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Mead Lovers Digest #0952
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Errors-To: mead-errors@talisman.com
Reply-To: mead@talisman.com
To: mead-list@talisman.com
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #952, 7 September 2002
Mead Lover's Digest #952 7 September 2002
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Mead ???? (Steven Swanson)
RE: Mead Lover's Digest #951, 5 September 2002 ("Lars D. H. Hedbor")
Honey famine? (Phil)
Wax cappings ("Chuck NLN")
Mead and batonage ("Kemp, Alson")
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #951, 5 September 2002 (Michael Faul)
Honey Brandy ("gdmark@pop.abdol.com")
Mead Brandy Downunder ("Steve Gaskin")
knocking out yeast question ("Janis Gross")
Pre-aging a barrel ("Kemp, Alson")
Airlock or no ("Asher Reed")
Honey, Mead, and Honey Lactone ("Dan McFeeley")
Re: Mead ???? (Tim Bray)
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: Re: Mead ????
From: Steven Swanson <swanson-1@aoeu.net>
Date: 05 Sep 2002 10:17:39 -0700
Distilling is not _completely_ illegal at home. There was an outfit (I
don't recall the name) that was selling home distilling kits. The catch
was that you had to get licensed by the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms
folks. I don't know what this involves, exactly, but it is possible.
On the other hand I don't think I want to be that friendly with the ATF.
It always seemed to me that a distillery should sell their services. I
would probably be willing to pay $100 for someone to turn some of my
homebrew into brandy. Does anyone know of a place that will do this?
- -steve
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Mead Lover's Digest #951, 5 September 2002
From: "Lars D. H. Hedbor" <lhedbor@attbi.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 10:31:55 -0700
>Wouldn't a better question be "Where can I get some?"? Really, why is there
>this big gap? I've never tasted, seen, or even heard-of a real instance of
>distilled mead. Nary a one. Does it not work out right?
...
>- ---
>Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
I've tried a distilled mead -- but the source mead had been made with a
large infusion of rosemary, so the underlying honey flavors were
completely drowned out. Sorry that I don't have more data to add, but I
have at least seen one "in the wild." :-)
- - Lars D. H. Hedbor
------------------------------
Subject: Honey famine?
From: Phil <dogglebe@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 11:31:03 -0700 (PDT)
Two sources I was looking into for honey (one in New
York, the other in Connecticut) both told me that
there may be a shortage of honey this fall. This is
due to the high and dry summer we've had in the
northeast. How wide-spread is this?
Phil
=====
visit the New York City Homebrewers Guild website:
http://www.homebrewersguild.org
------------------------------
Subject: Wax cappings
From: "Chuck NLN" <chuckwm@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2002 13:50:19 -0500
in MLD #951, michaelthurston@netscape.net said:
>cappings
>I'm sure at least a few of you out their are beekeeper's have any of you
>ever throne in the straing bag full of the wax cappings and stuff. If so
>what was the reuslt, or is this not >recommended? Sure seems like a waste
>of residual honey and (?)flavers to throw in a bucket and melt later for
>the wax.
Every time I extract I make "wax cappings mead". I'm a hobby
beekeeper with only two hives, so we're not talking about a
lot of wax or large extraction machinery.
What I do is rinse my extractor with about three gallons of
warm (not hot!) water, capturing that water in a plastic pail.
Then, once your cappings have drained, dump the cappings into
the water and stir to dissolve the honey. I then use a strainer
to scoop out the wax, squeezing out as much water as I can.
To finish I pour the (now) must through a fine strainer to
remove the last fine pieces of wax and then pitch yeast,
usually D-47. Usually I wind up with an original gravity
of about 1.085 +/- .005.
For those who don't keep bees who might wonder why someone
would keep just two hives for a hobby, I got 180 pounds of
honey from my hives the first year. I expect to get quite
a bit more than that this year. A couple of hundred pounds
of fresh, unheated, unfiltered honey can make a lot of
really good, low-cost mead. :?>) Bees are also fascinating
creatures and extremely gentle when worked correctly.
Cheers,
Chuck Wettergreen
meadmaker
beekeeper
Geneva, IL
------------------------------
Subject: Mead and batonage
From: "Kemp, Alson" <alson.kemp@cirrus.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 13:10:03 -0700
Has anyone aged mead on lees for an extended period of
time? How about with batonage? (stirring of the lees)
I'm thinking about starting a new batch of orange
blossom, fermenting it in a 5 gallon oak barrel and aging it in
the oak barrel on lees. Comments?
-Alson
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #951, 5 September 2002
From: Michael Faul <mfaul@rabbitsfootmeadery.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2002 14:02:23 -0700
I have a commercial 'mead brandy' that will be available right around
January. I also have a fortified mead made with my pear mead and the
mead brandy too.
