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Mead Lovers Digest #0786
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #786, 29 January 2000
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #786 29 January 2000
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: What gravity determines sweet/semi-sweet/dry in mead? ("Wout Klingens")
Heather Metheglin ??? (Joe Callahan)
Pomegranate and vanilla meads (Dione)
Carboys ("Robert Goulding")
Sterilizing corks ("Wout Klingens")
Mazer Cup Mead Competition ("Ken Schramm")
Glass Romantic ("butcher")
Re: ale yeasts (Gregg Stearns)
a short survey: (Gregg Stearns)
poisoned! (Chuck Wettergreen)
Re: Bitter meads ("Wout Klingens")
Re: Gravities, sweet/semi-sweet/dry mead (Elfboy0@aol.com)
Geyser effect (NLSteve@aol.com)
Quibbling (NLSteve@aol.com)
Quibbling II (NLSteve@aol.com)
Re: Wedding Mead (Jerry Harder)
Re: What gravity determines sweet/semi-sweet/dry in mead? (Jerry Harder)
Re: Pineapple mead (Jerry Harder)
Need some ideas (Stan Marshall)
carboys,blow-off tubes (John Wilkinson)
My House Smells Wonderfull! ("Philip J Wilcox")
Banana Mead ("Matt Lists")
1 week mead (Ken Mason)
Cyser salvation? ("JNR_FARMS")
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: What gravity determines sweet/semi-sweet/dry in mead?
From: "Wout Klingens" <wcm.klingens@quicknet.nl>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 10:30:35 +0100
"Stevenson, Randall" writes:
> I've used the Lalvin EC 1118 yeast several times and it is so attenuative
> that I always get a dry (too dry for me) mead. (I lucked out with one batch
> an produced a sparkling apricot melomel that tasted just like a good dry
> champagne.) In an attempt to make an orange mel following Wout's recipe (but
> using local organicly grown navel oranges instead), my IG was 1.08 and I
> added enough honey, teasing the mead, that the adjusted IG would have been
> 1.14. I was hoping for a sweet mead and added the zest at SG 1.014 to kill
> the yeast and obtain a FG of about 1.01. Is this right? or am I going to
> still have a dry mead? Can I add more honey after the fermentation has
> stopped to produce a sweet mead? What gravities distinguish sweet from
> semi-sweet from dry?
Oops, there's my name again :-)
I hope I made it clear in my OJ-mel recipe, that you have to add zest when
fermentation is almost done.
So if you added zest during a very active ferment I doubt (I'm not sure)
that you will be able to stop fermentation.
My guess is, that zest acts like sorbate. *re-*fermentation is prevented.
I did some calculations however. With a FG of 1.01 you'd have 1.130 worth of
alcohol, which is right about the attenuation limit of the EC-1118 according
to the manufacturer (in my experience it's quite a bit higher under the
right conditions). So I think you'll be right where you want it to be.
Just rack it off the zest after 14 days, most yeast will have dropped
anyway. To be sure you can also chill the batch.
So, how's the aroma? :-)
For your other question: EC-1116 will ferment dry unless you feed it to
death, which will provide a TNT cocktail. For lighter meads try another
strain which is less attenuative.
> Wassail,
And the same to you, sir!
Wout.
------------------------------
Subject: Heather Metheglin ???
From: Joe Callahan <fjc2947@networksplus.net>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 11:39:02 -0600
While at the GABF (Great American Beer Festival) last fall I tried
several beers that had Heather as a substitute for hops. Heather could
be one of several herbs in combination which would be called a gruit. I
am considering making a metheglin using heather as the herb. The book
=93Making Wild Wines & Meads=94 by Pattie Vargas & Rich Gulling, Storey
Books copyright 1999 suggests using dried herbs at the rate of 2-3
ounces per gallon of metheglin, however the heather packages suggest a
rate of 2 ounces per 5 gallons of beer. Quite a difference.
Is the use of heather totally inappropriate in mead making?
Is the flavor component all bitterness or is there a floral flavor
contribution as well?
How many ounces of heather per gallon would be appropriate? (It would be
added in the secondary).
Should the honey be clover honey or orange blossom?
Anybody=92s previous experience with heather would be appreciated.
