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Mead Lovers Digest #0775
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #775, 23 December 1999
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #775 23 December 1999
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
RE: Mead Lover's Digest #774, 20 December 1999 ("Foor, Dean")
x-country mead ("Spies, Jay")
PFOB (hyperoxidation) experiment ("Brian Lundeen - F102")
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #774, 20 December 1999 (CWein@aol.com)
A way to freeze mead or cider. (Warren Place)
Freezing Mead....Inadvertantly of course (John Metzner)
freezing/fruit in primary/yeast culturing ("Alan Meeker")
mead brandy (Hddanfxdwg@aol.com)
Re: Fractional Distillation ("Robert J. Waddell")
First mead/mint (Ballsacius@aol.com)
Freeze distillation - methods ("Thaddaeus A. Vick")
Brewing by the Signs (YAMABREW@aol.com)
Frosty question ("Jake Hester")
Re: when/how to add herbs/spices (Elfboy0@aol.com)
re: Brewing by the Signs (Dick Dunn)
NOTE: Digest only appears when there is enough material to send one.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: Mead Lover's Digest #774, 20 December 1999
From: "Foor, Dean" <DFoor@TheITGroup.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 23:24:30 -0800
Concerning distillation and "ice" meads:
I have not tried distillation myself as I have not found a situation where I
had the "extra" mead to experiment with, not to mention the legality thing
in the US is a drag. However, there is good handbook available (for a price
- - but a fair one) at I believe www.prestige.tj I haven't looked at the
handbook in a while but I recall it being very informative. It discusses at
length the "by-products" which can occur.
The process of freezing out water is much easier although the alcohol
content will be lower than the distillation process (but you'll have more to
drink). I have unintentionally frozen a growler of cyser before and decided
to rack off the liquid below the ice. It was good and super bright. Don't
know if I'd do it to an entire batch. I would suggest racking over a mead
into 1 gallon jugs and experimenting with the near freezing process. Rack
off the remaining liquid and see what you think.
Concerning x-country meads:
I have shipped my mead from Alaska to Ohio without a problem using bubble
wrap and peanuts. I usually wrap the bottles in a good layer of bubble wrap
and than place them in a large ziplock (they were 16oz bottles). My hope
was that if they did break the liquid might be contained in the ziplock. I
usually put a good layer of bubble wrap and than peanuts on the bottom and
top with the meads snug in-between and cased in peanuts. Give it a whirl,
although the bottle shippers sound nice if you could recycle them. I tried
to send mead to friends that will send mead.
Dean C. Foor, PE, SIT
IT Corporation, A Member of The IT Group
4701 Business Park Blvd. Suite 36
Anchorage, Alaska 99503-7166
dfoor@theitgroup.com
------------------------------
Subject: x-country mead
From: "Spies, Jay" <Spies@dhcd.state.md.us>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 10:06:12 -0500
All -
Ken Mason asked about the best ways to send mead across the country...
Notwithstanding some reluctance by shippers to ship alcoholic beverages
(assuming that they know what they are), one almost foolproof way to ship
bottles across the country, or anywhere for that matter, can be accomplished
thusly:
Take 1 shoebox. A larger boot or hi-top tennis shoe box works nicely. Get
some of that expando-foam you find in mega hardware stores. Spray the
inside bottom of the box with a layer of foam about 4 inches thick. After a
few minutes (once it gets thick and squishy, cover that layer with a large
piece of plastic food wrap, laying the wrap over the sides of the box by a
good amount. Then press your bottles into the plastic wrap so the foam
comes up around the sides of them and cradles the bottles. I've found that
I can fit 3 bottles in an up-down-up side by side configuration. Then wrap
the excess plastic wrap over the exposed top half of the bottles. Wait
about an hour for the foam to mostly cure, and then spray another layer over
top of the plastic-wrap-covered bottles. Leave it sit for a while until the
top layer cures, and trim any excess foam that protrudes over the top of the
box with a bread knife so that the lid of the shoebox will fit flush. Then
affix the box top, tape, and send that puppy anywhere on the face of the
earth. Barring being crushed by a safe, your little bottles of mead are
snug as bugs. I've even had a friend report that upon arrival one of the
boxes' corners was crushed in (apparently by an overzealous UPS employee),
and the bottles were still intact. Extraction of the bottles can be tricky,
as the foam definitely cures hard. Hence the need for plastic wrap. Just
make sure the wrap covers all the exposed bottle parts as well as the
boundary between the two foam layers. Done right, the top foam layer just
lifts out. Works for me. As an added bonus, Big Brother thinks you're
shipping shoes...