Mike
www.rabbitsfootmeadery.com
------------------------------
Subject: Honey Brandy
From: "gdmark@pop.abdol.com" <gdmark@pop.abdol.com>
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 20:56:05 -0400
Translated Honey Brandy has some cool sounds;
In French - eau-de-vie fine de miel
In Italian - brandy del miele
In Portuguese - conhaque do mel
In Spanish - brandy de la miel
In German - Honigweinbrand
Catcha
Mark E=2E in Oz
Artisansrus=2Ecom - Promoting The Ancient Fermentable Arts
------------------------------
Subject: Mead Brandy Downunder
From: "Steve Gaskin" <stevegask@ihug.com.au>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 10:51:51 +0930
Hi Dick,
>>But isn't one of those down-under places (NZ or AU) more forgiving
about home distillation? Have you guys tried it and >>didn't like it
(or are you holding out on us:-)?
Not holding out here in Oz - it's illegal here too! There are
distillation kits available in brew shops (they use the pretence that
they sell them for distillation of eucalyptus oil etc!), but I have
never purchased one to try. I have wondered at it though, even thought
of making a really high alcohol mead using Turbo yeast packs and then
going for the distillation, but that's as far as it's gone!
I reckon Honey Brandy sounds really nice!
Steve Gaskin
Downunder
------------------------------
Subject: knocking out yeast question
From: "Janis Gross" <totallygross@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Sep 2002 20:24:19 -0600
Hi everyone.
For a while I was using Campden tablets to stabilize/knock out yeast for
meads I wanted to remain still. That seemed to work for the most part, but
sometimes it didn't. Recently my homebrew store recommended using
refrigeration to drop out most of the yeast, and then stabilize the mead
with Sodium Benzoate (1 tablet per gallon). I tried it, but my mead began to
carbonate in the bottle.
Does anyone have a method for knocking out the yeast that has worked
consistently? Thanks.
Cheers!
Janis
------------------------------
Subject: Pre-aging a barrel
From: "Kemp, Alson" <alson.kemp@cirrus.com>
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 12:18:57 -0700
Wine related question: anyone have suggestions on how to
pre-age a new barrel? I have a new 25G barrel that I'm going to
put Syrah into and I don't want it get oaky in 2 weeks, so I'm
trying to figure out how I can pull some of the oak flavor out of
the wood before I use it. I have about 2 weeks. Ideas:
1) Pour water + sulphite into it and let it sit for a
couple of weeks.
2) Pour water + soda ash into it to clean it and bleach
it. Let sit for a couple of weeks.
Though this is not a strict mead question, the answer
should be of value to anyone who plans to age mead in an oak
barrel...
-Alson
------------------------------
Subject: Airlock or no
From: "Asher Reed" <clvwpn5@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2002 02:58:45 +0000
This may just be a debate over style and philosophy... but what part of
winemaking is not??? So, when starting a batch of mead or wine in general,
is it better to fit the primary fermenter with an airlock right from the
start or to simply cover with a towel or cloth of some sort for the first
few days then fit an airlock afterwords?
Thanks,
Asher Reed in Colorado
------------------------------
Subject: Honey, Mead, and Honey Lactone
From: "Dan McFeeley" <mcfeeley@keynet.net>
Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 10:52:18 -0500
Hello all --
I wanted to give a report to MLD readers on some research I've
been doing into honey composition and meadmaking. This post
is meant to be a summary of an article I published in the September
issue of Bee Culture. The topic is lactone content in honey, an
important reaction between gluconolactone and gluconic acid,
and ramifications for meadmaking. Warning in advance -- this
might get a little long winded!
It might be best to start with an outline of the problem. For quite
some time, up through the 1940's and 1950's, it had been recognized
that it was difficult to obtain total acidity (TA) measurements of honey.
Attempts to titrate to the endpoint were unsuccessful as the pH was
unstable, making it impossible to get an accurate reading. Dubbed
the "fading endpoint problem," honey researchers recognized the
problem but had little clue as to why or what was causing it.
John W. White jr. was able to decipher the cause in a key 1958 article
on honey lactone. From observations in other areas of honey research,
he proposed that the cause of the unstable pH in TA measurements of
honey was from a reaction between gluconic acid, the primary acid in
honey, and its lactone gluconolactone. John W. White jr. was able to
identify lactone in honey as the cause of the unstable pH in titration
methods and proposed an altered method of measuring TA in honey.
He used this method in his 1961 landmark study of 490 American
honeys.