TIA Joe Callahan, Nano_Brewer
------------------------------
Subject: Pomegranate and vanilla meads
From: Dione <dione@unm.edu>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 19:01:10 -0800 (PST)
I got these recipes from the net--probably Bee's Lees or another one. The
names are not my invention and the technique is fairly close to the
original. If the author(s) are out there, please step forward to receive
well-deserved credit--these are yummie!
Persephone' Sparkling Passion
For one gallon:
A quart each of honey and water pasteurized in a double boiler.
1 quart of Knudsen's Pomagranate juice.
Filtered water to make up a gallon.
1 tsp nutrient (the B vitamin type)
1 packet Cuvee yeast started the day before.
Rack a couple of times when fermentation stops, add 5 tsp corn sugar and
bottle in crown cap bottles. Six months to a year is minimal aging,
though it was pretty good on bottling day.
I bottled 12/30/97 and used the last 750ml last Samhain (Halloween) and it
was delicious.
The Thrilla From Vanilla
For 6 gallons:
Pasteurize 1/2 gallon raw honey diluted with 1/2 gallon filtered water.
Add about 4 gallons filtered water to carboy and pour in honey.
Pitch 2 packets Premier Cuvee (or champaign) yeast started the previous
day.
Add 1 Tbs nutrient and place lock (you should have about 5 gallons in
primary)
Chop two Frontier brand Organic Vanilla beans and place in separate
airtight containers with enough vodka to cover.
About ten days into fermentation, add another gallon of pasteurized honey
and the vanilla tincture from one bean.
Rack in about two months and add another quart of honey with the tincture
from the second bean.
About three weeks later, all activity stopped and there were
marshmallow-sized puffballs floating in the must. A good dose of
Sparkloid cured that.
I bottled in crown-cap bottles because I wasn't certain I had enought
residual tolerance for carbonation (I didn't).
It is sweet with an intense vanilla flavor. You can easily tailor it to
your own taste by using an ale yeast, less honey or less vanilla, but this
is an excellent dessert mead.
I didn't include O.G. because adding honey during the ferment makes it
worthless. F.G was 1.015 and alcohol in the vicinity of 18-20%. Good
well-chilled in small dessert glasses.
Never Thirst,
Dione
------------------------------
Subject: Carboys
From: "Robert Goulding" <sanctuary@RAPIDNET.COM>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2000 23:14:14 -0700
Dear Stephan Butcher,
I have used "HDPE2" 5 gallon plastic containers with no ill effects. I buy
them from my local hardware store. The HDPE2 is a recycling label
definition thing that is on the 5 gallon buckets of honey I buy locally. If
they use it to store and ship honey in I presume it is ok for fermenting.
My biggest complaint about them is that I must make a slightly smaller than
5 gallon batch to have any headspace at all and to have room for the airlock
not to be down into the liquid. The lids usually seal quite tightly and
drilling a small hole in them for the airlock is easy also. If you know
anybody in Southern California you might ask them, they make glass carboys
in Mexico and I have been told that there is a great abundance of them in
the LA and San Diego areas. Just hearsay. I would try brewing supply
stores and perhaps health food markets but the plastic buckets are certainly
cheaper. Here in South Dakota I pay about $17 for a new 6 1/2 gallon glass
carboy and about $5-6 for plastic buckets with lids. If you can find
plastic buckets used I would not hesitate to use them, just make sure they
did not have pickles in them or anything like that. Plastic does keep some
flavors forever it seems. You have to be very careful sanitizing them
because bleach, for instance, or iodophor, can leave semi-permanent flavors
or odors if used in too high a concentration. I would use (and do use)
One-step from L.D. Carlson to sanitize plastic. Or you could just wash it
out with boiling water and be probably be OK. Hope this helps.
Robert Goulding
Head Rooster
Robert's Roost
sanctuary@dtgnet.com
http://w1.dtgnet.com/robertsroost/
625 South Street
Rapid City, South Dakota
57701-3633
605-341-3434
605-348-7799
------------------------------
Subject: Sterilizing corks
From: "Wout Klingens" <wcm.klingens@quicknet.nl>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 16:40:12 +0100
Mead experts,
What about sterilizing corks in a microwave? Would it kill all
micro-organisms?
Provided the cork is dry, would it damage the cork?
Anybody knows?
