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Mead Lovers Digest #0682
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #682, 29 June 1998
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #682 29 June 1998
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: home grown? ()
heather honey ()
Re: Sweet Mead and Mead w/tea settling faster ("Marc Shapiro")
vigorous fermentation's ("Mike Allred")
Siphons (Andrew Lynch)
Mead w/tea settling faster ? (Chuck Wettergreen)
Sage Mead (Matt_Maples@ncshealth.com)
Things in my brewing kit... (Richard Moore)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #681, 25 June 1998, origin of the word mead. (czes...)
Re: "Sweet Mead" problem (Mark Cassells)
strange berries ("Mr. Warren Place")
dissolving campden tabs ("Mr. Warren Place")
Bee Article ("Ben Pollard")
Jalapeno Mead ("Rex E. Stahlman II")
Re: Siphon tips (Leo Horishny)
NOTE: Digest only appears when there is enough material to send one.
Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead@talisman.com.
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subscribing, please include name and email address in body of message.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: home grown?
From: <DakBrew@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 08:26:30 EDT
In a message dated 98-06-26 02:00:43 EDT, you write:
<< I have made 11 batches of prickly pear mead so far. Prickly pear batch # 6
is
the one that I won my wife's heart and hand with. Prickly pear batch # 12
will be made with home grown prickly pears sometime around Christmas 1998.
I hope this helps.
Carl Saxer >>
Hey Carl just a few questions about prickly pear cactus. How meny cactus
plants did you plant? and how long did it take before they started producing
fruit? what time of year do they produce fruit? Oh yea the big question how
did you plant them with out geting pricked by a ton of spines? sorry to be so
nosey but you dont learn if you dont ask.
Thanks Dan
------------------------------
Subject: heather honey
From: <WackZoo@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 08:20:43 EDT
I live on long Island and I am looking for heather honey. Is there anyway
for me to find this type of honey in my area, or in US dose it go by a
different name. Yes, I know that a mead made with heather honey will take
about 8 years to age.
Thanks
David
Long Island, New York
WackZoo@aol.com
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Sweet Mead and Mead w/tea settling faster
From: "Marc Shapiro" <mshapiro@mail.inetone.net>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 09:06:28 +0000
> Subject: Definition Request: 'Sweet Mead'
> From: "Richard Moore" <remoore@zzapp.org>
> Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 13:05:06 -0400
Rich,
Your recipe and methods sounds fine. I would guess that your initial
SG was about 1.090, maybe 1.095, but I wouldn't think that it would
be any higher than that (based on honey being about 80% to 83%
sugar). If your hydrometer only goes up to 1.090 I would suggest
getting one that goes higher.
Unfortunately, I don't have any definate answers for you. A "heavy &
steady" fermentation of 3 weeks should have dropped the gravity a lot
more than 15 or 20 points. If the mead started to drop clear at that
time I would have thought that it would have been *much* closer to
being done.
Since You have rehydrated and pitched new yeast and that is still in
suspension I would say that, yes, patience is your best bet. That
and a little warmth. Normally I would say that 72-74 degrees should
be sufficient, but since you seem to be having slow fermentation you
might try to increase the temperature by *just a few degrees*, if you
can.
Actually, before you do anything drastic, I do have one other
suggestion: You say that the SG is now at 1.060 but you do not
mention if you have tasted it yet. The steady fermentation with very
little actual drop in SG makes me wonder if your hydrometer is giving
you an accurate reading. Is the mead actually as sweet as the
reading would suggest. Maybe that new hydrometer that I recommended
is a good idea for more reasons than one.
> ------------------------------
> Subject: Mead w/tea settling faster ?
> From: CW <cwelch@cais.com>
> Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 22:06:40 -0400
CW,
Yes, tannins are the reason that your tea meads are settling faster.
There may be other reasons, as well (especially since the ingredients
differ) but tannin is a useful agent for clarifying wine and mead.
It binds to proteins (?) that would otherwise cause cloudiness and
causes them to clump together and settle out. This is the reason
than many people add tannin before using gelatine as a fining agent.
In a low tannin wine this provides the tannins necessary for proper
clarification and in a high tannin wine it prevents the desireable
tannins (from a taste perspective) from being stripped out.
HTH
Wassail!
Marc Shapiro m_shapiro@bigfoot.com
Visit 'The Meadery' at:
http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_shapiro/
"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: vigorous fermentation's
From: "Mike Allred" <mike.allred@malnove.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 07:49:00 -0700
I have been reading the digest for a while now and I keep coming across
posts that imply that Mead doesn't ferment as vigorous as beer. My
melomeads have been rocking and rolling to the point of scaring small
children. I use pure oxygen, about 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient, 15 lbs.
of honey, and 1 large can of fruit per 5 gallon batch. I ferment in a
fridge at 68 deg. I have used dry and liquid (whitelabs) yeast. I do
not check or adjust pH. I hold the must at 150 for 20 min to kill the
nasties. I do not use Camden tablets.
Have I been lucky? Would my meads improve by slowing down the ferment
(say a lower temp).
