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Mead Lovers Digest #0719
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #719, 13 January 1999
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #719 13 January 1999
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Table vs. Cooking Honey ("Rex E. Stahlman II")
mead hangover (Mike Allred)
Re: Pooped yeast... (Bryant Johnson)
Acid in Mead / Rhodomel (Nathan Kanous)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #718, 10 January 1999 (E9c6zum@aol.com)
Screw top caps (Eric Reimer)
Re: 3 Gallon Batches ("Brian A")
Reisling Pyment ("Brian A")
Re: Pooped yeast and white blobs afloat (MathMagicn@aol.com)
Is it Mold? ()
Mead and Oxidation (Dan McFeeley)
stirring up controversy ("Chuck Wettergreen")
Re: Acid Blend (MathMagicn@aol.com)
hangovers (Dick Dunn)
NOTE: Digest only appears when there is enough material to send one.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Table vs. Cooking Honey
From: "Rex E. Stahlman II" <enduroking@apex2000.net>
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 23:32:13 -0600
This is just a question to clarify what is the difference between the two.
I'm know that the "Table" honey is clearer and lighter and the "Cooking" is
darker. The local honey dealer (I'm sure he has a proper name!!) is
getting REAL stingy with the "table" honey and is offering the "cooking"
honey instead. Since the number of mead's that I've produced can be
counted on one hand, I thought I'd ask ya'll. Can I make mead with the
darker honey? Will it clear out? Is the taste going to be different? Is
it any better or worse that the "Table" honey? Do I need to do anything
different in the fermentation process? I appreciate any and all answers,
publicly or privately.
Thanks Again.
Rex Stahlman
------------------------------
Subject: mead hangover
From: Mike Allred <mballred@mail.xmission.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 05:55:43 -0700
Is this true? If so why?
>>From: James Smith <James.Smith@Digital.com>
>>NOTHING is as bad as a mead hangover
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Pooped yeast...
From: Bryant Johnson <yarnspinner@nceye.net>
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 08:37:27 -0500
mead-request@talisman.com wrote:
>
> Mead Lover's Digest #718
> Subject: FW: Pooped yeast
> From: Eric Reimer <eric@etymonic.com>
> Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 08:44:10 -0500
>
(SNIP)
> litres. O.G. was 1.110. Yeast pitched. Racked to secondary ten days
> later. (Didn't measure S.G.) The mead started to clear in an
> additional 2 months. I had intended to rack the mead and feed the
> yeast with some additional honey at this point, but had no time. > Instead, t
he mead sat in the secondary until this past weekend and
> was almost completely clear. The gravity was 0.990. I thought I
> would go ahead and rack and feed anyway as planned.
(SNIP)
Eric,
I think you've just identified what has happened here: the OG of
1110 and the FG of 990. By my calculations, your mead is right at
about 16% ABV:
(OG - FG) / 7.377 = ABV
1110 - 0990 = 120 / 7.377 = 16.267
I have a batch of cyser/methyglin (if anyone knows which term takes
precedence, I'd appreciate it!) that is in that same ABV range. I
used montrachet yeast which can ferment to higher alcohol levels with
the right nutrients. What kind of yeast did you use? 16% is a high
number and it will probably take a couple years aging to "knock the
corners off" the palate. If it tastes like rocket fuel now, don't
throw it out...just give it time. My batch is on schedule (bulk aging
now) for periodic tastings for the next 8-10 years (depending on if I
have the willpower to give it time!).
I think what has happened is that the yeast has used up all its
"food" (i.e. sugar). If you want a slightly sweet mead, you really
should make sure it is stabilized before adding sorbate and honey back
in so that it won't referment in the bottles and give you those
infamous grenades we all hear about.
To answer your question: yes, I think your yeast have probably
pooped out. It is a possibility that they might just need some
nutrient in order to ferment your added honey, but do you really want
a higher ABV? It's all a matter of taste.
Enjoy!
Bryant Johnson
Yarnspinner
P.S.
Someone made a comment on how bad mead hangovers are. Let me voice
my wholehearted agreement with that! Took the little man with the
sledgehammer all day and the next night to get out of my head! And
believe me, he knew how to use that hammer!
Yarnie
------------------------------
Subject: Acid in Mead / Rhodomel
From: Nathan Kanous <nlkanous@pharmacy.wisc.edu>
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 08:14:58 -0600
Dan McFeeley posted some interesting information regarding the use of acid
in mead and levels of titratable acid in mead. As I looked at different
authors recommendations for acid in meads, I was trying to find a "middle
of the road" from which to branch out. As I recall, he didn't have
specific recommendations for acid blends from Roger Morse's book.
