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Mead Lovers Digest #0991
From: mead-request@talisman.com
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To: mead-list@talisman.com
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #991, 5 February 2003
Mead Lover's Digest #991 5 February 2003
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Blending mead ("Asher Reed")
Brahms question and BPM Mazer Cup (Ken Schramm)
Re: Potassium Carbonate ("Ken Taborek")
Re: Buckwheat ("Matt Maples")
Re:Potassium Carbonate ("Maurice St. aude")
Re: MLD#990, 31/1/03 - Keeping bees, Do it whereever... ("Arthur Torrey (n...)
Re: ancient v/s modern meads ("Dan McFeeley")
Wild Yeast in Honey (Ken Vale)
starting gravity estimation: Merlot (darrell.leavitt@plattsburgh.edu)
NOTE: Digest appears when there is enough material to send one.
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Blending mead
From: "Asher Reed" <clvwpn5@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2003 07:22:31 +0000
I have two meads that I am considering blending together -- The first one I
made is 3 gallons (10 lbs. of honey, Lalvin K1V-1116 yeast, yeast nutrient
and energizer) -- I was shooting for a final gravity of about 1.020 with an
alcohol content of about 14%, but it ended up at 1.040 with an alcohol
content of about 12%. The second batch I have is also 3 gallons (7 lbs. of
honey, Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast, yeast nutrient and energizer) -- I made
this one intentionally dry for the purpose of mixing it with the first batch
- -- I didn't bother doing a final gravity reading on this one because I
tasted it when racking to the secondary carboy and it is *definitely* dry,
probably 12% alcohol. They are both good, but the one is a bit sweet for my
taste and the other... too dry. (Is this starting to sound like Goldie
Locks and the Three Bears?) Anyway, I have never blended before -- I'm
thinking I'll mix a small amount first, a quart or so, as an experiment to
get the right proportions for my taste and to arrive at a gravity of about
1.020. Anyone out there blend meads before and have any experience they can
share.
Thanks,
Asher
------------------------------
Subject: Brahms question and BPM Mazer Cup
From: Ken Schramm <schramk@mail.resa.net>
Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2003 09:14:50 -0500
Dan McFeeley's recommendation on the mead with 6 tbsps of acid blend has
me wondering if anyone has used blending with a must from higher pH
honey to ameliorate this problem? I know certain honeys have pH levels
that approach and top 5.0. Another question: do those honeys tend to
ferment faster on their own?
Micah: On the Bill Pfeiffer Memorial Mazer Cup: I am consulting on the
schedule for the next competition over the weekend. I should have news
very soon.
Ken
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Potassium Carbonate
From: "Ken Taborek" <Ken.Taborek@verizon.net>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 10:25:13 -0500
> Subject: Potassium Carbonate
> From: "Thad Starr" <Starr@epud.net>
> Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 21:40:34 -0800
[snipped]
> One of my traditional meads
> had a pretty low PH, so I bought a little Potassium Carbonate to bring it
> up. The guy at our local homebrew shop didn't offer any tips on
> how to add
> it to the must, so we figured to just add it dry, and mix it in a little.
> DON'T DO IT ! It foamed like crazy! Foamed up thru the neck of
> the carboy
> like a shook up bottle of champagne! Seriously, it cleared the top by a
> good 5 inches. The mess wasn't the worst part. I lost a good
> quart of mead
> :-(. That's a lesson I won't soon forget. Now to my question. How does
> one add Potassium Carb. to the must with out the explosion?
Mix it with some boiled and cooled water, and then add it in. Powders are
nucleation sites, and your mead was likely to have a lot of dissolved CO2 in
it, which suddenly and violently came out of solution.
> The reason I used Potassium Carbonate instead of Calcium
> Carbonate, is the
> brew guy said that this is better, won't leave a chalky taste. Is one
> better than the other?
I've never used potassium carbonate, and so I can not comment on whether it
is better. I've yet to detect a chalky taste with calcium carbonate at
levels up to 3 teaspoons per 5 gallons.