:) Score one for Joe Citizen.
Hope this helps,
Jay Spies
Wishful Thinking Basement Brewery
Baltimore, MD
------------------------------
Subject: PFOB (hyperoxidation) experiment
From: "Brian Lundeen - F102" <blundeen@rrc.mb.ca>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 10:00:32 -0600
> Subject: Re: Pre-Fermentation Oxidative Browning
> From: Dan McFeeley <mcfeeley@keynet.net>
> Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 11:38:10 -0600
> This does sound like a great experiment -- have you started a
> mead made
> with the same honey, but without PFOB in order to taste compare the
> finished meads?
A split batch sounds like a good idea. Since my inherent laziness has caused
me to put off starting my latest batch of mead (I only make one batch a year
at this time), it is still possible to take that route. Although I had toyed
with the idea of experimenting with some characterful ale yeasts this year,
I think a simple dry mead (I have clover honey) fermented with a neutral
wine yeast such as EC-1118 would showcase any differences between the two
musts better. The honey will be pasteurized, with no sulfites added to
either must. One must will get one hour of aeration (same as I do for my
beers) from my air stone. In 6 months, I shall file a progress report.
Brian
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #774, 20 December 1999
From: CWein@aol.com
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 11:06:03 EST
With regard to the distillation of home fermented beverages' safety and
legality:
1)I don't worry about the B. A. T. F. coming to my home because I'm not armed
to the teeth completely, have only the usual number of wives (which is one or
none). 2) safety is of primary concern to maintaining your health and
neurological well-being. Methanol, being a one carbon atom alcohol has a
slightly lower boiling point in mixture with water and ethanol. Therefore
fractional distillation is required to minimize toxic levels of methanol from
being present in your final product. There should be adequate instructions in
any introductory to organic chemistry lab manual. I would probably suggest
testing the resulting liquor by gas chromatography. Cheers
------------------------------
Subject: A way to freeze mead or cider.
From: Warren Place <wrplace@ucdavis.edu>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 08:10:46 -0800 (PST)
If you have a kegging system and a freezer, making applejack or
mead brandy is very easy. I made applejack once unintentionally, of
course (No, really). I had 2.5 gallons of cider in my 3 gal. keg which I
placed in the freezer. I had just started counter-pressure bottle
filling (CPBF) and was having some problems with foaming. Getting the
cider really cold seemed to solve my problem (not sure how long I left the
keg in the freezer) but when I was done bottling I noticed I was a couple
six packs short of the expected yield. I opened the keg to find several
pints of ice at the bottom. Oops! I tasted the ice (after melting it)
and it had a hint of cider though was largely water. This seems like the
easiest way to make 'jack. If you don't have a cpbf you could just
transfer to another keg or rack into a bottling bucket.
Warren Place
------------------------------
Subject: Freezing Mead....Inadvertantly of course
From: John Metzner <jlm@arsc.edu>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 13:44:56 -0900
Last year I had a 3 gallon batch of cyser which wasn't clearing well.
I moved it downstairs to the garage where it was 40 - 45 F hoping
it would help it clear. Sure enough within a few days it had cleared
up quite a bit. But after a week no improvement beyond the initial
change. I decided to cool it off a bit more so I moved it closer to
the garage door. The cold snap hit (-42F) and I don't know what the
garage temperature dropped to. Within a day the cyser in the carboy
froze about a 1/3 of the way down. I lost about 1 quart to expansion,
thankfully the carboy did not break. Being a newbie to mead making,
I did not seize this opportunity at readymade cyser brandy and just
moved the carboy back to a warmer part of the garage.
Had I known then what I know now, I would have grabbed my handy racking
cane, slid it down the inside wall of the carboy and racked it off.
I think the same proceedure could be used if a carboy got intentionally
"iced up".
