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Mead Lovers Digest #0848
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #848, 9 May 2001
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #848 9 May 2001
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Last mention from me on CO2 ("Lane O. Locke")
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #847, 1 May 2001 (Myron Sothcott)
The Mazer Cup is now the Bill Pfeiffer Memorial Mazer Cup ("Ken Schramm")
Honey to water ratio ("Kemp, Alson")
potassium sorbate debate ("Paul Hudert")
hotmail.com users beware (Mead Lovers Digest)
Re: A Meadmakers Library (Long!) (Dan McFeeley)
Mead judging (mjkid@rochester.rr.com)
More Mead URL's (Dan McFeeley)
MIXING MEAD ("Jason")
oak chips and archives (Ken Irwin)
hops for Polish Mead ("redrocklover")
Flower metheglins ("redrocklover")
NOTE: Digest 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. There is
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Last mention from me on CO2
From: "Lane O. Locke" <Shaggyman@kc.rr.com>
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 18:17:22 -0500
Dave, Alan, Spencer, ?:
Okay, guys! I know you are right. But you keep referring to an
unsaturated liquid. What you rack off at the end of a fermentation is
usually already at equilibrium, and is unlikely to absorb additional
volumes of CO2 unless the temperature is lowered or atmospheric pressure
rises. Both of these things are likely to occur in the average basement
over time, which is why I was not suggesting that you attempt to blanket
a completely still mead for any significant time with CO2.
As I mentioned in #846, Nitrogen is in all ways superior, and is the
logical choice for sparging and blanketing, and as a pressurizer for
still mead on tap. I only mentioned Carbon Dioxide because it is
readily available, and quite often already among your brewing equipment.
Golly gee, I know when I'm chastised. But thanks for pointing out my
omission. I'll try to be a little more careful in the future.
By the way, anyone who usually buys honey from local producers should
check with them.
The combination of hot, dry summer and very cold winter has decimated a
significant number of hives in Missouri and possibly elsewhere. This
may impact on the availability and price of your favorites. Now would
be a good time to see if they have any from last year they might part
with.
Shaggyman
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #847, 1 May 2001
From: Myron Sothcott <myron7@home.com>
Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 19:54:07 -0400
>From: NeophyteSG@aol.com
>hawn, have you read Cindy Renfrow's 'A Sip Through Time'? Great book
>and she has not only good recipes, but lots of info. She's got an article
>on http://www.gotmead.com as well.
>>And Myron Sothcott wrote:
>>
>> > I would cut the honey to 15 pounds
>> > to start, check the specific gravity when fermentation slows,
>> > and feed more honey to get a final gravity for the level of
>> > sweetness desired. <snip>
>> > Next, I would probably cut the total fruit back to about 10 pounds.
>>
>>Yes, there will be a lot of fluff at the bottom, but it will pay off in
>>flavor. I have used 20 pounds of honey and 10 pounds of fruit for a 5 gallon
>>batch. The result was on the sweet side (which I like) and intensely fruity.
>>I don't recall what Mark Shapiro's "juice, sparge and squeeze method" was,
>>but what I did was do the fermentation in two stages, the first being fruit
>>only. After a couple of weeks of intense fermentation, I poured the whole
>>slurry through a nylon mesh bag (squeezing as hard as I could). At that
>>point (the second stage) the honey was added (like Myron suggests).
>>
>>cheers,
>>
>>Terry Estrin
>
>::taking notes:: I've been experimenting with keeping the blackberry
>flavor in my blackberry mels. They always seem to ferment out dry
>and with no blackberry flavor (although they smell *wonderful*)
Although I like a mel on the semi-dry side, all my friends and neigbors
like them sweeter. I feed to get a final gravity around 1.012 to 1.016.
To retain flavor try this... For a 5 gallon batch use a 3 lb can of
Oregon Fruit Blackberry Puree in the primary. This gives a very nice
base flavor, and may be acceptable without step two, which is to add
5 lbs of frozen and thawed blackberries to the secondary. This latter
step greatly boosts the flavor and aroma.
