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Mead Lovers Digest #0805
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #805, 11 May 2000
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #805 11 May 2000
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: lurky (Dave Polaschek)
airlock contributes to infection (Warren Place)
possible hand grenades? (Yacko Warner Yacko)
Simple Mead Recipe and de-grenading bottles. ("Stevenson, Randall")
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #804, 8 May 2000 (Mark Donnelly)
RE: Trace elements and such in honey ("Swintosky, Michael D.")
Re: Lemon Mead ("Norm Allen")
"Mead Making For Dummies" (like me) ("Roger Flanders")
Mead clarifier (erniebaker@webtv.net)
Strawberry mead and other fruit meads (Paul Hudert)
Mead Lover's Digest #804, 8 May 2000 (Dave Burley)
RE: Trace elements and such in honey (m_shapiro@bigfoot.com)
Georgie's potential glass grenades (MLCrary@aol.com)
Re: first batch/grenades (JTS)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #804, 8 May 2000 (NLSteve@aol.com)
Re: Trace elements and such in honey (Ken Mason)
Yeast: Too much of a good thing? ("Roger Flanders")
RO water ("Micah Millspaw")
Re: Trace elements and such in honey (Dan McFeeley)
Strawberry meads, markII (long) ("John P . Looney")
NOTE: Digest only appears when there is enough material to send one.
Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead@talisman.com.
Use mead-request@talisman.com for [un]subscribe/admin requests.
Digest archives and FAQ are available at www.talisman.com/mead, or
via anonymous ftp at ftp.stanford.edu in pub/clubs/homebrew/mead.
REMINDER: Digests may be slow during May. Be patient!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: lurky
From: Dave Polaschek <davep@davespicks.com>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 12:03:14 -0500
Brandy wrote:
>I have never posted before. It is intimidating because everyone seems
>like experts and I have never made a batch of mead before. I subscribed
>because I want to try to make some and I would like to know if anyone has
>some simple instructions for beginners? (mead making for dummies ;) )
I've written a book aimed at beginners. The full contents are available
online at <http://www.best.com/~davep/mme/>
In particular, there are sections for rank beginners, as well as those
who have some experience making either beer or wine.
And don't worry about feeling like a newbie. Everyone starts out as a
newbie.
- -DaveP
Dave Polaschek - Polaschek Computing, Inc. - davep@best.com
PGP key and other spiffy things at <http://www.best.com/~davep/>
"Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than
alcohol has taken out of me." - Winston Churchill
------------------------------
Subject: airlock contributes to infection
From: Warren Place <wrplace@ucdavis.edu>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 09:15:39 -0700 (PDT)
I've brewed about a dozen batches, but recently two have become infected.
Between these two infected batches I brewed a one gallon batch that didn't
become infected. In contemplating what I had done differently with the
prior meads and this one gallon batch, I realized that the fault lies with
my airlock. I have the standard 3-piece airlock (dancing hat) and fill it
with sanitizer. The sanitizer dissapates in a few days leaveing plain
water (I guess). Well, when the temperature drops in my house, a vaccuum
is created and the liquid in the airlock is sucked into the carbouy.
The reason I hadn't noticed this before was because I didn't bulk age
the prior meads. As soon as fermentation stopped, I bottled. This
way there was always some positive pressure from CO2 release to
counter the vaccuum. My question is: How do I bulk age my mead? I
figure that most people use a stopper without the airlock for this
process, but I am frightful that fermentation may restart and blow the
cork out. Another alternative would be to build a better watertrap..
Any recommendations? So far I think I will use a long length of
tubing inserted at one end in the drilled stopper and at the other end
in a glass of water. The 3' length of tubing should prevent the
slight vaccuum from becoming a siphon. If this won't work, please let
me know. I can't afford to lose another batch of mead.
Warren Place
------------------------------
Subject: possible hand grenades?
From: Yacko Warner Yacko <yacko@mint.net>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 12:25:16 -0400
My advice (take it or leave it) on this is as follows:
Relax, don't worry, have a home brew. Take a bottle you have now and
open it, do a hydrometer reading on it. If you're somewhere near 1.00,
dont worry about the other bottles, unless.....