Wout
------------------------------
Subject: Mazer Cup Mead Competition
From: "Ken Schramm" <schramk@resa.net>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 09:52:52 -0500
For those wondering about the status of the Mazer Cup, we have decided to
give the Mazer Cup a one year hiatus so that the members of the Ann Arbor
Brewers Guild can concentrate on planning the 2000 AHA Conference, to be
held at the Livonia Holiday Inn, June 22-24. The possibility of compromising
either the Mazer Cup or the Conference had potential for far too great
a cost, so we have opted to take a break from the Mazer Cup, and will
resume the competition in winter of '01. Mead will be a key component of
the conference, and mead enthusiasts will have good reason to attend.
Drtails on registration, presenters and other aspects of the conference
will be available on line soon. I will post that URL when the site is
full complete.
On the subject of mazers, I think some of the confusion about their
make-up came from our prizes. Initially, Dan McConnell, Mike O'Brien and
I had wanted to find a source of wooden footed goblets, and had even
entertained the notion of one with a silver lining for the bowl for Best
of Show prize, per the designs we had read about in Gayre. We just
couldn't find anything like that commercially available, and the cost of
having something like that custom made proved very prohibitive. In the
end, we turned to my friends at the Pewabic Pottery in Detroit for a
ceramic version that would be creative and original, yet retain some of
the characteristics of the originals (the ceramic versions would have been
too expensive, too, had it not been for friends in the right places).
They are beautiful and sturdy, and make a delightful drinking vessel.
What we've called mazers would likely not be considered mazers by medieval
mead makers, but what we call an oven might not be very recognizable to
them, either.
Begging your support and patience,
Ken Schramm
Troy, MI
------------------------------
Subject: Glass Romantic
From: "butcher" <butcher@drizzle.com>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 13:42:19 -0800
Thanks to everyone that responded to my article on cheaper carboy ideas. It
was very much appreciated. Alas, I have decided to spend the extra money
and stick with carboys. My reasons are these:
1. The extra cost (I have found them for US$14.00) gets depreciated with
every 5 gallons of mead it makes.
2. While I am not rich, 14 bucks won't kill me, and when I have time I can
pick them up for 5 at a garage sale or brewing store going out of business
sale.
3. I spend, on average, about 8 hours a month watching my meads in the
carboy. It is the romantic dance between yeast and sugar, bees and man, CO2
and O2. It is more complicated than sex, and less embarrassing to watch
with a flashlight on the floor of the kitchen. I can't give that up.
So, does anyone else watch their brew? I like to hold a flashlight behind
the carboy and watch it. Hehee!
Butcher
------------------------------
Subject: Re: ale yeasts
From: Gregg Stearns <gregg@ispi.net>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 01:31:55 -0600
Original message from OxladeMac@aol.com
(((
I use a neutral ale yeast, like Edme, Windsor, or London. Ale yeasts can be
made to go very high on the alcohol scale, but they typically don't. They
usually leave residual sweetness, and poop out around 10-11%. Usually these
yeasts will do thier job, and then fall out of solution. That's the thing I
really like about them - they precipitate much better than most wine yeasts.
After a month or two, they're usually well on thier way to clearing. )))
I totally agree here! I pretty much stick with Edme ale yeast in all my
meads. They all seem to stop at .3%-.8% below 11% alcohol, using about
3lbs honey/gallon. I find that using a tsp of irish moss (if you boil
your honey) helps it clear nicely. Even better, use a tad of isinglass,
and the stuff clears in a week! Best of all, the Edme yeast doesn't
leave as many off flavors, so I find it's not 'hot' and quite easy to
drink almost right after bottling.
- --
Gregg Stearns
------------------------------
Subject: a short survey:
From: Gregg Stearns <gregg@ispi.net>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 01:37:53 -0600
I'd like to get a general sense of mead brewing differences.
Answer the following questions:
1. Do you use any clarifying agents (irish moss, isinglass, etc)?
2. Do you add tannins (tea) to your must?
3. Do you add acid blend (or lemon juice, etc) to the must?
4. Do you simmer your honey and skim the scum?
5. What is your favorite yeast? (and why?)
My answers:
1. Yes, Irish moss and isinglass
2. A couple times...hated it!
3. Sometimes a bit of fresh lemon juice, like maybe a half lemon
4. Always! (thats when i add irish moss)
5. Edme ale yeast!!
Thanks!
- --
Gregg Stearns
Malcor's homebrew hq
http://members.xoom.com/Malcor/index.html
------------------------------
Subject: poisoned!