Oh, just re-read the above... the 1.012 to 1.016 is NOT semi-dry. That
is a medium sweet for most mels.
Myron
------------------------------
Subject: The Mazer Cup is now the Bill Pfeiffer Memorial Mazer Cup
From: "Ken Schramm" <schramk@resa.net>
Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 12:01:09 -0400
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Mazer Cup is slated for return, now under the new moniker
"the Bill Pfeiffer Memorial Mazer Cup." The AABG and the new
competition organizers, Jason Henning and Jim Suchy, agreed
on the change to honor our mead making and judging mentor and
friend, Bill Pfeiffer, who passed away last May 5th. He was a big
influence on us all, and a repeatedly honored mead maker, having
won awards ranging from numerous Mazer Cup firsts and seconds
to AHA Mead Maker of the Year. For those not familiar with the
competiion, the Mazer Cup is a mead only competition with several
categories (8 last time), permitting meads to compete against their
peers and not against dramatically different styles.
Plans at this point are for first round judging to occur March 16th
and 23rd, 2002. Individual categories may be judged at locations
around southeastern Michigan, but rest assured that all due care
will be taken in the handling of entries.
Information about the competition is available at
www.mazercup.org. Please drop by for information on entries
and time tables. Contact info is there, too, for those with questions.
Judges are welcome from whence-ever they originate. Beds will
be made available. I truly believe that there is no better chance to
taste and evaluate this broad a variety of meads - in one place
at one time - in this country. One cannot help but educate
the palate.
As always, I feel confident that the Mazer Cup's standards for
complete, courteous and helpful judge comments will be adhered
to stringently. The Mazers will again be crafted by Nicole Henry,
former thrower for the Pewabic Pottery and currently ceramic
instructor at the esteemed Center for Creative Studies in Detroit.
Year after year the beauty and creativity embodied in these
hand-crafted ceramic vessels continues to astonish me; they are
truly unique acknowledgements of mead making acomplishment.
To paraphrase the song:
"Now we're back, and here to say, we can really shake 'em down."
Enter early and often. Good luck!
Yours,
Ken Schramm
Charter Organizer (retired, at least temporarily)
Bill Pfeiffer Memorial Mazer Cup Mead Competition
Troy, Michigan
------------------------------
Subject: Honey to water ratio
From: "Kemp, Alson" <alson@corp.cirrus.com>
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 11:36:43 -0700
All,
I have mead several successful meads in the past year or two. I'm
fairly happy with the result, but I'd like a drier mead. Add less honey.
Got that. What has puzzled me about some previous meads is that they're
somewhat sweet even though I've used Lalvin K1V-1116. I used 3# honey with
water to make 1 gallon of must.
The question is this: when recipes say 3# of honey per gallon, is
that 3# of honey per gallon of must or 3# of honey and 1 gallon of water
(~=1.25 gallon of must). Honey/must is 3#/gallon and approximately
2.4#/gallon, respectively.
- Alson
------------------------------
Subject: potassium sorbate debate
From: "Paul Hudert" <paulgarbanzo@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 19:03:13 -0400
Hello,
I haven't bothered to fool with potassium sorbate before, but I've got some
mead that has been fermenting for about a year and a half now, and although
it is slow, it hasn't stopped.I'd really like to get it out of my carbouy so
I can use the carbouy again.
after searching through past MLD's i've only found a few comments about
potassium sorbate and would like to know if anyone has any personal
experience with it. some people claim it doesn't completely stop the yeast,
others said it worked fine.. what's the story?
when do I use it? how effective? will the yeast come back if it gets really
warm?
any helpful hints can be sent directly to me or just post it on MLD (or
both)..
Thanks!
Paul
paulgarbanzo@hotmail.com
------------------------------
Subject: hotmail.com users beware
From: mead@talisman.com (Mead Lovers Digest)
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 22:29:28 -0600 (MDT)
(Sorry to bother the general populace with this)
There have been occasional failures in delivering to hotmail.com. When they
happen, they are total (can't deliver to anybody at hotmail.com) and there
is no apparent reason, nothing related to general network problems or fail-
ures elsewhere.