- --
Cheers,
Ken
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Buckwheat
From: "Matt Maples" <matt_lists@liquidsolutions.ws>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 12:45:13 -0800
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Subject: just a quick note
> From: Patrick Devaney <damien777@yahoo.com>
> Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 11:33:21 -0800 (PST)
>
> If anyone out there is reluctant to make a pure
> Buckwheat Honey mead because it's an expensive honey,
> do yourself the favor and make one, because the
> Buckwheat mead we've made is just damn good. :)
Buckwheat honeys vary WIDELY!! There are several varieties of the buckwheat
plant. Some produce a dark rich honey that has massive flavor that tend to
run in the malt like flavor range and then there are some that run in the
molasses flavors that also include an acrid smell and taste. Just like
eucalyptus honeys there are different buckwheat honey so be careful. My
friend Trevor is bound and determined to make a 100% buckwheat mead, after
we had sampled some of the more mellow varieties of buckwheat. I agree that
it had great potential but some of the buckwheat honey I have tasted didn't
seem fit for consumption.
------------------------------
Subject: Re:Potassium Carbonate
From: "Maurice St. aude" <bludrgn@sympatico.ca>
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 00:20:14 -0500
> Just one more thing. We were talking about clarifiers, then he handed me
> something he said was brand new. It's called SUPER-KLEER K.C. tm. Says on
> the package that it contains chitosan(shellfish derivative), and will work
> on wine, beer and superyeast. Anyone ever heard of it? I'm always game to
> try something new, so I bought one at $2.50. When I get to the stage of
> clarifying, I'll use it and report the results.
>
> Thanks for the ear.
Sounds like Kielselsol to me. Does it come in two packets? the first would
be a pack of chitosan or Chitosol (a synthetic version) and a silica
gelitan. It works particularly well with any must that is not high in
tannins and is practicly made to order for meads. It is clean and easy to
use. There is no need to filter the mead after it's application, and it does
not settle the colour out of your melomels. Just did a quick search on the
net. Super - Kleer KC is actually the American brand nane for Claro KC which
is Kielselsol. No doubt the name change has something to do with Wine Art
becoming Winekitz (Claro KC is produced by Winekitz formerly WineArt). The
orginal patent belongs to Bayer (the Asperin people). All I can say is use
it, you'll never go back to your old clarifiers. By the by Claro KC is not a
new product, and therefore neither is Super-kleer, Kielselsol has been
around since the '40s.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: MLD#990, 31/1/03 - Keeping bees, Do it whereever...
From: "Arthur Torrey (no spam please!)" <atorrey@cybercom.net>
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 2003 16:01:22 -0500
> Subject: The price of honey and keeping bees.
> From: Marc Shapiro <m_shapiro@bigfoot.com>
> Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:05:30 -0500
>
> Dave wrote:
>
> > As a beekeeper I can also add that the price of honey has made an adjustment
> > in the right direction. You may not appreciate it but the whole sale price of
> > honey for 2001 was 75 cents pound for light amber in the upper Midwest when
> > it was on average 85 cents a pound in the 60's the price of gas,trucks
> > woodware and drugs for the bee's has increased about 380% in that time. The
> > price of honey needs to go up. As unpopular as I'm sure that will be for most
> > of us. So maybe you guys, who can, need to befriend a beekeeper and learn to
> > keep a few hives of your own. There are very few joys quite as nice as saying
> > this fine wine I'm serving you, started out from honey from my bee's.
>
> Actually, my wife wants to keep bees and while we were still in North
> Carolina we both took classes and passed the basic beekeeping tests. I
> must say that six months prior to that I would have said you were crazy
> if you thought that I would open up a bee hive and let bees crawl over
> my hand while I searched for drone bees, queen cells and the like.
> Where we are living now, it is not practical, but maybe some day...
>
> Wassail!
>
> - --
> Marc Shapiro "If you drink melomel every day,
> m_shapiro@bigfoot.com you will live to be 150 years old,
> Please visit "The Meadery" at: unless your wife shoots you."
> http://www.bigfoot.com/~m_shapiro/ -- Dr. Ferenc Androczi, winemaker,
> Little Hungary Farm Winery
Well, I got into beekeeping at the suggestion of the beekeeper I was
buying my honey from back when I first started mead making. He was
curious as not many of his customers wanted to buy honey in five gallon
buckets. When I told him why I wanted so much he basically said 'If
you're going to be using that much honey, you ought to be growing your
own' and I ended up leaving his house with both the honey and a bunch of
bee supply catalogs.
I am about to start my third year of beekeeping, and so far I find it's
as much fun as brewing, and not that difficult.
The initial startup costs are fairly high, I would guess $150 - $300 for
basic equipment and one hive, and $80 for the first package of bees; but
there is very little ongoing expense, I would estimate I spend about $20 -
30 for 'maintainance supplies'. Most of the equipment will last for many
years without needing replacement.