From: Chuck Wettergreen <chuckmw@mcs.net>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 07:45:10 -0600 (CST)
Over breakfast I decided to look at my cute
little 5-pound crate of clementines to see
where they came from. Right there on the
label was:
product of Spain
Thiabendazole and/or imazalil used as fungicides
food grade shellac-based wax
You'll remember that I mentioned preferring
to use my zester to remove the zest from a
case of clementines.
You'll also remember that Wout Klingens
discovered too late that his wonderful
Morrocan-orange melomel (and I can testify
that it was truly wonderful) used orange
zest that was also treated with thiobendazole.
I went immediately to the freezer and threw
out the zest that I had been saving to put
in the secondary.
A word to the wise on use of foreign fruit.
Chuck
chuckmw@mcs.net
Geneva, IL
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Bitter meads
From: "Wout Klingens" <wcm.klingens@quicknet.nl>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:10:01 +0100
Dan McFeeley wites:
> I don't think the tannn acted as an antioxidant, i.e., as something
Sorry Dan, don't agree. As I wrote to you privately, tannins are used to
prevent oxidation, where danger of oxidation occurs like racking. Look at
www.scottlab.com page (No affiliation, endorsement, etc). I am glad Alan
Meeker backs me up on this :-)
> in meads. Tannin helps precipate these complexes, which would also help
> remove oxidized phenolics contributing a bitter taste to meads.
Very likely. Some protein will impart a bitter sensation, I agree. But with
me aging didn't help. I found one source (can't remember which) that also
mentioned oxidation as a possibility. And with tannin I had the opportunity
to tackle both problems.
> report to the digest. Wout's post prompted me to respond with what I've
> learned so far, which isn't much! I'll be sure to post a fuller report
> in the future.
Keep studying Dan! So we don't have to :):):) My way of saying thanks :-)
Wout.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Gravities, sweet/semi-sweet/dry mead
From: Elfboy0@aol.com
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 12:32:21 EST
OxladeMac@aol.com writes:
> I know that there are those out there who will disagree, but I think the
> savior for sweet meads is a weak yeast. I have used champagne yeast, and
> will never do so again. Unless you interceed, or have an amazingly high OG,
> it's going to end up dry. That's what champagne yeast was designed to do -
I have made all of my meads with either dry mead yeast or champagne yeast. I
like a very sweet mead. I have always let the fermentation continue to
completion, and with one exception, my meads have varied from a plum-wine
sweetness to something many other people considered far too sweet. I have
never measured gravities, but my original source for making mead (<A
HREF="http://www.telepath.com/~pu">http://www.telepath.com/~pursley/index.html">http://www.telepath.com/~pu
rsley/index.html</A>) has a chart that I've found to be very useful. I pretty
much use between 4 1/2 and 6 lbs. of honey per gallon (thus a 5 gallon batch
is made with 22 1/2 to 30 lbs. of honey) with dry mead yeast or champagne
yeast. Plus around 7 lbs. of fruit. For my one exception, I think I used 20
lbs. of honey with 5 lbs. of fruit and champagne yeast (I hadn't started
keeping that great of records yet), and from what I can tell (it's still
aging) that is too low. But I think when I used 25 lbs., that was okay. I
don't know if fermentation is supposed to be normally difficult at higher
OG's - I'm assuming so since my vanilla mead took forever to get started, and
my lemon mead started a bit slow. But my other fruit meads took off like
rockets.
- Joshua
------------------------------
Subject: Geyser effect
From: NLSteve@aol.com
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:54:44 EST
Talking about exploding primary fermentations that blow out the airlock when
making fruit meads (melomels), bobbylew says:
"Your choices are, 1: leave the fruit in large chunks.
2: put fruit in cheese cloth weighted down with clear glass marbles.
3: Leave 8" empty space in the carboy
4: Do primary fermentation in Plastic bucket
5: Add fruit to the must after vigorous fermentation."
I wouldn't trust 1, 2, 3 or 5 to prevent a geyser although each would add
some measure of safety. All it takes is the clumping of some small pulpy
chunks to ride the foam up & clog the airlock; you'd be surprised at how
vigorous these puppies can go and how much head space they can eat up when
fruit is involved (yes, I am a fellow ceiling mopper). Number 4 would do it,
provided, of course, there is a lot of head space in the bucket.
