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Mead Lovers Digest #1101
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1101, 20 May 2004
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1101 20 May 2004
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Gotmead forums back online (Vicky Rowe)
RE: Mead Lover's Digest #1100, 18 May 2004 ("Ariel")
Mead Guidelines in BJCP ("David Craft")
light ale-meads (Jim Johnston)
sulfites (Jim Johnston)
> Subject: Sterilization take 2 (Evening Star)
Re: Sterilization ("Ken Taborek")
Mead!=beer (David Chubb)
High Alcohol Meads (Vuarra)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1100, 18 May 2004 ("Lane Gray, Czar Castic")
Re: Mead vinegar, celebration meads ("Dan McFeeley")
RE: Mead vs Wine ("Brian Lundeen")
Sulfite and High-alcohol mead (Robert Sandefer)
Re: MLD #1100, 18/5/04 Sulfites, High alcohol ("Arthur Torrey (no spam ple...)
Re: Sulfite sterilization ("Kevin Morgan")
BJCP; mead _vs_ wine/beer (Dick Dunn)
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
a searchable MLD archive at hubris.engin.umich.edu/Beer/Threads/Mead
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Gotmead forums back online
From: Vicky Rowe <rcci@mindspring.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 00:03:42 -0400
Hi all,
I apologize for the Gotmead forums being down, but some sort of glitch occurred
on my host, and between work, family and such, its taken me a while to find the
glitch and fix it. Turns out some sort of burp on the server caused a minor muff
in the config file that I couldn't find. I finally had to back up the entire
forum and rebuild it from the ground up, which took a while on a dial-up
connection.
Its back online now, with all messages intact, and my apologies for the delay.
Vicky Rowe - in Cookeville, TN this week
http://www.gotmead.com
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Mead Lover's Digest #1100, 18 May 2004
From: "Ariel" <niffleheim@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 00:14:53 -0700
> Subject: Sterilization
> From: Patrick Devaney <damien777@yahoo.com>
> Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 05:21:55 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Is there anyone here who does NOT use sulfites to
> kill off any activity prior to bottling? What have
> your experiences been? I want to avoid "botle bombs",
> but I just hate the damn sulfites so much.
>
> Any advice will help me a great deal.. thanks!!
Well, I'm only on my 10th batch of mead. I used sulfates on only one batch.
I've never had a bottle bomb. Don't know what to tell you. I think the
flavor is much better without them. I like to store my bottles in segmented
crates, wooden when I can get them, though I've used Cardboard as well.
That way if a bottle does go, it shouldn't take out its neighbors. I've not
been able to test the theory as I've said I've not had a bottle go. Of
course now that I've written this, I'm sure to have an explosive experience.
My suggestion Patrick, don't use them with a couple of batches and see what
you get. Oh also helpful to know if you cap or cork your bottles. If you
cork, I'm told that the corks'll blow out rather than having the bottle go.
Again, never happened to me (knocks wood) but it is a thought.
- -Ariel
------------------------------
Subject: Mead Guidelines in BJCP
From: "David Craft" <chsyhkr@bellsouth.net>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 07:44:30 -0400
My experience with mead judging at BJCP contests has been poor at best.
Mishandled bottles with comments like, "carbonated"? It was entered as a
sparkling mead or "what fruit is this"? They should be told, not all
fruits are easy to tell right off.......... Comments like oxidation and
sherry flavors that came with a prickly pear mead that no one knew the
fruit......... or the most common judging with almost no comments or ways
to improve an average mead.
I have stopped entering my meads in beer contests for the most part.
Mead should be left out of the BJCP main curriculum. Judges who want to
take separate test for meads would do so at a different time. Mead is not
even on the exam but is in the program, so that any BJCP judge could claim
to judge meads with really no knowledge or training. If the BJCP is
serious about mead it should develop a parallel cirrocumulus and test
judges on meads, characteristics and methods.
I would recommend a test once a year in places throughout the country where
the proctors or volunteers bring good meads in to be judged. A judge could
be "certified" just in mead or for beer or both. Beer can be painfully
obvious in how good or bad it is because we have been drinking it for so
long. Most people don't know what good or bad mead is...........