Time isn't a big factor, I would estimate you'll average about 1
hour/month per hive over a year, although most of this is in the summer
months. I find I need to go into my hive 6-8 times a year, mostly for
very short visits. With one hive, I probably spend more time getting
ready and cleaning up each time than I actually spend in the hive itself.
The only real heavy block of time required is the honey harvest itself,
which will take the better part of a day, mostly in getting the honey out
of the honeycomb, which is done well away from the hive.
As to the location, you would be amazed at where you can get away with
keeping bees - I keep my bees in a suburb of Boston, in my girlfriends
back yard. Right now I only have one hive, but my bee supply lady says I
could probably keep at least 4 hives in the yard before they would start
competing with each other enough to hurt my yield per hive.
Some of her other customers live in Cambridge and Somerville, which are
heavily urban parts of Metro Boston, with lots of developments, high
population density, etc. They keep their bees on the roofs and balconies
of their condos and apartments...
Bees will fly up to five miles for forage, and even in the densest
'urban jungle' there will be lots of nectar sources within five air miles
of any location, neighboors window boxes, trees, parks, etc. so they will
find honey sources, although the harvests are sometimes more erratic than
those from hives in more traditional locations.
The biggest problems in keeping bees in 'non-traditional' locations are
basically social engineering issues, namely keeping the neighboors and or
landlord from complaining. It is generally suggested that one try to keep
a low profile, and not rub everyone's nose in the fact that the hive is
there. Giving neighboors an occasional gift of honey can also sweeten
them up. Also do your best to choose mellow strains of bees, only work the
hive during good weather, and locate the hive so as to funnel the bees
away from people. Also make an effort to do educational work on any
nervous neighboors to the effect of how honey bees are not going to attack
them, and generally aren't a problem.
So don't let where you live be an absolute barrier, often times that can
be handled.
Another alternative that a few beekeepers I know use, is to find an
offsite location for their hives, usually a more traditional location
within a few hours of home. Often these can be found for the asking or
just a small payment (often in honey) In many cases, farmers and orchard
keepers will even PAY you to keep bees on their property, since it helps
them with pollination.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: ancient v/s modern meads
From: "Dan McFeeley" <mcfeeley@keynet.net>
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 2003 03:19:45 -0600
Over on rec.craft.meadmaking, Mike LeBlanc wondered about the quality of
the meads made during the times outlined in the histories of mead books by
authors such as Pamela Spence, Duncan & Acton, and Gayre & Papazian,
pointing out that their methods likely differed from how we go about
meadmaking today, with attention to sanitation, use of the hydrometer,
aging, or acid balance. What would these peoples think of our meads,
and what would we think of theirs, he asked. How were they different?
I thought MLD readers might be interested in the tread so I've cross
posted my reply below:
- -----------[snip!]----------------------------------------------------------
That's a tough one since there are few historically reliable accounts of
the meadmaker's craft from those times. It's difficult to say what an
ancient mead tasted like without knowing precisely how it was made.
I wouldn't underestimate the ability of ancient meadmakers to turn out
a fine mead without the aid of modern technology. There is evidence in
old accounts that the Greeks, Romans, Celts, and Norse knew about the
virtues of aging mead. Pliny the Elder, a Roman historian writing in
the first century AD, compared the virtues of a well aged mead to that
of a good wine. Remember that it was only recently, comparatively
speaking, that the microbiological basis of fermentation was first
outlined by Louis Pasteur. Beforehand no one really knew how worts and
musts fermented into wine, ale, mead, etc. In spite of the lack of sound,
scientifically based knowledge of the basis of fermentation, there was
no lack for good wine, ale, mead, and so on. Certainly, there was a
greater chance for spoiled or poor fermentations and no doubt there were,
but nonetheless, the craft of meadmaking, honed by perhaps centuries of
oral tradition, was capable of turning out good meads with what would seem
to us to be rather primitive means.
One problem in comparing ancient meads with more contemporary meads is
a domination of what I am going to tentatively label "the scientific
model." Some quick explanation -- in philosophic thinking, a model
is a cognitive framework intended to mimic, in various ways, some
aspect of reality, with emphasis on the word "aspect." There are a
number of different models drawn from different fields, i.e., theological,
scientific, religious, mythological, and many more. The truth value of
these models is determined by the indigenous rules that determine the
particular character or identity of the model. In other words, you don't
assess the particular "truth" or "meaning" of a poem by the scientific
method. The same goes for proving or disproving the existence of God by
Popper's theory of falsification. Although a model can and does include
specific concepts, theories, laws, hypotheses, and propositions, in many
ways it is larger than all these because it includes the imagination as
well. Sometimes, and quite often, the particular image cast by the model
has a great deal to do with how information is understood and interpreted.