But another option is the "super blowoff" method. You get a few feet of
food-grade tubing sized to jam into the neck of your carboy and which,
therefore, has a vast inside diameter. Just TRY to jam that!
The other end of the tube goes into a cut-off Clorox jug or something with a
very weak sanitizing solution. The receptacle should be big enough that
should fruit pulp make it inside, it's not the end of the world. You'll
sleep well.
When the fermentation slows, replace this with a stopper & airlock.
Steve
------------------------------
Subject: Quibbling
From: NLSteve@aol.com
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 17:01:54 EST
>From Robert Goulding's enjoyable post:
"Sterilization IS important however. I bring my water to a
boil, turn off the fire and add my honey and other ingredients. . ."
Maybe it depends on how you define the "IS" in "Sterilization IS important."
I am a convert to the Church of Meadmaking Without Fuss, in which the
practitioners don't bother to boil, pasteurize or sulfite. Instead, the
practitioners use clean equipment and a serious, vigorous yeast starter. So
far, nothing but great mead. I took a little poll here about the experience
of others with this approach, and while the results weren't conclusive, I
certainly found no information that changed my methods. So maybe a fairer
statement is "Sterilization is important to some people, and that's fine."
P.S.: No, don't try this with beer.
Steve
------------------------------
Subject: Quibbling II
From: NLSteve@aol.com
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 17:05:30 EST
Amendum to my last post:
I should have said that while for a straight mead I don't think sterilization
is important, it would certainly have more value for a melomel.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Wedding Mead
From: Jerry Harder <mastergoodwine@alltel.net>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:38:10 -0600
> I am getting married in March and (the mead) won't be ready. What about
> zapping the yeast?
I had the same problem on a no nutrient mead I intended to serve at
my wedding. About a year later and a month before the wedding it
started fermenting again. Hopefully your wedding is at the end of
march so you've got a little time! First add nutrient. Get ammonium
phosphate or diammonium phosphate not the stuff with urea in it. Many
times it is marketed at homebrew shops as "nutrient". Ask what's
in it to be sure. The Idea here is to speed things up as much as
possible. I didn't get a chance to do this. With about a month of
ferment time maybe you can get it done. Otherwise you can do what I
did.
Here is what I did:
First I tried adding potassium sorbate (stabilizer) and freezing
the entire carboy of mead. Potassium sorbate only keeps a wine from
refermenting when has already stopped, so I figured the freezing would
stop it, and the potassium sorbate could then take over. It didn't
work! My batch of mead started fermenting again while it was still
half frozen and with the stabilizer in it. I though that was pretty
vindictive for yeast that just sat there still for 10 months! Soooo,
I had to try something else.
Anyway I built a cross flow heat exchanger with two different sizes
of copper pipe and lined the bottom of my 15 gallon pot with corks.
I placed the pot on the stove, put the carboy in the pot on top of
the corks, hooked the garden hose to the sink and filled the pot,
and hence a double boiler that won't break the carboy when it's
heated. I put my floating thermometer in the carboy and heated it
to 145 deg F. for 20 minutes. That took care of those little
yeasty-beastys! Then hooked up the cross flow heat exchanger to the
cold water at the sink and ran the hot mead through it. It came out
room temp as it hit the carboy! I did all this heat exchanger bit
because I don't think a slow cooling of the already fermented mead would
be a good thing. Besides any possible long term temperature effects,
microbes grow like crazy at about 120-130 deg F. where it would be for
a long time in the cooling process. I put sparkloid in it during the time
it was heating up and I find that this clarifies very well. A week later
I racked and bottled. Now back to your mead:
Hopefully your wedding is at the end of march and you can try
fermenting it out first. If that fails and you don't have time, do what
I did. Don't forget the sparkloid or it won't be clear.
Jerry Harder.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: What gravity determines sweet/semi-sweet/dry in mead?
From: Jerry Harder <mastergoodwine@alltel.net>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:44:27 -0600
Subject: What gravity determines sweet/semi-sweet/dry in mead?
From: "Stevenson, Randall"
> 1.14. I was hoping for a sweet mead and added the zest at SG 1.014 to kill
> the yeast and obtain a FG of about 1.01. Is this right? or am I going to
> still have a dry mead?