- -- John Metzner, Fairbanks, Alaska
(one of the larger freezers on the planet right now)
------------------------------
Subject: freezing/fruit in primary/yeast culturing
From: "Alan Meeker" <ameeker@welchlink.welch.jhu.edu>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 10:20:29 -0500
Jay and his "friend" are thinking about how to remove ice from frozen mead
(I'm sure this is a /theoretical/ right Jay? Nudge nudge say no more say no
more...)
One problem you may run into is that the cheesecloth itself may provide
nucleation sites for the ice crystals which could quickly lead to the
formation of a sheet of ice covering the holes - there goes your filtration.
Of course, you could possibly break this up and it might filter out OK. Or,
maybe it's not a problem. After all any ice that forms should float right? I
think you'd just have to try it but, seeing as it is simply a thought
experiment I guess we'll never know huh? ;)
- ---------------------------------------
Dick Dunn wrote about fruit in the primary:
>the fruit supplies adequate nutrients for the
> yeast to get going. I've always gotten vigorous fermentation (sometimes
> alarmingly so) with fruit in the primary and without any sort of nutrient
> or energizer added.
I second this. I've seen this behavior several times. Especially telling is
that this happens when I split a must into two equal halves. One half gets
fruit, the other none. They are pitched with same amount of the same yeast
starter. The fruit mead always finishes well before the straight mead.
- -------------------------------------
Steve Drake asks about Edme yeast and culturing:
> there any special tricks to culturing brewing yeast as oppose to
> standard lab yeasts. (Other then doing it in 5 gal batches while
> using honey as a sugar source ;-)))))
Steve, I have had no problems maintaining cultures as YPD slants at 4 degC.
Out of paranoia I reculture these once a year by streaking out to YPD plates
then back to new slants. The plates are handy to have around anyway for
initiating starters. Of course, there are many other methods for storage and
you can't beat liquid nitrogen glycerols for long-term archival purposes.
As far as Edme yeast being multi-strain I don't know. You could try
streaking out and looking for different colony morphologies I suppose but
this seems less than ideal....
- -Alan
------------------------------
Subject: mead brandy
From: Hddanfxdwg@aol.com
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 20:05:41 EST
I've read with interest all of the articles about distillation/freeze
concentrating mead to make brandy. One source claims blindness and death
will occur with careless distilling. One source claims massive headache and
ketone poisoning from freeze concentrating. Distilling is obviously illegal,
while freeze concentrating is iffy.
Any distilled product and I would assume any freeze concentrated product is
very rough when it is new. Maybe suitable to rub down your horse, but
certainly not drinkable. Good brandy is aged for 5-10 years, fine brandy
longer yet. Has anyone, using either method described above, made a mead
brandy and aged it sufficiently to smooth it out? What does mead brandy
taste like? Brandy is made from new white wine, not aged red wine. Do I
distill/ concentrate my mead into spirits as soon as the fermentation is
over, then age the brandy? Any bonafide experts in this area out there?
Happy New Years to all. (I won't say new millenium cause I don't want to
start an argument) Dan
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Fractional Distillation
From: "Robert J. Waddell" <rjw@dimensional.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 18:07:16 -0700
"Spies, Jay" <Spies@dhcd.state.md.us>, and
"Mark Nelson" <menelson@mindspring.com>
are interested in methods and vessels for freezing their mead to separate
it from the water.
I've only done it a couple of times, but both were successful. I filled
plastic one gallon milk jugs about 3/4 full of my mead and put them in the
freezer for about 4 hours. A large chunk of ice was floating in the
center. I removed the cap and poured the "brandy" into another jug. I
then refroze that for about 4 hours, and another smaller chunk of ice had
formed. I then poured the stronger "brandy" into wine bottles and sealed
them up for about 6 months. It was quite tasty but very "hot" from the
alcohol. It actually tasted better to me with a couple of ice cubes added
back. If anyone tries this, it would be nice to post your results to
compare data points.
Slainte,
RJW
------------------------------
Subject: First mead/mint
From: Ballsacius@aol.com
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 07:15:22 EST
I was sent to this post by the folks at the homebrew digest. I would like to
make a mead that I heard about, a mint mead. My concerns are 1. I have never
tasted a mead and am not sure what to expect for all the work 2. am not sure
on the recipe or mint additions. Isw there a source for mead that i could
taste a few varieties before I decide which route to go(still or bubbly). Any
help would be greatly appreciated. I am a dedicated homebrew maker and would
love to expand my hobby(and probably my waistline at the same timwe ;^).