Both these components, gluconolactone and gluconic acid, co-exist
in a pH dependent relationship, and represent steps in the process by
which bees change flower nectar to honey. Briefly, enzymes secreted
by the bee work on flower nectar, "inverting" sucrose sugar to glucose
and fructose, then changing the glucose to gluconolactone and hydrogen
peroxide. The gluconolactone then spontaneously hydrolizes to gluconic
acid, but only partially so. Once the pH of the honey stabilizes during
the ripening process, a certain amount of lactone remains behind.
Although the ratio of gluconic acid to lactone varies according to the
type of honey, both acid and lactone remain relatively the same, unless
the pH of the honey is changed. If the acid in the honey is neutralized,
raising the pH, the lactone reacts by changing to more gluconic acid,
thus lowering the pH again. It's a sort of one way buffering agent.
Lowering the pH by adding more acid has no effect on the lactone.
The rate of the reaction is also pH dependent. The higher the pH,
the faster the reaction takes place.
You can see how the reaction of the lactone to pH changes would
skew the results of a standard titration method for determining TA
in honey. Adding a specific amount of a known base in a titration
process raises the pH, causing the lactone to react and lower the
pH again, making it necessary to add more base thus distorting
the results. Although the reaction happens quickly at high pH
levels, titrating slowly upward, a small amount at a time, will still
skew the results but may not be as easily noticed.
It seemed a reasonable hypothesis to propose that the lactone
reaction persists in mead. I tested this by reduplicating White's
1958 experiments using mead instead of honey and found that
the reaction does indeed take place in mead. The results were
quite dramatic, especially at high pH levels. My article in Bee
Culture has the charts and figures for the series I ran.
You can see the reaction for yourself. Materials needed are an
electronic pH meter, decinormal sodium hydroxide, i.e., the
same stuff used in standard winemaking acid kits, and of course,
mead. You'll also need a small beaker, glass stirring rod, and
a stand of some kind for the pH meter.
Only a small sample of mead is needed, about 50 ml. Set up
the beaker and pH meter, add the mead. You'll need to add
a set amount of sodium hydroxide to the mead, enough to raise
the pH between 7.0 and 8.0. You might have to experiment
with a few samples of mead until you find just the right amount
of sodium hydroxide. Add the sodium hydroxide to the mead,
quickly and all at once, stirring rapidly while watching the pH
meter. If everything has gone well, you'll see the display go
up to 7.0 or so, then begin dropping again. The pH drop is
the lactone content of the honey changing to gluconic acid
and lowering the pH again.
What does this mean for meadmakers? The most important
point is that in analyzing mead, the same considerations in
analytical methods must be taken as in analyzing honey. Any
method using a chemical base for titration is unreliable. Acid
testing kits used in winemaking fall in this category, because
of the lactone reaction, they will give inaccurate readings. The
issue on a practical level, however, may be moot. Many
meadmakers don't use acid additives, and consequently don't
feel the need to use acid testing kits to measure acid levels.
For meadmakers that want to test acid levels, the simplest and
most reliable method is the palate. Because of the lactone
reaction, standard acid testing kits used in winemaking aren't
reliable.
For serious research on mead, the lactone reaction is crucial. It
will be impossible to quantitatively analyze mead without recourse
to the same analytical methods used in analyzing honey. Honey
is widely variable in composition, according to floral source,
making it necessary to employ accurate measurements in order
to avoid skewed conclusions. For example, I noted that in Roger
Morse's 1953 masters thesis, submitted to Cornell University, he
noted that honey is poorly buffered as noted by its reaction to
acid/base titration. That wasn't poor buffering he was observing;
it was the lactone reaction!
It also shows how mead stands apart from wine. Honey is a very
unique product of nature, with unique biochemical properties that
need to be taken into account in its analysis and fermentation.
Likewise, so is mead, unique in and of itself because of its
wellspring and source, honey.
Don't scroll down yet! I want to publicly thank Ellen Lehr of the
Learning Resource Center at Kankakee Community College, Illinois,
for processing my endless interlibrary loan requests. I've thanked
her many times with a bottle of mead for all the work she's done.
I've also had lots of good back channel discussion and critique
from Chuck Wettergreen and Wout Klingens while I was working
on this.
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><>
Dan McFeeley
mcfeeley@keynet.net
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead ????
From: Tim Bray <tbray@mcn.org>
Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2002 10:17:39 -0700
I am happy to report to Dick and the rest of the List that a "mead brandy"
will soon be available in the US. My good friend Mike Faul has opened
Rabbit's Foot Meadery out here in CA. Besides his signature Pear Mead and
a couple of other melomels, he is producing a mead spirit ("Mead Song") and
a fortified mead ("Mead of Poetry"). Distillation is done in a French
Alambic still. I think he is ageing it right now; not sure when it will
actually be available for sale.
http://www.rabbitsfootmeadery.com/
Cheers,
Tim
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #952
*******************************