I am not familiar with how that particular yeast behaves, but
I have never heard of using zest to kill off yeast. If you have
any starting and final specific gravity's on this or any other yeast
please send them to me as I am collecting that type of data on
different yeast. (mastergoodwine@alltel.net) What I usually do
is use Pasture champagne yeast which for me consistently produces
14.5% alcohol and stops, leaving any sweetness I put in it beyond
that. I put all my honey in it at the beginning before fermenting.
Another way is to choose your alcohol content and add enough sugar
or honey to that level. Then ferment completely dry. After you
are sure the yeast is completely dormant, add potassium sorbate
(stabilizer) Then you can sweeten to taste with sugar or honey to
taste, fine, and bottle without fear of refermentation. Be sure
to sanitize your honey. (I usually do that in the microwave) I am
very skeptical that the zest idea would work, and if it does, I am
sure that the quantity needed would be important. If it does work,
I would sure like to know more details about it.
> What gravities distinguish sweet from semi-sweet from dry?
That depends some on preference and who you talk to. If your entering
a competition, be sure to label according to the particular
competition's guidelines for those categories.
Jerry J Harder
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Pineapple mead
From: Jerry Harder <mastergoodwine@alltel.net>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2000 16:30:04 -0600
> 2) I noticed that the pineapple juice had ascorbic acid as
> one of the ingredients. What are the chemical and taste
> implications of having this additive to the mix, if any?
I don't think so. Most acids don't have flavor of their own other
than sour. I find though that the malic acid of apples has a
metallic tast I dislike. Vinegar, we often think of as having a
bad odor but this is because of "other" compounds produced by
acetobacter.
> 3) Pureeing the pineapple seemed to incorporate a lot of air
> into the mix. Although I pasteurized the puree does this
> really have anything to do with the problem I had with
> blowout?
I think the heating would drive off most of the oxygen, but
oxygen up front of the fermentation will help the yeast multiply
thus creating a better ferment. Try controlling ferment by
adding less nutrient (if you added any) or by moving to a
cooler enviroment.
Jerry J Harder
------------------------------
Subject: Need some ideas
From: Stan Marshall <beorning@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 07:53:34 -0800
Hello all,
I'm wondering if anyone has recipes for melomel that involve pears,
pineapple, or nectarines.....
Thanks in advance,
Stan
------------------------------
Subject: carboys,blow-off tubes
From: John Wilkinson <jandjwilkins@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 21:24:26 -0600
Most places only seem to have plastic 5 gallon water jugs but I found
one in Dallas, Whole Foods, that carries the glass carboys also. They
only charge about US$7 for empties. People looking for carboys might
call around to find if anyone selling water has them. Whole Foods is a
place that specializes in organically grown foods so you might try that
sort of place. I don't know if it has anything to do with having the
glass carboys but it is worth a try.
As to blow off tubes, I found vinyl tubing with an O.D. the same as the
I.D. of the carboy mouth. Little chance of that getting clogged.
John Wilkinson - Grapevine, Texas
------------------------------
Subject: My House Smells Wonderfull!
From: "Philip J Wilcox" <pjwilcox@cmsenergy.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 14:47:51 -0500
Mead Lovers--
I finally received in the mail the Heather Honey I purchased from Murry
McGreggor of Denrosa Ltd. Perthshire, Scotland. And yes it cost me more for
postage than for the honey! But still less than Castlemark. I opened the bucket
to find another bucket which I opened to find some wonderfull medium dark and
VERY aromatic Heather Honey.
So now that I have spent $175 bucks for 30 lbs of this honey I don't want to
screw it up. To refresh folks memory My idea was to the traditional celtic thing
of "laying down a Pipe of Mead" upon the birth of ones daughter, for a gift to
her on her wedding day. Thusly being prepared for the HoneyMoon. Source? Cant
say. Try Gayre/Papazian. None-the-less. I now have enough honey for 10 gallons
of mead. My plan is to make two 5 gal batches maybe the same maybe not. Put 5 of
it down till her wedding and drink one bottle a year on her birtday till its
gone with the second batch. 8<)
The last Traditional I made was with Fruit Blossom honey and I didn't boil it or
heat it in any way. I disolved it in water, Properly rehydrated 10 grams of wine
yeast (EC-1118?) cooled, tempered and pitched. There it sat. It krausened just
fine, and then after a few months it developed a Mold? Or some such inconsistent
white film-plecile over the top of the must, some large bubbles some white
blotches. I dont want this to happen to my Heather honey. Which I would expect
it would have much less wild yeast than the Fruit Blossom Honey from the
orchard. Thusly it wouldn't do this but who knows...and I can't afford to risk
it.
