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Mead Lovers Digest #1111
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1111, 28 June 2004
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1111 28 June 2004
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
pasteurization ("Vince Galet")
Pasteurization ()
Heating Mead (CLSAXER@aol.com)
Pasteurizing ("phil")
No heat must (Leo Vitt)
pasteurization (Steven_Butcher@fpl.com)
Re: Tulip poplar mead ("Ken Taborek")
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Subject: pasteurization
From: "Vince Galet" <vince@scubadiving.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 16:31:25 -0400 (EDT)
Several postings have been mixing the notions of pasteurization and
sterilization lately. It is not the goal of pasteurization to kill all
living organisms, it is the goal of sterilization. Sterilizing involves
more drastic measures i.e., intense heat or chemicals. When one cannot
sterilize something (i.e., honey in our case) without damaging it,
pasteurization is a good compromise: you heat less and preserve the
product, and you still eliminate micro-organisms, even if this is not all
of them. Nevertheless it is deemed to be better than nothing, and good
enough in most cases. For instance, if your milk was not pasteurized it
would spoil pretty fast.
Whether pasteurizing honey is necessary is not my debate (overwhelming the
medium with enough yeast may well do the trick - many digestors seem to
indicate that it works). My 2 points are:
A) I disagree with the statement that "gently heating does not prevent
spoliage": saying that pasteurizing is useless because it doesn't kill
everything is erroneous. It was never meant to sterilize but to decrease
odds of contamination to a safe level. The same applies to sanitation: it
doesn't kill em' all (unless it is pushed to the extreme and called
sterilization in that case - which is impractical in our hobby), but it
makes your equipment "reasonably safe" (and without killing all life, it
works).
B) since no one is truly sterilizing, cleanliness and sanitation is are
paramount: you will have unwanted organisms no matter what you do, but
less germs in will decrease your chances to have germs out.
Now, my guess on the historical origin of boiling: back in the day, the
water was not always very pure (hence it was safer to drink mead and beer)
so boiling at least the water was much more necessary than nowadays. For
the same reason, I would assume that using bottled spring water is safer
than tap water for cold-mixers (OK, you may tell me that your tap water
works just fine - I won't get started again on water).
Is there any documentation available from that seminar at U of Nebraska?
(the posted link didn't work for me).
Best,
Vince
------------------------------
Subject: Pasteurization
From: <chazzone@sbcglobal.net>
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 18:36:52 -0500
I'm pretty swamped with my stone business this time of year, so I don't post
much, but I'd like to weigh in on this topic.
I make more than 400 gallons of meade a year, and have for nearly 10 yrs. I
make two varieties of cyser, two varieties of pyment, a lemon, cherry, and
various metheglins. I use fresh ingredients as close off the source as
possible, and practice good sanitation. All my meades age well, but none
take more than a few months to be "drinkable". I'd never use sulfites or
any other chemical in my meade.
I pasteurize at 160 degrees for 30 minutes, and have never had any problems
with spoilage or off flavors, with the exception of some oxidized cyser that
was bottled with champagne corks ( I use bail tops or crown caps now). That
meade still took silver at the Indiana State Fair Wine Competition.
I don't have the lab facilities to do detailed studies, although my partner
is the research glass blower for Eli Lilly, and we could probably secure
what we need.
The point is that we have an outstanding record of sucess, and I think a lot
of it has to do with the technique we use. I'd also like to point out that
Redstone Meadery in Boulder CO uses the same process, and I think they put
out some pretty respectable product.
As for pasteurization being a hold-over from beer making, wort is boiled,
not pasteurized, and the boiling process promotes chemical changes that are
essential to beer making, but have nothing to do with meade making.
May your horn be full,
- -zz
------------------------------
Subject: Heating Mead
From: CLSAXER@aol.com
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 09:42:43 EDT
I am with Ken Schramm on the no heat method of meadmaking. I have been mead
this way for nearly 10 years with no bad results. The key is high yeast
pitching rate. No other microorganisms will stand a chance.
Many desirable flavors and aromas in honey are volatile and lost to the
atmosphere during heating. Ever see how many bees show up when you boil honey
must?
Ken and Dan McConnell alluded to this method of meadmaking in their awesome
seminar on meadmaking at the 1994 National Homebrewers Conference in Denver. I
was inspired by the idea. I experimented with some of my "lesser" honeys at
first, so if I made bad mead it would not be a great loss. After four batches
I was convinced, and I made a batch with some very fine and light Hawaiian
kiawe honey. My wife and I opened a bottle of that 9-year-old mead for our
seventh wedding anniversary on the solstice last Sunday. It was heaven in a
bottle. Still very light and clean.
With Aloha,
Carl Saxer
Way Down by Orlando (and Often Hilo)
------------------------------
Subject: Pasteurizing
From: "phil" <pcwojdak@earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:35:16 -0700
[The following had to be repaired due to severe damage by the sending mail
program. All the text should be intact, but the intended spacing may be
wrong. --da janitor]
I challenged a basic mead making practice: all "reasons" for
"pasteurizing...Last Time I Wrote...
>Could the reason people pasteurize is that they
>went from making beer to making mead and old habits
>die hard? Winemakers don't boil their
>musts and they are not creating bad grape karma.