Take all your bottles except one and put them in a cool dry place
(cellar? ) where they can sit and relax. It's important that it's a cool
place. Take that one bottle you saved and bring it to a room temperature
place, somewhere maybe in the kitchen, maybe on top of the fridge. Wrap
a towel loosely around the top and put a rubber band around the neck to
hold the towel on it. Watch this bottle. If this bottle pops it's cork
(I'm assuming you used corks on this - if you crown capped, ignore all
this) then you may wish to reconsider rebottling. It's not a big deal,
other than labor, to rebottle the bottles. You might also consider
popping the corks and letting them sit partly covered for a while, let
them ferment on their own in the bottle. This would, of course, open you
to infection and off flavors, so it's probably not a great idea.
So, nutshell advice:
- -check the Specific gravity - if it's near 1.00, dont worry about the
bottles.
- -If the gravity is really high still (over 1.010 *shrug*) you may have a
danger on your hands.
- -Set aside one bottle somewhere that will be warmer than all the others.
use that one as a control. If it pops, the others probably will when
they warm up.
- - drink it all, right now, very fast and you wont have to worry :)
Some people will, no doubt, think this advice is foolish and dangerous.
It's simply what I would do if I were in your shoes.
I also have a large cellar I can use for conditioning such brew. Also, I
use corks, so I'm assuming you have as well. If you've used crown caps,
or (ACK!) champagne wraps and foils, you will have hand grenades.
HTH
yacko
On Sat, Jun 14, 2036 at 04:14:52PM -0600, mead-request@talisman.com wrote:
> Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #803, 30 April 2000
> From: "gl" <signs2@gotnet.net>
> Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 01:02:56 -0700
>
> is this how i post here?....first time..be gentle!!
>
> Well my nephew and I just bottled our first batch which we thought had long
> stopped fermenting. It was wonderful....sweet. Now we opened a bottle and
> it is sparkling. I am afraid we have made lots of potential
> handgrenades...now what do we do? It is not in a good bottle for sparkling.
> Can you take it out of the bottles and put it back in the carboy.
------------------------------
Subject: Simple Mead Recipe and de-grenading bottles.
From: "Stevenson, Randall" <rstevenson@LDI.STATE.LA.US>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 11:40:27 -0500
Someone asked for a simple mead recipe.
3-3.5 gallons of distilled water
1.5-2 gallons of raw honey
Juice of a 2 oranges
1 package of brewers/wine yeast (preferably Lalvin D-47 and not a montrachet
yeast)
Bring about 1 gallon of the water to a boil, add the honey and stir. Remove
any foam that rises, but do not let the honey mix boil. Get the temperature
to about 180F and keep it there for 15 minutes. Allow to cool enough to not
crack the carboy when transferred. Add everything but yeast to the carboy.
When the must has cooled to room temperature (usually the next day) add the
yeast. Allow to ferment until the mead clears enough to read a newspaper
through. Bottle and wait a year. Drink.
I have opened carbonated bottles and resealed them to reduce excess
carbonation. It worked fine at stopping the random explosions in my closet,
but did not completely remove the carbonation. (I like sparkling meads.)
Wassail,
Randall
Dogma is like French perfume ... meant to be sniffed, not swallowed.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #804, 8 May 2000
From: Mark Donnelly <gimli@offcenter.org>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 11:37:16 -0500
Georgie writes:
> I am afraid we have made lots of potential
> handgrenades...now what do we do? It is not in a good
> bottle for sparkling. Can you take it out of the
> bottles and put it back in the carboy.
I had a batch where that happened to me. While it was
in the carboy it kept dying and restarting, dying and
restarting. Eventually it ran long enough that I was
facing having to move. As this was my first batch, I
decided (foolishly, given recent discussions) that I
would have to kill it and bottle. Well, after more
sulphite than I care to contemplate, it was bottled,
and off we went.
Now, I tried some again after a few months, only to
find a pleasant surprise of a sparkling mead. (cloudy,
though) Since I didn't want this pleseant surprise to
turn into an unpleseant surprise, I didn't really even
hesitate to pull them out of their bottles and put them
back in a carboy. Everything went well, as this also
let me deal with some cloudiness issues I had -
basically, I realize now that I bottled *waaaaay* too
early.
I would say to go ahead and put it back in the carboy,
if you have one to spare. It certainly won't hurt your
mead (assuming you take the necessary precautions!).