In Morse's book, he recommends 4 grams of cream of tartar (tartaric acid
and sodium bicarbonate, I think) and 4 grams of acid blend (equal parts
citric and tartaric) for each gallon of mead. I've only tried it once and
the mead it still aging in the basement. I don't like my mead too
alcoholic and I think this one may be beyond my tastes (16 pounds of honey
in 5 gallons w / 1 can Oregon Sour Cherry puree'). I can't say yet, how
the acid blend performed, but thought I would add some fuel to his posting.
Now, WRT rhodomel, I don't have any rose bushes and I don't plan to buy
enough roses to accomodate a rhodomel (not right now, anyhow). How about
carnations? Inexpensive, relatively fragrant, and readily available.
Should I worry about the use of pesticides in commercially available
carnations? Probably, eh? Any feedback would be appreciated. TIA
nathan in madison wi
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #718, 10 January 1999
From: E9c6zum@aol.com
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 15:37:43 EST
Micheal Meiers writes:
<< Is it possible to re-crown cap beer bottles that are screw top? Initially
I
thought that it wouldn't be possible without special screw type caps, but
then I looked closely at a bud light cap and it looked like an ordinary cap
that was crimped around the thread by an ordinary capper. The mead and
homebrew books I have don't mention anything on this. >>
I won't ask what you were doing drinking Bud Light ;-), but the first batches
of mead I had done were in Sioux City Birch Beer bottles, as my wife and I are
fond of their soda, and therefore have a constant supply. They are twist-off
caps. They seem to need a little more oomph to secure them to the bottles
than regular beer bottles, but I use regular ol' oxy-barrier crown caps, and
they seem to give an air-and water-tight seal. As I am a relative newbie,
somebody let me know if I am doing something drastically wrong, but it seems
to work.
Lane
------------------------------
Subject: Screw top caps
From: Eric Reimer <ERIC@etymonic.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 17:27:25 -0500
Michael Scott Meiners asked:
Is it possible to re-crown cap beer bottles that are screw top?
Screw top bottles tend to have a weaker neck because the glass is thinner.
A regular cap and capper can be used to seal the bottle, but care is
required (so the bottle neck doesn't break). Many homebrew shops carry
screw top caps which I believe are slightly thinner than the regular style
cap, so less force is required to seal the bottle.
Eric Reimer
------------------------------
Subject: Re: 3 Gallon Batches
From: "Brian A" <merrymead@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 10:40:36 PST
>Subject: Brewing in 3 Gallon Batches
>From: Tom Franklin <frankli1@niehs.nih.gov>
>Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 12:08:49 -0500
>I've found that I have a fairly reliable source for 3 gallon plastic
>food grade containers. Will I be able to simply take a 5 gallon recipe
>and do the math down to 3 gallons or are there other considerations >I
should take into account?
Most of my meads are made in 3 gallon batches. The only suggestions I'd
make are to get a 3-gallon glass secondary fermenter, and to use the
yeast quantity specified in the 5 gal recipes. All other ingredients can
be used in proper percentage (60%) for 5 gal to 3 gal conversion.
Good luck!
MerryMead
------------------------------
Subject: Reisling Pyment
From: "Brian A" <merrymead@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 10:44:25 PST
Greetings,
I just ordered a WineArt Reisling concentrate (concentrate only, not a
kit), and was planning to attempt to make it into a pyment. I've had
luck with Concord Grape pyments, and even one made from Welch's white
grape juice, but I've never worked with varietals before. Could anyone
offer any suggestions or recipes to get me started?
Thanks,
MerryMead
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Pooped yeast and white blobs afloat
From: MathMagicn@aol.com
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 22:29:12 EST
Eric Riemer wrote (1/10/98):
"I had intended to rack the mead and feed the yeast with some
additional honey at this point, but had no time. Instead, the mead sat in
the secondary until this past weekend and was almost completely clear. The
gravity was 0.990. I thought I would go ahead and rack and feed anyway as
planned. I removed some of the mead, added about one quarter Kg of honey,
boiled, cooled. This mixture was added to the tertiary, and the rest of
the mead was racked on top. I made sure to rack lots of yeast from the
bottom of the secondary. I still had some space in the tertiary, so I
boiled some additional water, added another one quarter Kg of honey and
added this to the tertiary to fill the space.
Finally a question. I have not noticed any airlock activity in the
tertiary. The mead is almost completely clear. From this I assume that
the yeast was pooped out and I have waited too long to add additional
honey. Should I wait? Should I add an addition package of champagne
yeast? Is the amount of alcohol present too much for the yeast? I did not
want an overly sweet mead."
Usually when teasing a mead or melomel, additional honey is added when the SG
drops to 1.01. It sounds as if your yeast has "starved" and you may be able
to reinocculate with an additional package of champagne yeast. Champagne
yeast is very attenuative and I doubt that the alcohol concentration is too
high. The dead yeast cells should provide the nutrients needed to augment the
sugars in the honey for a revived fermentation.