So this is my 5-gal plan (assume Ill do it twice or double the batch and split
into 2 carboys.)
Heat 2.5 gal water to boil cool to 160F,
add 6 lb of heather honey and 2 lbs of Wildflower keep temp at 140 for 20 min.
Cool to 70F
rack to fermetor, top up to 4.2 gallons. Add a Tsp of Yeast Nutrient. Oxygenate
with pure O2 (is this necessary with wine yeast? I have never heard of a
winemaker doing this. But for beer I wouldn't dream of not doing it.)
For yeast I have been fond of Cote de Blanc's and the Lavlin equivalent.
After the first Krausen has fallen, add the other 6lbs of Heather honey, stir
well to disolve all the honey. Ferment till dry and clear. Rack to kegs.
Sulfate, Sorbate, add 2-3 lbs heather honey to sweeten to 1.020 range. Bottle
half on Kaelie's birthday.
Anyone see any problems?
I do, bottling. Beer bottles, 6, 12, 22 oz? Wine bottles with corks? Artificial
corks? Should I keep the long term half in the keg for 18 years? I have an uncle
with a winery he said he'd stash it in the back of the temp controled wine
cellar for me.
If I were to make one a Sack (above) and the other a Traditional, what would I
add to make a gruit for the Traditional?
Phil Wilcox
Bumblefrog Meadery
Jackson, Michigan
------------------------------
Subject: Banana Mead
From: "Matt Lists" <matt_lists@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 17:34:25 -0800
>(And I quote - banana mead would taste horrible!)
I beg to differ I have made a very tasty banana/spice mead that has clove
and ginger in it. It was defiantly worth making again (and I have).
------------------------------
Subject: 1 week mead
From: Ken Mason <kjmason1@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 17:39:31 -0800 (PST)
Written in mead lovers digest #785 by Ox
> If you want a honey based light drinking
> beverage, I know someone who has a recipe
> for a fizzy metheglin that is ready in 1 week.
> He brews it in one of those Edme pressure kegs.
< snip >
> If you want the recipe, I can ask him for it.
- end
1 week mead! (pun intended??) I've had lots of fun
making these "honey beverages" during the week for a
mild brew on the weekend. I'd certainly like to give
any quick mead a try. So supply the recipe sometime.
A potent brew I made last weekend used 1.75lbs of
honey 4 tablespoons of bee pollen and blain old bread
yeast (red star). I used a 3 liter soda bottle for
each batch and instead of an airlock, I used a
punching balloon with a pin hole in it.
On the 5th day I capped the soda bottles ( 5 in all)
with the original caps and let them get REEEALY
pressurized and then tossed them outside to freeze for
a few hours. The sparkling semi slush mead was drunk
as was. We used a mesh tea strainer to keep the slush
out of our glasses. The verdict? only 5 out of 9
could drink it (1 bottle each!), and one person who
liked it initially had to run for the Benadryl to keep
his throat from swelling shut ( bee pollen ). Not
the greatest quality. . .definitely alcoholic. I
don't know what the yeast did to the bee pollen (added
initially as a nutrient), but no one who drank it got
up before noon.
I only recommend this method when on ski vacations in
Utah, like us, and/or otherwise far from your carboy
and airlock.
Note: Chilling the mead into slush was done for the
purposes of making sure the sediment at the bottom of
the soda bottles would stay at the bottom. . .not for
the insidious side effect of concentrating the
alcohol.
------------------------------
Subject: Cyser salvation?
From: "JNR_FARMS" <JNR_FARMS@msn.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 22:01:18 -0600
I mistreated a cyser, letting it sit on lees too long. Now, it tastes
sweet cider, but with a nasty scorched caramel finish. I think this is due
to yeast autolysis. Is there any way to save it, or does it get donated to
the poor drink anything college crowd?
Also, I have a few melomels that I'm planning on putting more effort
into. In the past, I have bottled some just as if they were beers (with
caps), and bottled some in wine bottles with corks. I imagine that most
people bottle/cork. Does the mead family need to breath while in the
bottle?
JNR Farms Julie and Randy Nessler
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #786
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