- --Mark Donnelly
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Trace elements and such in honey
From: "Swintosky, Michael D." <Swintosk@timken.com>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 13:09:53 -0400
See this from the National Honey Board's website:
http://www.nhb.org/download/factsht/techbroch.pdf
<http://www.nhb.org/download/factsht/techbroch.pdf>
Mike Swintosky
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Lemon Mead
From: "Norm Allen" <nwallen@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 08 May 2000 14:11:33 EDT
I too have had a few rare samples named similarly to the above.. I've heard
them called Lemon Mead and Pepper Mead mostly, and if you combine the two
names together that may be just as apt... - Lemon Pepper Mead.
I've also missed the opportunity to pry the recipe from the minds of the
individuals who've been kind enough to share in their superb talents with
me. The best I've gotten yet is one individual who mentions using both
lemons and bruised pepper corns.
At any rate, the result is nothing short of spectacular... Extremely hard
to classify as either sweet or dry, but in my humble opinion I'd have to
place it as sweet if for no other reason than the lack of the puckery
tartness that dry's usually seem to have AND the fact that the time to
complete is a mere 3 months at most.
If some kind old soul out there has a chuckling clue to the divine spirit
we're speaking of here and feels the urge to hand down down the alchemy
involved, if nothing else this nearing dirt-age SCAdian would cherish it
always and treat it with the utmost of respect which it deserves. (In other
words, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.. Privately if nothing else...?)
Alan of Tenby
webminister, Canton of Three Hills
www.threehills.org
- ----Original Message Follows----
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #803, 30 April 2000
From: Stace <umc@xmission.com>
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 00:29:36 +0100
<snip>
Second, I wanted to say that last weekend, I had a taste of mead that just
knocked my socks off. It was a lemon mead, I believe. It was so so good. I'm
hoping that the man who made this wonderful nectar is at least a lurker of
these pages, as I am. Robert, if you're out there contact me and say hello
------------------------------
Subject: "Mead Making For Dummies" (like me)
From: "Roger Flanders" <flanders@probe.net>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 13:28:42 -0500
"Brandy" wrote to MLB#804: "I have never posted before. It is
intimidating because everyone seems like experts and I have never made
a batch of mead before. I subscribed because I want to try to make
some and I would like to know if anyone has some simple
instructions for beginners? (mead making for dummies ;) )"
You're right, Brandy. There are some real experts who contribute to
this list. And then there are all the rest of us who muddle around
mead and just have a great time doing it. There is no reason to feel
intimidated. I and many others, I'm sure, would be happy to share our
simple recipes, but let me just offer a couple bits of advice first:
#1: Do not, as they say, try this at home without a hydrometer.
That's the only way I know to tell whether fermentation has dropped
from the "O.S.G." (original specific gravity) to the point where your
mead is safe to bottle. I think hydrometers now sell for $7 to $9.
I've only had one bad experience, but it made me very thankful the cat
wasn't in the utility room the day the gallon jug exploded.
#2: It's impossible to keep your brewing stuff too clean. Invest a
couple of bucks in a good sanitizing agent for homebrewers, and use it
on everything that will touch your mead. When people question me
about homebrewing, the first thing I ask them is if they enjoyed
washing dishes when they were kids. I like to describe homebrewing as
two hours of washing things for every 20 minutes of brewing pleasure.
(Oh, and on the subject of sanitation, Mr. Dunn would have me remind
you not to suck the siphon, and never double dip a potato chip. Just
teasing, Dick.)
Seriously, Brandy, if mead making were really difficult, a lot of us
would be drinking Bud Light. Mead is the nicest thing a bee can do
for you, unless you're a flower.
- --Rog
------------------------------
Subject: Mead clarifier
From: erniebaker@webtv.net
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 11:56:24 -0700 (PDT)
I have 3 gallons of vanilla mead in a 3 gal carboy, it needs to be
clarified. Made in August 1999. I have some "Clearfine" (synthetic
Isinglass) with instructions to dissolve 1 tsp in warm water at
bottling. I guess the inst are for 5 gallons of beer. I want to rack
the mead to another carboy. Just what is the correct way to do this.
this is my first time doing mead....
Ernie Baker
29 Palms, CA
------------------------------
Subject: Strawberry mead and other fruit meads
From: Paul Hudert <pippi@erols.com>
Date: Mon, 08 May 2000 15:48:48 -0400
I have a batch of Strawberry mead (actually my first batch ever!)