John Metzner wrote (1/10/99):
"I took a look at my 2nd batch of mead and saw something rather
disturbing. This is a cranberry mead which has been racked back off the
fruit after about a week and seems to be fermenting nicely. There is a
layer of white blobs on the surface, about 3-5 mm in diameter, look kind
of like cottage cheese (large curd). They appear to be precipitating
from the surface to the bottom of the carboy, where there is another layer.
This is the first batch which I've fermented in a glass carboy, so
I'm not sure if this is normal or not. Any ideas what these 'curds' might
be? Pectin? Yeast?"
I had the same thing happen on an elderberry melomel. It was an experiment
where I did not heat pasteurize the honey, but used campden tablets to try to
keep the nasties down. What ever it was seems to have ruined the small batch
- -- at least for drinking, but I am still doing some evaluation on the batch.
I've read of a similar infection in wines. I think it is called microdermaand
requires filtration and S02 to treat (but if the film covers the entire
surface of the must, you have a sewer-bound batch). Incidently, the mycoderma
organism turns wine into water (and carbon dioxide), so it could be called the
anti-Jesus germ. I hope that I am wrong, but I think your batch is beyond
hope.
I am learning a lot from this digest. thanks to everyone who is contributing.
Randall Stevenson
Novice Maker of Mjod
------------------------------
Subject: Is it Mold?
From: <greg.t.smith@us.pwcglobal.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 09:41:35 -0500
I was about to bottle my latest batch of mead, when I saw something that
appeared to be mold. It doesn't look fuzzy or anything, but it almost
looks like it could be a thin layer of mold or the crystallization that
forms on the top of honey when it sits for a while. I went ahead and
bottled it anyway, with the hopes of the stuff not being mold. I left over
an inch in the bottom, hoping that the 'mold' would not make it in the
bottles. Was this the right thing to do? Does anyone think that this was
mold? Did I lose my batch?
Thanks,
Greg
------------------------------
Subject: Mead and Oxidation
From: Dan McFeeley <mcfeeley@keynet.net>
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:36:56 -0600
I have seen a lot of references to mead's sensitivity to oxidation but
no one had offered a reason why mead in particular can be spoiled by too
much exposure to O2. The impression I had gotten was that *all* meads were
extremely sensitive to exposure to air and had to be treated with more than
the usual care exercised in winemaking to avoid splashing during racking, or
other inadvertent exposures to oxygen.
The section quoted below from a section on Wine Buffering Capacity and
Yeast Autolysate in _Wine Analysis and Production_ which I ran across not
so long ago offered a good explanation for seemed to be a commonly observed
problem in mead making.
Because phenolics and other compounds, such as SO2, bind with oxygen,
they contribute to the resistance of wine to oxidation. Collectively,
these contribute to the buffering capacity of a wine. A poorly buffered
wine at oxygen saturation has a high redox potential due to the lack of
oxygen-binding compounds. A well-buffered wine having high capacity for
oxygen uptake will have a much lower redox potential.
_Wine Analysis and Production_ , Chapman & Hall, 1995, p. 218
Morse & Steinkrause, and more recently McConnell and Schramm, have published
material on the effects of the poor buffering capacity of honey in mead
making, particularly on the rate of fermentation. As they discovered,
because of the relative lack of buffering compounds in honey, small changes
in acid content can sometimes create wide swings in pH. The pH can crash
below the levels needed by yeast to carry on active fermentation, creating
slow or stuck fermentations. For this reason, these writers have
recommended that the pH of a honey must should be checked at the start of
the fermentation, and that acid blends should be added after the fermentation
is complete.
Putting this together with the potential for oxidation damage in poorly
buffered wines was helpful to me in offering a good explanation for the
cautions given by many mead makers to be very careful when racking mead
to avoid splashing or other exposure to oxygen. Poorly buffered wines are
more sensitive to oxidation, according to the section from the text above,
which would naturally include mead. It also raised some new questions
for me.
Some people on this list have commented that excessive exposure to air
hadn't hurt their mead much, and that the occasional sherry tone added
to the mead had improved the flavor. Examples I recall were instances
of a mead left to bulk age, popping its stopper and left undiscovered like
that for days or longer. Is it possible that improved buffering capacity
from the addition of acid blend or earlier adjustments of pH had protected
the mead, which was probably a traditional mead made with honey alone, from
the exposure to O2? What about the wide variances in acid content and pH
level in different types of varietal honey? Would this indicate variances
in a mead's sensitivity to oxidation? I also wonder if melomels and
metheglyns, with their additives having the capacity for improving the
poorly buffered honey must, would be less vulnerable to oxidation than
traditional or show meads.
A final question I have is that, although I haven't seen mead's sensitivity
to oxygen discussed in this way in the material I have, it doesn't mean that
this isn't already well known. Have I reinvented the wheel, so to speak?
