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Mead Lovers Digest #0935
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Errors-To: mead-errors@talisman.com
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To: mead-list@talisman.com
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #935, 10 June 2002
Mead Lover's Digest #935 10 June 2002
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Blackcurrants (was Re: Adding Fruit ("Geoffrey T. Falk")
Re: Pectic enzyme post fermentation / chill proofing (Melinda Merkel Iyer)
RE: That Texas company (Brian Lundeen)
American Oak? ("Kemp, Alson")
Sweetening up my mead ("Berggren, Stefan")
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #934, 5 June 2002 (Vicky Rowe)
RE: Mead Lover's Digest #934, 5 June 2002 ("Elyusian")
Thanks and here's the recipe ("Michael Yacht")
Re: oak (Mathieu Bouville)
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Blackcurrants (was Re: Adding Fruit
From: "Geoffrey T. Falk" <gtf@cirp.org>
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 23:55:18 -0600 (MDT)
Dick Dunn wrote
>My usual procedure for a berry melomel is this: bring the water to a boil.
>Take it off the heat and add the honey (the honey is not boiled). Stir
>to dissolve all the honey and let it cool a little bit. Dump this over the
>frozen or partly-defrosted fruit in a plastic-pail primary fermenter--which
>will further cool the must and at the same time heat the fruit (the
>surface, anyway).
Dick: I have a couple of pounds of frozen blackcurrants, gathered from
my parents' garden last fall. I would like to make a small batch of
melomel from them. Do you think they will break down enough by pouring
the hot must over them in this fashion? I feel I should crush or break
the skins somehow.
Anyone had experience making blackcurrant mead? The fruit is pretty
tart. any recipe would be welcome if it's been tested and turned out
well.
An unrelated question:
1) Where to source gallon jugs? (I mean Imperial gallons, 160 oz, 4.5
litre... Making a U.S. gallon batch of something is not worth my time.)
These are great for small batches, making 6 standard wine bottles. In
North America you are lucky to run across them. I retrieved four from my
dad's basement, bought 20-30 years ago... they had to be cleaned up
pretty well before using.
Geoffrey
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Pectic enzyme post fermentation / chill proofing
From: Melinda Merkel Iyer <myn@iyerfamily.net>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 06:05:52 -0700
Dave Burley wrote:
>And don't forget chill proofing (cooling to near freezing) as a way to
>remove some stubborn hazes.
Drat!! No sooner did this leave my inbox than I read it's a known
technique! And there I was so proud of myself!! :-D
Melinda
- --
Melinda Merkel Iyer
http://www.iyerfamily.net/
------------------------------
Subject: RE: That Texas company
From: Brian Lundeen <BLundeen@rrc.mb.ca>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 09:39:47 -0500
> Subject: Pectic enzyme post fermentation
> From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley@charter.net>
> Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 12:15:54 -0400
> Try Williams Brewing in CA. I seem to recall they have
> Prickly Pear juice or maybe Lynn Connor (for some reason at
> the moment, I can't recall her company in TX - some help)
> they might know who does.
>
> Dave Burley
>
It's Lynne O'Connor and the company is St Patrick's. They have an excellent
web site at (and you probably could have guessed this)
http://www.stpats.com/
Cheers
Brian
------------------------------
Subject: American Oak?
From: "Kemp, Alson" <alson.kemp@cirrus.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 09:02:20 -0700
>The answer was American oak.
>Does ANYBODY have a clue?
Handbook of Enology: The Microbiology of Wine says that
American Oak is "Quercus alba".
-Alson
------------------------------
Subject: Sweetening up my mead
From: "Berggren, Stefan" <stefan_berggren@trekbike.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 15:40:27 -0500
I have a question as to
what the proper way to
sweeten a mead should be. Do
I add the Potassium sorbate,
let sit for a day and then sweeten
to taste? I have heard that it is
recommended to add Potassium Sorbate
and a campden tablet to make that all
those lil yeasties are extinct before adding
additional honey? Also this would conceivably
stabilize the mead somewhat. So when sweetening
do I boil a little water, turn off the heat and then
dissolve the honey to be added to the fermentor ?
Can someone enlighten me to the proper method to bring a
little sunshine to my otherwise dry mead?
Cheers,
Stefan
Not all those that wander are lost.
-J.R.R. Tolkien, novelist and philologist (1892-1973)
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #934, 5 June 2002
From: Vicky Rowe <rcci@mindspring.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 19:38:42 -0400
>Subject: Trying to find someone in California
>From: Laura Osanitch <haffpynt@yahoo.com>
>Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 13:15:36 -0700 (PDT)
>A wonderful man who makes meads in California was very helpful in giving me
>mead-making advice. I was dopey enough to not bother saving his email address,
>and now I'm regretting it. All I can tell anyone to lend a hint, is that he
>has a site which advertises his blackberry and pear meads as his big upcoming
>releases over the next couple of years. I know it's not a lot to go on, but
>if this sounds familiar to anyone at all, I'd love to know how to contact
>him again. I cannot even remember the name of his meadery.