I used sweet mead yeast, and bottled it with extra dextros to make
it sparkling.
after 8 weeks in bottles, it's nice and sparkling (not too sparkling, but
nice and bubbly). the flavor (despite using 12 lbs of strawberries
for a 5 gallon batch) is rather plain. There is a strong strawberry
smell, but no strawberry flavor! It doesn't taste bad, it just tastes like
champaigne! we used 10 lbs of clover honey, so the honey flavor
would not overpower the strawberry.
The question is: Will the strawberry flavor come out more as it ages?
Does this happen to all melomels?
I'm worried my black berry meadwon't taste like blackberry!
I have no problem waiting, I just want to know that what
I'm waiting for will be worth it.
Thanks for any info!
Paul Richmond, VA
------------------------------
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #804, 8 May 2000
From: Dave Burley <Dave_Burley@compuserve.com>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 15:55:21 -0400
Georgie asks how to know he doesn't have a bunch of potentially exploding
handgrenade bottles since he bottled sweet.
The only real way is to measure the remaining sugar content. Buy a
Clinitest KIT at your pharmacy ( not the Clinistix, but a small plastic kit
with testube, pills and an eyedropper) it may need to be special ordered.
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Trace elements and such in honey
From: m_shapiro@bigfoot.com
Date: Mon, 08 May 2000 17:02:14 -0400 (EDT)
On Mon, 01 May 2000 Nathan Kanous <nlkanous@pharmacy.wisc.edu> wrote:
>
> Anybody got any ideas how much trace mineral or other minerals may
> be naturally present in honey? Thanks.
> nathan in madison, wi
Nathan,
Take a look at my web page located at:
http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_shapiro/index.html
The last link on the "Personal Research" page is a link to "Honey Stats" which
contains several tables from the appendix of _A Book of Honey_ by Dr. Eva
Crane. These tables contain information on trace minerals, vitamins, and sugar
content in honey.
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 Farm Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Georgie's potential glass grenades
From: MLCrary@aol.com
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 19:26:16 EDT
Dear Georgie & nephew,
Yes, you can put the mead back into the carboy. Rebecca & I had one of our
earlier meads give us a couple of glass genades. We brought it (very
carefully & gently) back upstairs from the crawl space where it was aging,
uncapped each bottle, and put it back into a sanitized, rinsed carboy, using
a sanitized funnel, and trying to pour so as to minimize contact with oxygen.
We left it in the carboy for a while before attempting to re-bottle it. It
was at this point in our brewing career that we decided to begin taking
specific gravity readings. So far, we have had no more glass grenades, though
we have done sparkling meads and bottled them in regular beer bottles. We
think that the fermentation had stopped due to a cold crawl space, and
restarted later when the weather warmed up. (This caused us to insulate the
crawl space and build an insulated box to keep the carboys in, but that is
another story.) The mead, a metheglin flavored with Celestial Seasonings
Bengal Spice Tea, came out fine, and we changed its name to Tiger Bomb.
Others may suggest other methods, but if you don't put it back into a carboy,
one of 2 things will happen. Either you will get glass grenades, or you will
get a nice sparkling mead. Hard to predict, but you might take a specific
gravity on one, if you haven't done so. It may be OK as is. Good luck.
Unicorn Unchained Meadery, Marcia & Becky
------------------------------
Subject: Re: first batch/grenades
From: JTS <fjalar@mindspring.com>
Date: Mon, 08 May 2000 21:04:40 -0400
The short answer to your post is "yes" you can open the bottles and pour
them back into the (sanitized!) carboy. What kind of bottles are they?
If they are beer bottles, they can cope with a little
fermentation/carbonation. Straight wine bottles (corked) often just pop
the cork out instead of "explode" (though I've had both happen!). If you
don't want to wait long to re-bottle, get some Campden tablets from your
local brewshop and crush one or two into the carboy. The sulfites will
kill the yeast and in 48 hours you can rebottle.
- ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #803, 30 April 2000
> From: "gl" <signs2@gotnet.net>
> Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 01:02:56 -0700
>
> is this how i post here?....first time..be gentle!!
>
> Well my nephew and I just bottled our first batch which we thought had long
> stopped fermenting. It was wonderful....sweet. Now we opened a bottle and
> it is sparkling. I am afraid we have made lots of potential
> handgrenades...now what do we do? It is not in a good bottle for sparkling.
> Can you take it out of the bottles and put it back in the carboy.