>If the need to pasteurize is more than folklore,
>than can someone tell me about a healthy, quick
>starting fermentation that went bad because
>beasties overwhelmed the yeast? I have posed this
>question on prior occasions and have yet to get a
>response.
My post was honored by two responses from giants in mead-making...First:
Micah Millspaw
I have been trying to ignore this thread ('cause it bugs me) but I just can't.
I have to agree about the old-wives-tale or mommily aspect of this.
The concept a Pasteurizing (using elevated temperature over time
to kill microorganisms)is not being utilized well
enough by those (myself included)in the heated must
camp to even be called Pasteurization.
If by heating a must to 150F for 10-15 minutes you feel that you have
destroyed any and all evil micro-flora, that is way
off base. The tailoring of time and temperature to
specific organisms for predictable and consistent kill
rates is very important. For example: The general goal
in the Pateurization of milk is to kill off tuberculosis
bacterium, which dies off pretty easy. Pasteurizing
beer like A-B does,
kills off any yeast that might have passed the
filtration process but does not effectively kill off
any really sturdy spoilage bacteria like
pedios and enterics. Really effective sanitation
controls those.
A gently heated must is just easier to stir. And may
make it easier to separate the bee parts and pieces
from the honey. Does it prevent spoilage? No way!
I'd have to agree with Phil W. that heating the must
will not save a mead from spoilage (again a
homebrewing concept). It is best to practice good
sanitation and to pitch a large amount of healthy
yeast.
Micah Millspaw
The Second, The Guy Who Wrote the Book:
From: Ken Schramm <schramk@mail.resa.net>
I will post more on this later, but I have reason to believe that the
pasteurization and or heat treatment may only be valuable in the removal
of wild yeasts that may populate the honey. I have been doing no-heat
meads for about six or seven years now, and have not made a mead that I
considered to be spoiled or a spitter. I am at least fifty or more
batches into this practice, and have made a pretty firm commitment to
it. I have made virtually all of the best meads in my repertoire this
way. It is not a statistically reliable conclusion, but simply my
experience.
That said,
As I mentioned, I will post a more definitive discourse on this in time....
Ken
Let me carry this thread forward...
Ken, I have the greatest respect for your 15 times the experience at
mead making than mine, and the thought and effort it took to write the
definitive work on mead making. I want to join all the others in this
group in saluting you. But...
You wrote...
>>pasteurization and or heat treatment may only be valuable in the removal
>>of wild yeasts that may populate the honey.
Please, When you respond in detail, address whether there is any
evidence that this is also anything other than another wivestale.
Are we forming a concensis that heating may be just a left-over custom
from beer brewing? If there is no evidence to the contgrary among the
members of this group, can a conclusion be drawn?
I say this as an analogy---I hope none of you atheists, or Busch
supporters, are heating your musts and compromising the quality of your
honey for no reason. There is more evidence for the existence of God
and weapons of mass destruction than for harm from not heating. If you
disagree, I ask yet again, Show me!
Last, I also pose the question , given that after yeast does its
squelching of other beasties, including whatever is on bee parts etc. Is
there any real-life-experience that racking is insufficient to take care
of removing bee parts, proteins, etc. from the final product?
Phil W.
Pasadena CA.
------------------------------
Subject: No heat must
From: Leo Vitt <leo_vitt@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 21:02:34 -0700 (PDT)
Ken Schramm posted about making 50 or more meads without pasterizing
the honey.
Question for Ken: Did you use any other sanitation practices with the
must - add sulfites or camden tablets?
If my memory serves me well, sometime in the past, you stated you do
not. My guess it was at the 2000 AHA conf.
I know a couple of people who have decide to go with minimal heat.
Heat enough to disolve the honey. Not to pasturize. But treat with
sulfite. The purpose in one case -- he was mekin a pyment, and was
afraid the heat would impact the flavor of the grape.
=====
Leo Vitt
Sidney, NE
------------------------------
Subject: pasteurization
From: Steven_Butcher@fpl.com
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 14:01:39 -0400
this topic is becoming a dead horse. im going to say my last on the
subject. if pasteurizing is a waste of time, then why should we spend any
time on sterilization at all? if a good, active ferment will crowd out
anything else, why sanitize at all? im being a bit facetious, but....
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Tulip poplar mead
From: "Ken Taborek" <Ken.Taborek@verizon.net>
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 10:44:44 -0400
> From: Adam Funk <adam.funk@blueyonder.co.uk>
> Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 23:09:52 +0100
>
> > > I just obtained a couple of gallons of tulip poplar
> > > honey from Virginia. I wanted a dark honey. It has a
> > > biting odor. It is very dark and has a very
> > > distinctive taste. It has a good, lingering
> > > aftertaste. I like this honey.
>
> Just curious: what part of Virginia? I used to live in the Shenandoah
> Valley and I don't recall seeing this honey.
Adam,
I know of two VA apiarists who have tulip poplar honey in season (it's an
early honey).
One lives in chantilly, and her hives are on her home grounds. The other
lives in Arlington, his hives are farmed far and wide, so I couldn't tell
you where the honey source was, but I'd guess that it comes from within a
100 mile radius from his home.
I've yet to make a varietal honey mead using tulip poplar, but it adds a lot
of character to a cyser or a metheglin.
- --
Cheers,
Ken
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #1111
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