------------------------------
Subject: Siphons
From: Andrew Lynch <ampl@anim.dreamworks.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 07:56:50 -0700
I cut a 1 inch piece off the long part of my racking cane. To siphon I
attach the flexible host to the racking cane and attach the 1 inch piece
to the other end of the flexible hose, insert the racking cane in the
full carboy and suck on the 1 inch piece until the flexible hose is
full. Then I pinch the hose with a mechanical pincher to stop the flow,
remove the 1 inch piece, insert the hose in my empty carboy / bottling
bucket, and release the pinch. No waste or contamination from the
nasties from my mouth.
> My favourite way of starting my siphon is to fill the tube with a little
> sterilizer solution (about 1/10th strength) and place my finger over one
> end. I then just place the uncovered end into the solution to be siphoned,
> and remove my finger over the other container and she starts first time
>
> Good Roads and Fair Weather,
> Shane Gray
ampl
- --
Andrew Lynch / Animation Technology / DreamWorks SKG /
ampl@anim.dreamworks.com
------------------------------
Subject: Mead w/tea settling faster ?
From: Chuck Wettergreen <chuckmw@mcs.net>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 07:20:03 -0500
In MLD #681, CW <cwelch@cais.com> wrote:
> My last 2 batches of mead [ cantaloupe and tradition(?) ] were both
> made with tea as one of the ingredients. Both of these have a
> rather large amount of sediment on the bottom (compared to my first
> 2 batches [citrus and vanilla]). I'm not sure if I'm comparing
> apples to oranges in this case but has anybody else noticed that
> their "tea" meads settle faster ? If so, any idea as to why
> it does (the tannin?) ?
After much pushing/prodding/nagging/cajoling by Dutch meadmaker Wout
Klingens, I added some grape tannin to a pie cherry melomel that had been
sitting cloudy for the past 11 months. There was an *immediate* chemical
reaction. The airlock started to bubble and a dark brown sediment began to
form before my eyes. The next day it was brilliant clear and there was 3/4"
(2 cm) of dark brown sediment on the bottom. I had seen this same thing
before when I foolishly added gelatin to a hazy cyser and immediately
formed a cloud-like colloid that wouldn't clear. I asked the MLD and
someone suggested tannin, the rest is history..
The only tannin I have been able to find in the US is grape tannin, which
adds color, but Wout tells me of tannin made from gallnuts which does not.
Has anyone seen tannin available in the us that does not add color? Yes,
there is tea, but that also adds color.
Cheers,
Chuck
------------------------------
Subject: Sage Mead
From: Matt_Maples@ncshealth.com
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 14:07:24 -0700
I told people I would post the sage recipe I had, so here it is. Sorry
about the delay but my then 11 month old son kept turning my computer off
and on until the OS crashed. Happily my recipe database is in tact and
everything is now up and running. I modified this recipe from on in Ms.
Renfrow's book "A Sip Through Time". This book is a must (pun intended) for
those who are interested in brewing with herbs of all kinds or are into
historical brewing.
Recipe modified from..
Sage Wine
1719 AD
"Sip Through Time" P. 179
6 gal water
2 gal fresh sage leaves
juice from 12 lemons
15 lb honey
ale yeast
Boil water and honey and scum it well. Pour over sage and let cool.
When cool add lemon juice and yeast. Let it work for 2 days then
strain it well. Bottle when fermentation stops. Age at least 3 months.
(assuming it boils back down to 6 gallons. OG should be about 1.090
if boiled down to 5 gallons OG should be 1.108)
The recipe ends up sweet the best you could hope for at 75% attenuation is
1.020. Mine ended up at 1.025 and I used Wyeast
1056. That was OK because 12 is a whole lot of lemons. Also it is two
GALLONS of fresh sage leaves that is not a typo and the
mead does have a very robust sage flavor, so if you don't love sage you
may as well forget it. I happen to like it a lot, it is
sweet but not coy and has a wonderful sage flavor and aroma. I will
definitely do this again but next time I will shoot for a
FG of 1.008 just for fun.
------------------------------
Subject: Things in my brewing kit...
From: Richard Moore <remoore@zzapp.org>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:55:15 -0400
Hopefully someone out there can shed a bit of light on a question of
chemistry.
I have two products hanging around the cellar; yeast 'energizer', which is
yellowish in tint, and yeast 'nutrient', which is more of a neutral color.
What would the difference be in these two products, and what are their
specific uses?
Thanks,
Rich Moore
Remoore@zzapp.org
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #681, 25 June 1998, origin of the word mead.
From: cperun@juno.com (czeslaw perun)
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 03:01:28 -0700
Mead probably originates from slavonic words for honey (miod in Polish,
med in czech).
------------------------------
Subject: Re: "Sweet Mead" problem
From: Mark Cassells <cstlmark@fred.net>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 17:24:13 -0400
>SNIP
>OK, I wanted a sweet mead, but 60 is a bit much. My gut feeling is that 30
>would be more in range. Any helpful hints here? Or should I let patience
>be a virtue?