SO...if you're receiving the Mead-Lover's Digest via hotmail, beware that
you may fail to receive digests now and then, and there's nothing I can do
about it.
- ---
Mead-Lover's Digest mead-request@talisman.com
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor Boulder County, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: A Meadmakers Library (Long!)
From: Dan McFeeley <mcfeeley@keynet.net>
Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 10:56:32 -0500
Hello all --
Just wanted to add a couple of corrections to the web sites at
the end of the list I posted in the last MLD.
Cindy Renfrow is no longer at http://members.aol.com/renfrowcm/links.html,
her new URL is http://www.thousandeggs.com.
Marc Shapiro maintains and updates his material at the bigfoot site.
The geocities URL's are being phased out and may be out of date.
For the Meadery -- http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_shapiro/
Alcoholic Drinks of the Middle Ages - Wine is at:
http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_shapiro/cwine.html
Alcoholic Drinks of the Middle Ages is at:
http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_shapiro/calcohol.html
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><>
Dan McFeeley
mcfeeley@keynet.net
------------------------------
Subject: Mead judging
From: mjkid@rochester.rr.com
Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 20:42:04 -0400
Greetings,
Our homebrew club, the Upstate New York Homebrewer's
Association, just finished hosting the NHC Northeast Regional
competition this past weekend. (Thanks to Spencer Thomas for
coming down to help us judge, and thanks also for the great beers
he brought with him;-). I am a BJCP Certified judge, with about 4
years judging experience. I've judge meads several times now, and
consider myself a pretty knowledgable mead and beer judge. I have
a question, and a comment (rant?). First, the rant: I like judging
meads, but I *hate* it when the brewer (meadster?) doesn't follow
instructions, and fails to indicate the style of mead, i.e., dry, semi-
sweet, or sweet, and sparkling or still or in one case, a metheglin
that didn't specify the Herb/Spice that was used! I was the head
judge on the panel that did Traditional Meads and Spiced Meads.
We had to guess at a pair of traditionals that were not specified,
and of course we got the sweet before the dry. Both were very
good, but the dry was a bit sweet for the style, even after the sweet
mead. For the mead judges out there, how do you handle this
situation? Do you try to make an assumption as to style, and
judge according to your best guess on the style? Also, when you
have a varietal mead made from a honey you've never tasted, how
do you judge that? I'm just finishing off the last of a Purple
Loosestrife mead that we scored well, but I have no idea what the
honey itself is like. The mead is wonderful, a well made sweet
mead, with an unusual flavor, somewhat floral, maybe a bit herbal. I
basically just scored it as a sweet mead, no noticable off flavors,
well made, no pile 'o crud it the bottom of the bottle. Comments?
Regards,
Mike Kidulich
UNYHA
------------------------------
Subject: More Mead URL's
From: Dan McFeeley <mcfeeley@keynet.net>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 07:37:22 -0500
Timothy Smith, a student in Switzerland, was gracious enough to send
these links for mead and meadmaking. As you can see at a causal
glance, these are German links, which, sadly for me, I can't read.
Hope they are of interest to MLD readers.
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><>
Dan McFeeley
mcfeeley@keynet.net
Buying
http://www.honig-markt.de/index.html
http://www.buescher.purespace.de/
http://www.ritterladen.de/
http://www.koenigsbrunn.net/bienes/
http://www.propolis.co.at/produkte.html
http://www.einhorn-sr.de/shop/WeinbereitungHefen_und_Hilfsmittel.html
http://www-pool.math.tu-berlin.de/~andreas/de/kulinarisches/honigwein.shtml
http://www.carnica.de/index.html
Mead making URL's-DE
http://home.t-online.de/home/t.effner/met.htm
http://www-pool.math.tu-berlin.de/~andreas/de/kulinarisches/honigwein.shtml
http://www.hobbythek.de/archiv/266/index.html#met
http://www-pool.math.tu-berlin.de/~andreas/de/kulinarisches/honigwein.shtml#
links
http://www.cass.net/~behlert/mead/bl1_index.html
http://cg.cs.tu-berlin.de/~pooh/wein/honigwein.html
http://hp.nwy.at/eng.htm
http://www.hexenkueche.de/monate03/00juli.html
Buying
http://www.some-baskets.de/
http://www.korbscheune.de/met.htm
http://www.segner.at/getraenke1segner.html
http://www.bauernhof-neuwirth.at/bauernhof-neuwirth/produkte/6.htm
http://www.velmet.at/
http://www.zaubertrank-hamburg.de/weinpreise.html
?