Thanks in advance for any help, samples or suggestions! Have a very happy and
safe Holiday.
Bob Fesmire
Madman Brewery
Pottstown, PA
Ballsacius@aol.com
------------------------------
Subject: Freeze distillation - methods
From: "Thaddaeus A. Vick" <thaddaeusv@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 23:05:41 -0800 (PST)
I've never tried it, but I've read that the best way to do it if
you don't have the equipment for filtering the crystals out is to put it
in the freezer in an open container, like a bowl, and remove the thin
crust of ice when it forms on the top. Come back later and remove the
new crust. Repeat as necessary.
Of course, this is illegal in the U.S., and I know that none of us
good, law-abiding citizens would ever do such a thing . . . ;)
=====
Thaddaeus A. Vick, Linguist to the Masses Email: ThaddaeusV@yahoo.com
URL: http://members.xoom.com/ThaddaeusV ICQ: 21574495
===============================================================================
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man."
-><- George Bernard Shaw -><-
------------------------------
Subject: Brewing by the Signs
From: YAMABREW@aol.com
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 11:41:54 EST
Season's Greetings to all!
In response to Dick Dunn's article in the last Mead Digest...
As various stories (of varying accuracy) floating around the 'net have
noted, December 22 is the solstice, a full moon, and moon perigee. Seems
like an auspicious time to make a mead. (Burley had suggested in the HBD
that it would be a good date to brew a beer, but I think mead is married
more to magic, the moon, and mysticality.)
I am trying to find out if anyone makes their beverages (beer, cider, or
mead) by the signs, like on the farmers almanac calendar?
The reason that I ask is that my grandfather always did anything that dealt
with growing, such as gardening by the signs! He said that this was the only
way to do it and he always had a great gardening.
Obviously, this is some East Tennessee mysticism in my voice. But many
people still plant by the signs. My question does anyone make alcoholic
beverages by the signs?
Thanks,
Scott Danner
MAJ David S. Danner
Acquisitions Corps
Army Reserve Officer Training Corps
University of Nebraska
110 M&N BLDG
14 & Vine ST
Lincoln, NE 68505
(402) 472-4264
FAX (402) 472-2478
------------------------------
Subject: Frosty question
From: "Jake Hester" <jake_hester@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 13:20:02 EST
Hey- I had this buddy (not me, no never!) who simply put a 1 gal pot of
mead in the freezer then used one of those crescent-shaped pot strainers to
pour off the liquid. My pal ran through this process three times,
ultimately reducing volume quite a bit... could be anywhere from 40-60%, he
didn't keep notes. The product wasn't that great, but then again, the
starting product wasn't that great either, which is why it got subjected to
this experiment in the first place. :-) Hope this helps.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: when/how to add herbs/spices
From: Elfboy0@aol.com
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 11:38:15 EST
Dick Dunn (rcd@raven.talisman.com) writes:
> Metheglin is different because you're not dealing with the volume of fruit/
> pulp that you have with a melomel. I'm guessing on whether the extraction
> is quicker or slower and whether you'll get more/less of the flavors you
> want/don't-want, but I can say I've had good luck with herbs/spices in the
> primary. Actually, as I think about it, it probably requires testing a
> number of spices...intuitively it would seem that some would do better in
> primary and some in secondary. What a project that would be!
I've worked with herbology for a while, so some input based on that...
Tea, herbs boiled in water, is always going to be weaker than a tincture,
herbs extracted into alcohol. If you leave the herbs only in the boiling
water/must, you will get *some* flavor, both in quantity and constituents of
the herb. If you leave the herbs in either the primary or secondary, the
alcohol will extract a larger quantity of constituents, as well as
constituents that will not come out in water. Since the alcohol content is
higher in the secondary, you will be getting larger quantities and more
qualities with herbs in at this time.