If there has been previous discussion in mead making circles on this subject,
what was the concensus?
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><>
Dan McFeeley
mcfeeley@keynet.net
------------------------------
Subject: stirring up controversy
From: "Chuck Wettergreen" <chuckmw@mcs.net>
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 13:35:31 -0600
I thought I'd stir the mead pot a little to try and generate a little
controversy.
I never "top off" my carboys. There is always headspace above my meads,
filled, I hope, with CO2. This, I believe, protects them from oxidation.
I have read recipes and descriptions of processes where people are
careful to always "top off" with distilled water or other liquids to
ensure that their carboys are always totally full.
I don't feel this is necessary for the following reasons.
I always fill my carboys with CO2 from my tank prior to racking into it.
Mead/wine/beer is naturally carbonated/saturated with CO2 at one
atmosphere's level. Even though I am very careful to reduce splashing,
If some CO2 is driven off by racking, it will be replaced by further
fermentation.
I have never had an "oxidized" taste reported by any judge of any of
my meads entered in any contest.
There have been reports in this Digest that oxygen and oxidation may
add a sherry-like flavor to some meads.
So how about it? any strong disagreement? Why?
Chuck Wettergreen
chuckmw@mcs.net
Geneva, IL
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Acid Blend
From: MathMagicn@aol.com
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 00:17:48 EST
Alex Curtis (01/10/99) asked:
1. why are they [acid blends] used in brewing mead?
Seems that wine yeast likes a low pH. Somewhere around 3.5 seems to work best.
Honey needs some help to get there, so acid blends may be added. Honey is a
buffer solution -- which means it resists changes in pH -- so it may take more
acid than one would expect to lower the pH to the desired level.
2. when/how do you add an acid blend when brewing mead?
Since the acidity is to make a more comfortable working environment for the
yeast, I check and adjust my pH before tossing the yeast. Since alcohol is a
base, I would not attempt to adjust the pH once the fermentation has started.
If you intend to tease the mead with more honey when the the SG is around
1.01, you may want to adjust the pH of the honey you add before mixing it with
the must.
3. what is the best form [of acid blend] to use, ie citrus juice, powder,
pills...etc?
Do not know, but here is what I do. I add the juice and zest of one lemon per
gallon of must and also 1/4 teaspoon of grape tannin. For most melomels this
will put the pH in the right area. If it is not, I add an acid blend to
adjust the pH. (The different acids will affect the final taste ... I tend to
prefer acids that match the fruit I'm using or taste I want to achieve.
Tannic and citric acids are my acids of choice.)
Randall
Whoever it was that said, "Drink too much mead and dwarves will forge
horseshoes in your head the next morning!" was correct.
------------------------------
Subject: hangovers
From: rcd@raven.talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: 13 Jan 99 23:25:49 MST (Wed)
I think we're going 'round again on mead-hangovers, but here's my take
after hearing a lot of stories and talking to a lot of people. There are
two very separate phenomena.
First, some folks are particularly sensitive to the effects of mead. I
don't know why it is--particular esters or higher alcohols--but I know it's
repeatable for these folks. Mead affects them like no other drink. I have
a friend--big guy--who can go through a large amount of beer, wine, or
brandy in an evening...and he'll be up early the next morning, bright and
chipper. (No, he doesn't do this often, but he can.) But give him a
couple glasses of mead and you don't want to be in the same *county* with
him the next day. There is something in mead that doesn't metabolize right
for him.
Second, some folks just don't calibrate their consumption before they start
complaining about mead hangovers. I've gone over this with folks...they
will be telling the standard bad story about mead hangovers, and we'll
figure out what they had to drink, and it will come up as several large
bottles of mead...well, gee, most folks of average build can't drink the
equivalent of three bottles of wine or a dozen shots of hard liquor in a
night and feel OK the next day! Mead is deceptive and seductive. Melomels
are especially deceptive this way...it can be like drinking a fruit-based
soda where you don't notice any alcohol.
The second phenomenon is curable, and one of the better things you can do
at a party where there's a variety of meads is to provide small glasses so
that people instinctively take small amounts of each. Stow the English pub
glasses when you're doing mead.
There's not much to be done about the first phenomenon. It affects people
in such different ways, I wish we had more information about it. I know
that mead affects me more than equivalent amounts (by total ethanol) of
wine or hard liquor, but I don't get hangovers from it...it just slows me
down. Cider has the least residual effect on me of any alcoholic drink.
WHY? Who knows? And, at least in the US, the socio-political atmosphere
is such that science isn't likely to be brought to bear on the question.
Even if there were some health-related useful information to emerge, nobody
is going to propose, let alone get funding for, a study of relative effects
of hangovers and why they happen.
- ---
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #719
*******************************