http://www.beepworld.de/verzeichnis/alternativmedizin.htm
------------------------------
Subject: MIXING MEAD
From: "Jason" <je@techie.com>
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 11:43:21 -0500
I have heard that you can mix some other alcohols and juice to an
already made batch of mead. Has anyone tried this? If you have, is
there any mixes you reccommend? I have a wedding coming up and don't
have time to make a batch of cyser or pyment. I will most likely have
to use a (GASP!) bottled mead such as Chauser's. Any help would be
great!
- -Jason Erickson
------------------------------
Subject: oak chips and archives
From: Ken Irwin <kirwin@wittenberg.edu>
Date: Sun, 6 May 2001 23:14:57 -0400
Hi All,
After brewing somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 gallons of mead in the last
few years, I'm finally getting around to a "plain" mead with just water and
wildflower honey. I'd like to age some of it with toasted oak chips, but I've
found surprisingly little in the archives -- lots about cask fermentation, but
precious few *answers* about oak chips (lots of folks asking though) - is this
because no one plays the oak chip game, or because through some quirk of fate
people have answered off-list?
At any rate, if folks could reply on-list as well as to me, that would be just
lovely, for posterity's sake.
I'm after knowing about a few things:
1) general procedure
2) quantity of chips per volume
3) how long to add chips for, and how to get them out.
There's a lot in the archives about over-oaking, which I'd like to avoid ;)
Also, is there a searchable archive, or just the tar files? I'd be interested
in creating a publicly searchable archive if there isn't one already. I
thought there was one, but it doesn't seem to be linked from the list info
page:
http://www.talisman.com/mead/
Creating a searchable archive would be a pretty simple task, and definitely
worthwhile.
What think you all?
Ken
------------------------------
Subject: hops for Polish Mead
From: "redrocklover" <spiritflight@kachina.net>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 07:36:28 -0700
HI all!
I'm going to be making a few gallons of trojniak (a Polish mead) from a
recipe by Richard Blaszczyk. The recipe is as follows:
22 lbs honey
3 gal water
10 tsp citric acid
2 tsp tartaric acid
1..5 tsp tannin
4 tsp yeast nutrient
champagne, sherry or madiera yeast
The additives are:
2 oz hops
1 tsp ginger
cinnamon, partial stick
1/2 of a vanilla bean
pinch of nutmeg
6 cloves
2 peppercorns
lemon skin
orange skin
The question I have is what hops should I use? I don't know much of
anything about choosing the right kind.
Thanks!
Matthew Ransom
spiritflight@kachina.net
------------------------------
Subject: Flower metheglins
From: "redrocklover" <spiritflight@kachina.net>
Date: Tue, 8 May 2001 07:58:12 -0700
I have always loved making flower wines and I'm now making flower
metheglins. The current is a rose petal metheglin. I've found that a few
flowers suitable for brewing can be purchased on quantity from herb
shops and health food stores if I can't find what I need growing nearby.
I bought a large bag of organic Pakistani pink rose petals. Man, are
they fragrant! The cost was $9.00 for the bag.
Given that I live in Sedona, Arizona where some of the flowers and such
I desire are not available such as dandelions, I was wondering if anyone
would be interested in shipping honey from their local apiary or store,
or garden so that we all could have the opportunity to work with exotic
and regional honeys and ingredients. I have access to desert honeys,
mesquite pods (wonderful honey taste), prickly pear fruits (taste like a
mild plum), and maybe some other stuff.
Thanks gang!
Matthew Ransom
spiritflight@kachina.net
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #848
*******************************