In more recent decades, we have learned more about the factors that are
involved in the fermentation of honey. The late Roger Morse, of the
University of Cornell, is very important here. Pursuing the hope of
exploiting a new market niche for honey during the 1950's and on through
the 1970's, he began the task of researching the ways and means by which
honey fermented to mead in order to improve meadmaking for commercial
purposes. He was quite successful, patenting a method by which good meads
could be produced in about two weeks time. The key factors he found were
nutrient levels, pH control, yeast strain, temperature of the must, and
starter volume. The most important were the first two, providing adequate
nutrients for the yeast, and controlling the pH of the honey must.
Morse's findings can be shaped into a "theory" of honey fermentation
dominated by a particular "image" of honey in negative terms (I'm using
parenthesis for these terms to indicate that I'm being a little fast
and loose with their definitions, for the sake of the argument).
Basically, honey is lacking in nutrients needed for a good fermentation,
and is poorly buffered against pH changes. Control these two factors
and you solve the problem of the long and strained fermentations which
meadmaking had been infamous for. Because this is a scientific model,
there is added weight given to the verity of its conclusions.
The problem with seeing honey fermentations in negative terms is that the
understanding of honey itself, the uniqueness of its biochemical properties
and the wide variation in varietal honeys due to the differing floral
sources, becomes distorted. Worse, the more this particular "theory"
determines how honey fermentation is understood, the more it is assumed
that the *only* way to successfully make a good mead is by means of
proper technological control. This can become the standard by which
older meads, Medieval, Classical era, and earlier, are judged.
The value of a theory lies in its explanatory power. How well does the
theory explain the phenomena it is dealing with? In this case, the
"theory" of honey as a negative works rather well, however, there are
some anomalies that it can't account for at all. For example, Brother
Adam, in his 1953 Bee World article, said he advised against the use
of nutrients yet achieved completed fermentations in a very reasonable
time, approximately 4 to 6 weeks. Roger Morse himself said that he
could argue against Brother Adam's methods on scientific grounds but
could not argue against Brother Adam's meads, the quality of which were
excellent.
Apologies to Mike and others since I'm probably raising more questions
than the one I'm replying to, but essentially what I wanted to point
out that, although meadmaking in ancient times, like brewing and vinting,
was likely more prone to failure than what we do today, nonetheless we
shouldn't assume that because these meadmakers didn't have the benefit
of modern knowledge and technology, they couldn't turn out a quality mead.
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><>
Dan McFeeley
mcfeeley@keynet.net
------------------------------
Subject: Wild Yeast in Honey
From: Ken Vale <kenvale@rogers.com>
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 18:15:22 -0500
Hello Everyone
I have some unusual honey which I got from a local Beekeeper, what
makes this honey unusual is that it has already started to ferment right
in the container. This Beekeeper has a lot of honey that has started to
ferment, I would guess that it is all in the same batch, and although I
can't be sure how much he has I know he has already sold more than a
hundred pounds of it to someone else that makes mead. Now according to
what the Beekeeper says, this other person claims that the alcohol
content is already over 18% in his honey; I have already tasted this
honey and there seems to be no off tastes at the moment. So I have 2
questions:
First, what if any steps should I do when making a batch of mead
with this honey? I'm not a newbie, I'm just a lurker with a half dozen
meads under my belt (though most aren't bottled yet). The reason I ask
is I would like to use the wild yeast that is in it just to see what it
tastes like when it is done. My plan at the moment is to spilt the
honey, leaving half in the container to ferment as it chooses and mixing
the other half with water.
Second, suppossing this wild yeast proves to be a decent yeast for
making mead, how would I preserve it for later use and keep a large
enough supply of it so that I don't run out?
Thanks,
Ken.
------------------------------
Subject: starting gravity estimation: Merlot
From: darrell.leavitt@plattsburgh.edu
Date: Tue, 04 Feb 2003 17:59:42 -0500
Please excuse the non-mead question, but I know of no other place to ask:
I purchased 5 gallons of Merlot grape juice from California in the fall,
and failed to take the original gravity,...that is, before I pitched 2
pkgs of Lavlin 116 (?)...and now am trying to estimate, roughly , the
alcohol content.
I just put the batch into tertiary and the gravity is 0.994
Does anyone here have a high, and low estimate as to what the original
juice (not concentrate, and without skins) might be?
Thankyou in advance.
..Darrell
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #991
*******************************