So, by putting herbs in the secondary, you do not need as much of them, and
you will get a more complex flavor from the herb than you would by boiling
them in the water or including them in only the primary. As Dick indicated,
however, whether or not this additional complexity is a welcome thing is left
as an exercise to the Miser. Generally speaking, I would say it is.
As a side note, remember that herbs not only contribute flavors, but can also
contribute therapeutic or other effects, and that in these cases, you also do
not need as much of the herb. For example, a small amount of Damiana makes a
great addition as an aphrodisiac.
- Joshua
------------------------------
Subject: re: Brewing by the Signs
From: rcd@raven.talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: 23 Dec 99 22:56:42 MST (Thu)
In response to Scott's question in the current digest...
> I am trying to find out if anyone makes their beverages (beer, cider, or
> mead) by the signs, like on the farmers almanac calendar?
...his and other notes that I received privately concerning my solstice/
full-moon/perigee note to the MLD: No, I don't do mead or cider "by the
signs" or by any mystical or (especially) astrological indicators or
phenomena. Or, more specifically, I don't assume that I'd be getting any
useful information from these phenomena. But if it might be time to make a
mead (say), no harm is done by choosing an otherwise-irrelevant but inter-
esting or amusing occasion for it.
Let me interject, before I continue, that I am not proposing or attempting
to start any sort of debate or argument about the epistemological, philo-
sophical, theological, or scientific merits of astrology, mysticism, old-
style almanacs, etc. I'm only trying to draw a line between what-we-do-
- -because-we-have-good-reasons and what-we-do-because-it's-what-we-choose-
- -to-do.
I *did* start a mead on Wednesday...but not because it was a significant
event so much as because it was a good excuse and I hadn't started a mead
since early in the year because of the Red Star Premier Cuvee grief and
then a mid-year full of farm chores. I let the events make an excuse for
me to do something instead of procrastinating further, and I'm sure we'll
get a good moon/mead-related name for the batch. Also, my mead-making
assistant on this date of supposed solar/lunar significance *was* born on
the Salisbury Plain within sight of the ancient and mystical astronomical
monument called Stonehenge...however, my assistant was chosen not because
of that, but because she's my wife.
A brewer who'd never look at his horoscope still might start a batch on the
date of an astrological event just so he could name the batch "Triple con-
junction double decoction doppelbock".
We tie lots of what we do to irrelevant events and dates and such. Even
the most hidebound cold-rationality scientists celebrate their birthdays,
knowing full well that the particular day has no real significance.
I think the key is to have fun but keep it in context. Signs and mystical
events and coincidences and all *are* fun, and the mind should be allowed
its flights of fancy. I don't think Harry Potter is leading anybody to
Satanism, and while _Yellow_Submarine_ may be my favorite movie I don't
expect to meet any Blue Meanies. Play the lottery if you get some fun out
of numerology or whatever, but don't bet your rent or butter'n'aig money.
Fantasy is normal and healthy, but as the saying goes, "Do not drive or
operate heavy machinery..."
We have many curious rituals, which only fail to seem strange because they
are common to us. Only when a ritual is out of usual context are we likely
to notice it much: Wassailing is an ancient tradition. Two hundred years
ago in England, nobody would have given it a second thought, but if we
went out with our friends and wassailed the trees in our proto-orchard,
our neighbors would conclude that we're way stranger than they have already
concluded we are (which would be quite a stretch). But no harm is done by
wassailing.
> The reason that I ask is that my grandfather always did anything that dealt
> with growing, such as gardening by the signs! He said that this was the only
> way to do it and he always had a great gardening.
Beware correlation _vs_ causality. If your grandfather grew up with such
ways, he probably came by them along with a lifetime of learning other
signals from the weather, the soil, and the plants themselves, which he
incorporated into his decisions. Also, if "the signs" say to do something
but the weather obviously says otherwise, people tend to ignore the signs
and do as their judgment tells them, but without invalidating their trust
in the signs.
Consider also: Perhaps somebody made a wonderful metheglin Wednesday
night, and it's going to win a competition in 2000 or 2001. Will that win
be because it was made on an auspicious night...or because planning the
mead in connection with a special occasion caused the meadmaker to put some
extra thought into the recipe and extra care into the process? (Techies,
drop in phrase "Hawthorne effect" here.)
- ---
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #775
*******************************