>
Check out your pH. My guess is that it has fallen low enough that it is
inhibiting the yeast. Correct it by adding Calcium Carbonate to raise the
pH back to the area of 4.0.
Cordially;
Castlemark Honey
Mark G. Cassells
mailto:Cstlmark@fred.net
http://www.Castlemark-Honey.com
------------------------------
Subject: strange berries
From: "Mr. Warren Place" <wrp2@axe.humboldt.edu>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 16:02:24 -0700 (PDT)
Collective,
I was talking to a friend in the Pacific N.W. (USA) that said he
had heard of wine made from Salal berries and also wine made from Oregon
grapes (not grapes grown in Oregon, but purple berries on a spiney little
bush that makes hiking in shorts sometimes painful). Has anybody ever
triend making mead with either of these berries? I didn't think either of
them were edible (and still have my doubts).
Warren Place
wrp2@axe.humboldt.edu
www.humboldt.edu/~wrp2
------------------------------
Subject: dissolving campden tabs
From: "Mr. Warren Place" <wrp2@axe.humboldt.edu>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 16:06:45 -0700 (PDT)
Collective,
I usually use powdered potassium sulfite made into a stock
solution for sanitizing my musts, but I'd like to use the few campden
tablets I have on hand. I can't seem to get them to dissolve. I've
crushed them and added half a cup of water, but the powder just floats on
top. Am I supposed to heat the water or what?
Warren Place
wrp2@axe.humboldt.edu
www.humboldt.edu/~wrp2
------------------------------
Subject: Bee Article
From: "Ben Pollard" <classicferm@fia.net>
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 18:54:35 -0500
The Denver Post had an interesting article on bees last Sunday. Though not
really dealing with mead, I thought it might be of interest to those on the
list. It can be found at the link below.
http://www.denverpost.com/life/nat0621.htm
Ben Pollard
Classic Fermentations, Amarillo, TX
Home of Ben's Bees, brew supplies, and bulbs.
classsicferm@fia.net
http://home.fia.net/~classicferm
------------------------------
Subject: Jalapeno Mead
From: "Rex E. Stahlman II" <enduroking@apex2000.net>
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 19:05:53 -0500
I made a Jalapeno mead just before Christmas of 1997 and I have a couple
of questions. First off, I'll give you a little background of myself. I'm
a homebrewer of about 7 years and this is my first mead. I am a confessed
"artist" at brewing, not a "chemist". I enjoy the act of brewing and the
camaraderie of fellow brewers and my note taking is usually pretty weak!!
Now to my question... This mead was to be a fairly basic and easy one for
a couple of us beginners. I believe we used 15lbs of Honey. We created a
"tea" with cinnamon sticks, a couple of tea bags, and some orange peel.
After adding the honey, we brought it to a boil for about 5 min and skimmed
off the "stuff". After it cooled down we pitched the Wyeast "Dry Mead"
yeast (can't remember the #). I think we added some yeast nutrient in
there some where! After we added the yeast, my buddy and I "split" the
batch 50/50. We both put our "2.5" gals. of mead in glass carboys. When
we split it, I added about 4 slices of a Jalapeno Pepper to mine (my buddy
thought I was nuts!!) It fermented great for about 4 weeks and then it
slowed down to almost nothing. After moving it to a secondary and a couple
more months, IT STILL HASN'T CLEARED!!! I know have it in one gal. wine
bottles and it still hasn't cleared. The taste at about 4 months was
"different". At first, the Jalapeno "hot" and the alcohol "hot" just about
took your breath away. After a couple of sips, the alcohol "hot" is by far
the more prevalent and I'm hoping this will mellow with age. I'm just
wondering way it hasn't cleared up!!! Almost all of the post I have read
here on MLD talks about "crystal clear". Did we do something wrong? I'm
not real worried as I have had numerous beers that never cleared
completely. My buddies hasn't cleared either so I don't think it was the
pepper!!!
Thank you for any help,
Rex Stahlman
enduroking@apex2000.net
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Siphon tips
From: menander@iac.net (Leo Horishny)
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 09:05:57 -0400 (EDT)
>Samuel Follows:
>> I've found the best siphon starter to be the body of a 3-part airlock.
>The little tube butts against my siphon tubing. The big opening fits over my
>> mouth. One quick suck, and the siphon is full without lips ever touching
>it. No fiddling with turkey basters or other contraptions.
>
>My favourite way of starting my siphon is to fill the tube with a little
>sterilizer solution (about 1/10th strength) and place my finger over one
>end. I then just place the uncovered end into the solution to be siphoned,
>and remove my finger over the other container and she starts first time
>
>Good Roads and Fair Weather,
>Shane Gray
Both excellent suggestions, and it appears that I'll be having to give them
a try soon,
I checked the carboy the other day and it's already clear! This after
racking into the
secondary less than 2 weeks ago. Go figure.
Do most people have 2 carboys to rerack secondaries or how do you do that if
not?
Leo Horishny
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #682
*******************************