> Georgie, San Jose,CA
>
> hoping to eventually get this right
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #804, 8 May 2000
From: NLSteve@aol.com
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 22:24:08 EDT
gl says:
<< Well my nephew and I just bottled our first batch which we thought had long
stopped fermenting. It was wonderful....sweet. Now we opened a bottle and
it is sparkling. I am afraid we have made lots of potential
handgrenades...now what do we do? It is not in a good bottle for sparkling.
Can you take it out of the bottles and put it back in the carboy.
Georgie, San Jose,CA >>
Just curious what yeast you used. If you say "Wyeast sweet mead" I'll say
"told ya so."
I wouldn't recommend going back to carboy -- probably will add too much
oxygen in the racking & reracking. But you could do it. If you do, consider
that your mead may become highly perishable & shortlived.
You could refrigerate it to lower the bottles' pressure & inhibit
refermentation. Enjoy your 'sparkling' mead if you do.
Or you could get fancy & figure out how to allow each bottle to vent until it
damn well stops (an airlock or unlubricated condom over each bottle?).
Sorry, no better ideas.
- ---- one who's been there,
Steve
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Trace elements and such in honey
From: Ken Mason <kjmason1@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 21:40:44 -0700 (PDT)
To my knowledge, the darker a honey, the richer in
nutrients ( both mineral and vitamin ) it is. It has
been suggested that in the same way other sugar
sources increase their nutrient content as they
darken, so to does honey. Compare labels from white
corn syrup and molasses and you'll get the idea.
A true, unadulterated buckwheat honey (which would be
purplish-black in color) is supposedly as rich in
vitamin C as Tomato juice. Unfortunately, the study
didn't go into detail about other nutrients it
contained or their amounts.
One thing for sure. . .Dark Honeys ferment FAST.
Which means less chance of infection.
The best dark honeys are:
Buck Wheat ( Purplish-Black)
Avocado (Greenish-Black) and
Favo Bean (Molasses black - can't find anymore )-: )
Don't forget about the other nutrient rich hive
products. A tablespoon of bee pollen per pound of
honey will also fast forward fermentation.
------------------------------
Subject: Yeast: Too much of a good thing?
From: "Roger Flanders" <flanders@probe.net>
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 16:47:23 -0500
The "Car Guys" on National Public Radio offered a weekly puzzler some
months ago about a fellow wanting to start a new grass lawn on June 1
that had to be ready no later than June 30. He went to the grass seed
shop and was offered a packet of a new miracle grass that doubled
every day. The seller calculated it would exactly fill his yard in 30
days. Being naturally conservative, the buyer bought two packets,
just to be sure. The question was, how much time did he save? And
the answer was just one day. (He, in effect, started at day two of
the 30 days.)
I was thinking about this puzzler yesterday as I divided a 5-gram
packet of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast in half to start two, 4-liter
experimental batches of cyser. Experience has shown one of these
packets is more than enough yeast to start my five-gallon batches; an
elderberry cyser last month was roaring after 24 hours. At what rate
does yeast typically "double," assuming optimum conditions? Am I like
the guy buying the grass seed, and only saving one day by using the
whole pack for my five gallon batches instead of just half the pack,
or even less?
- --Rog Flanders
------------------------------
Subject: RO water
From: "Micah Millspaw" <MMillspa@silganmfg.com>
Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 08:52:42 -0500
I have access to a RO-CDI unit and tried using the very clean water that =
it produces for mead making (several years ago). Using the same honey (out =
of the same bucket) one batch was made with my standard well water and =
the other with RO-CDI water, every thing else the same. The fermentation =
on the RO batch had a much slower ferment than the =27standard=27 batch =
and did not finish out as low. Both meads were quite drinkable though.
My conclusion is that you need some of the minerals that are present in =
less pure water, exactly which and how much, I do not know.
Micah
>Subject: Trace elements and such in honey
>From: Nathan Kanous <nlkanous=40pharmacy.wisc.edu>
>Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 08:52:49 -0500
>Hi All,
>Dan McFeeley mentions that some folks recommend using rain water for mead
>because it is soft. He also mentions that Acton and Duncan indicate this
>could be problematic due to some lacking minerals / trace minerals. I've
>been thinking of using straight RO water for mead. The only question this
>ever created for me was "how much trace mineral is present in
>honey?" Anybody got any ideas how much trace mineral or other minerals may
>be naturally present in honey? Thanks.