>Laura - haffpynt@yahoo.com
Laura,
I believe that might be Mike Faul at mfaul@rabbitsfootmeadery.com.
He and I are scheming to get his stuff into the Carolina Renaissance Faire
next year.........
Vicky Rowe, the Meadwench
Proprietor of Gotmead.com - compendium of mead info http://www.gotmead.com
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Mead Lover's Digest #934, 5 June 2002
From: "Elyusian" <ferret@wolfandferret.com>
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 17:33:00 -0700
*Subject: Trying to find someone in California
*From: Laura Osanitch <haffpynt@yahoo.com>
*Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 13:15:36 -0700 (PDT)
*
*
*A wonderful man who makes meads in California was very helpful in giving me
*mead-making advice. I was dopey enough to not bother saving his email *address,
*and now I'm regretting it. All I can tell anyone to lend a hint, is that he
*has a site which advertises his blackberry and pear meads as his big
*upcoming
*releases over the next couple of years. I know it's not a lot to go on, but
*if this sounds familiar to anyone at all, I'd love to know how to contact
*him again. I cannot even remember the name of his meadery.
*
*Laura - haffpynt@yahoo.com
*
*------------------------------
I believe you may be referring to http://www.rabbitsfootmeadery.com/
Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern.
- --John Keats, English poet (1795-1821)
------------------------------
Subject: Thanks and here's the recipe
From: "Michael Yacht" <yacht@sgi.net>
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 18:33:18 -0400
I want to say thanks for all the advice on the fruit. I like Dick's
method, seems a bit easier and I'm one of those lazy people that loves
brewing mead because of the sheer lack of effort beyond making the
initial must. A bunch of people emailed me asking for the cran-orange
recipe, so I thought I'd just post it here instead of mailing each
person individually, cause I'm lazy :) Plus, while I'm at it, I'll post
my spiced cyser as well.
Ursula Mead (I name all my meads after characters from Disney movies):
- -------------------
11# Tulip honey
4.5 gallons of water (more or less enough to bring it to the 5 gallon
mark)
5 tsp yeast nutrient
3 12oz jars of orange marmalade (try to find some without perservatives)
4 12oz bags of fresh cranberries, cleaned and sliced in half.
1 packet of lalvin d-47, reconstituted in some Apple Juice (24 hours
before pitching)
My OG reading was 1.086
10 days later I skimmed the cranberries off the top, I was afraid they'd
add bitterness to the mead.
I racked it just a week after skimming off the cranberries, since
fermentation was done.
1 year later, I bottled it, SG was 1.004
Comments/thoughts: Leave the cranberries in til you rack the first
time, it'll add more cranberry flavor and color. Oddly, the cranberries
will 'ripen' in the must, turning that lovely color on the inside.
All in all this is my favorite mead yet.
Melifecent Mead
- -----------------------
10# clover honey
4.5 gallons of apple juice (try to get stuff without preservatives)
1.5oz whole cloves
1.1oz cinnamon sticks
1tsp acid blend
2.5tsp yeast nutrient
1 packet lalvin d-47, reconstituted in Apple Juice 24 hours before
pitching.
I boiled the honey and 1 gallon of AJ just long enough to pasturize. I
then pitched everything into the primary. OG was 1.108 and smelled
LOVELY
A month later, I racked, SG of 1.005. Clove taste was overwhelming.
Every few months I'd use the wine thief to try it. Clove was so strong
that it numbed my tongue and made me make that face that babies make
when they eat something repulsive. About a year later, I tried it again
and it had mellowed a LOT. It is still very, very strong in the clove
sense, but I like it.
Comments/thoughts: Next time, use about 1/4 as much clove and twice as
much cinnamon. This is not a delicate mead. But it goes GREAT in cider
for a beesting.
- -Mike
------------------------------
Subject: Re: oak
From: Mathieu Bouville <mbouvill@delilah.engin.umich.edu>
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 14:45:16 -0400 (EDT)
On Wed, 5 Jun 2002 mead-request@talisman.com wrote:
>From: Christopher C Carpenter <chris.carpenter@ndsu.nodak.edu>
>This becons me back to a question I asked earlier.. What
>kind of oak is used. The answer was American oak, which I
>found rather confusing, because I have had advanced hort
>classes, and never came across such a beast. Does ANYBODY
>have a clue, I suspect its Quercus Alba (White Oak), but
>even in surfing the web I could not find an American (could
>it be Quercus Virginiana, or what)
American oak is not the name of an advanced hort species. American oak
is quercus alba as opposed to French oak (quercus robur or quercus
sessififlora).
Mathieu Bouville
http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~mbouvill/mead/
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #935
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