuals and
clubs share this information with members who are not computer savvy
and don't have access to the Internet. Those members can ask for
help from another member who is good on computers or, if they can
handle a computer but just don't have one, they can use the PC's
located in many public libraries to access the AHA website.
A postcard ballot will be included in an issue of
Zymurgy. Voters can pick their choice, sign the ballot (security in
case ballots get stolen. Who votes for who will not be published.),
put a stamp on the card and send it in. I will count the ballots,
or if the BOA prefers, and if someone else on the BOA wishes to
volunteer, we'll send the ballots to them. The person receiving the
most votes wins and, if the process is completed in time, will be
sworn in at the next national conference meeting, in Kansas City.
IN THE FUTURE, we will develop a way to take nominations
from the general membership. This process is evolutionary. We will
learn from this first vote (or maybe the first few votes will
be handled this way) and make sure that the voting system works
well. Then we add on a method to get nominations from the general
membership.
Please refer to the Board of Advisors by-laws at the AHA
website: http://dionysus.aob.org/members/ahabylaws.htm
I wish everybody good health and good cheer!
Ed Busch
Co-chairman, AHA Board of Advisors
- ------- end -------
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #709
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