>nathan in madison, wi
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Trace elements and such in honey
From: Dan McFeeley <mcfeeley@keynet.net>
Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 09:48:09 -0500
On Mon, 01 May 2000, in MLD 804, Nathan Kanous wrote:
>I've been thinking of using straight RO water for mead. The only
>question this ever created for me was "how much trace mineral is
>present in honey?" Anybody got any ideas how much trace mineral
>or other minerals may be naturally present in honey? Thanks.
Mineral content of honey was shown by John W. White jr's 1962 survey of
490 samples to have an average of 0.17% with a range of 0.02 to 1.03%,
standard deviation was 0.15. Potassium is the primary mineral in ash
content, making up about 1/3. Sodium is about 1/10 ash content. In
general, mineral content increases as the color of the honey darkens.
Below is a table showing the mineral constituents of honey in parts
per million. The source is John W. White jr., "Honey," _The Hive and
the Honey Bee_ Joe M. Graham, editor, Dadant & Sons, 1992, p. 879.
Honey composition varies according to floral source, so these figures
are only rough indicators at best. Hope this is helpful!
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><>
Dan McFeeley
mcfeeley@keynet.net
Mineral No. samples & Color Range (ppm) Average (ppm)
- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Potassium 13 light 100-588 205
18 dark 115-4733 1676
Sodium 13 light 6-35 18
18 dark 9-400 76
Calcium 14 light 23-68 49
21 dark 5-266 51
Magnesium 14 light 11-56 19
21 dark 7-126 35
Iron 10 light 1.20-4.80 2.40
6 dark 0.70-33.50 9.40
Copper 10 light 0.14-0.70 0.29
6 dark 0.35-1.04 0.56
Manganese 10 light 0.17-0.44 0.30
10 dark 0.46-9.53 4.09
Chlorine 10 light 23-75 52
13 dark 48-201 113
Phosphorus 14 light 23-50 35
21 dark 27-58 47
Sulfur 10 light 36-108 58
13 dark 56-126 100
Silicon 10 light 7-12 9
(as SiO2) 10 dark 5-28 14
------------------------------
Subject: Strawberry meads, markII (long)
From: "John P . Looney" <valen@tuatha.org>
Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 16:19:51 +0100
The summer before last, I had great fun making meads (about 16 gallons),
and made four very different brews. Alas, the fact that it was my first
brewing really showed, so I kinda lost interest, as it was a lot of effort
(I've only re-signed onto this list in the last few days)
I tryed to make a standard brew, which was a nice all-rounder), a
christmas brew (with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger etc) - it was nice, but was
too sweet, and the spices nearly made it sickly. I think next time, I'd
use less honey, or a stronger yeast. And definitely a smaller amount of
spices.
I also found a transcript of an ancient mead recipe book, and tryed to
make some thing from that. It called for all sorts of wierd stuff - balm,
willow bark...and it got stranger from there. Alas, we got confused
between litres and gallons, and it was *very* strong tasting don't think
anyone liked that at all.
The real success was a gallon of strawberry stuff, that was almost an
afterthought; however, when I was on this list, a few people gave me a few
pointers when I mentioned it, like "Don't add strawberries for a week
after the brew" etc. So, I've decided to come looking for more hints &
tips about mead brews, before trying it again. I've also decided to
concentrate on fruit based ones, as they often seem to be good.
What equipment do I need to do it properly ? Last time, I'd basically got
some beer making equipment, and did it all on the cheap. Now, I've a
decent 20-litre stainless-steel pot, to start with.
Also, I'd appricate any tips on a good strawberry mead - more method,
than recipe. Last time it was ....
Boil one gallons of water.
Heat 1/3 gallon of Orange Blossom honey, till it starts to foam
(using small booking pots, bit by bit)
Scream loudly at hot honey spashes.
Scoop off foam.
Dump honey into bucket.
Mix.
Throw in semi-boiled mushed fruit.
Add unbranded champange yeast from local bookshop (that also does some
homebrew stuff)
Cover.
Leave to sit for a week. Admire nice strawberry smell around the house.
Scoop out fruit & decant into an old plastic beer keg.
Leave to sit for two weeks.
Decant into an other.
Leave for two weeks.
Bottle.
Drink 8 months later.
Fall over.
And, I don't think it was the optimum mead, even though it was really
nice.
Kate
- --
"The fool must be beaten with a stick, for an intelligent person
the merest hint is sufficient" -- Zen Master Greg
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #805
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