The BJCP is a great organization, but they are doing no one any favor by
how they handle, or really don't handle meads in judging.
David B. Craft
Club Secretary
Battleground Brewers Guild
Crow Hill Brewery and Meadery
Greensboro, NC
------------------------------
Subject: light ale-meads
From: Jim Johnston <jim@tervolk.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 07:55:25 -0500
> I have made a few batches of what I would describe as "ale-like mead":
> fermented using ale yeast, primed and bottled as for beer, with an ABV
> of
> around 6%, using honey as the sole source of fermentable sugar. I
> thought it was very good. Should I not call it mead?
It is a mead, in this instance a "hydromel". I occasionally make a
light mead like this when I have a party coming up soon. I have made a
couple of hopped ones as well, although they tend to be very citrusy.
My last mead was a golden braggot that should finish at around 7% ABV
and around 21-22 IBUs of hopping. At 2 months it is already clear and
drinkable.
Jim
Contemplating the mysteries of man and mead, one glass at a time.
------------------------------
Subject: sulfites
From: Jim Johnston <jim@tervolk.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 08:02:22 -0500
> Is there anyone here who does NOT use sulfites to
> kill off any activity prior to bottling? What have
> your experiences been? I want to avoid "botle bombs",
> but I just hate the damn sulfites so much.
I have never used sulfites in my meads. Wait to bottle until all
activity has stopped. I usually hit it with stabilizer, rack it off of
the yeast, wait another month and rack again just to be sure. I will
then use more stabilizer at the time of bottling. I have never had a
referment in the bottle.
Jim
------------------------------
Subject: > Subject: Sterilization take 2
From: Evening Star <eveningstartwo@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 06:30:14 -0700 (PDT)
This may be a repeat--I added to it.
> Subject: Sterilization
> From: Patrick Devaney <damien777@yahoo.com>
> Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 05:21:55 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Is there anyone here who does NOT use sulfites to
> kill off any activity prior to bottling? What have
> your experiences been? I want to avoid "botle bombs",
> but I just hate the damn sulfites so much.
>
> Any advice will help me a great deal.. thanks!!
I'm not sure what advice you are looking for but I do not use sulfites.
Or acid blend or several other things that "everyone must" use. We
just finished off a 6 year old bottle of mead, unfortunately the last
one from that batch. Gotta make more of that one. Anyway, I don't own
a diswasher. What I do is wash everthing in hot soapy water, rinse,
and then run a small amount of full strength household bleach around
the inside and rinse three times. Seems to do the trick and not leave
a nasty taste.
I also usually bulk age my meads for 6+ months. They are usually
still. If I suspect they are not, I use flip top bottles so I can
relieve the pressure if needed.
Maureen
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Sterilization
From: "Ken Taborek" <Ken.Taborek@verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 09:33:30 -0400
> From: Patrick Devaney <damien777@yahoo.com>
> Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 05:21:55 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Is there anyone here who does NOT use sulfites to
> kill off any activity prior to bottling? What have
> your experiences been? I want to avoid "botle bombs",
> but I just hate the damn sulfites so much.
>
> Any advice will help me a great deal.. thanks!!
Patrick,
Sulfites alone may not be sufficient to halt fermentation. And sulfites
alone may not prevent renewed fermentation of a mead with residual sugar.
You'll need to use sulfite and sorbate together to prevent renewed
fermentation. And if your fermentation is active, you'll need to use some
other method, such as chilling the mead, to try to halt the fermentation,
and then rack off the yeast after it has settled, and then sulfite and
sorbate to prevent fermentation.
There is an easy solution for bottling without sulfites. Bottle dry meads.
There's no need to worry about bottle bombs if your mead has fermented to
dryness, which your hydrometer can indicate for you.
Now you've got me curious. Why do you "hate the damn sulfites so much"? If
you can smell or taste them in your mead, you're using too much! Otherwise,
they are a nondetectable presence in your mead, and have been used in
winemaking for hundreds of years.
- --
Cheers,
Ken
------------------------------
Subject: Mead!=beer
From: David Chubb <dchubb@virpack.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 09:36:25 -0400
> Subject: Re: BJCP Mead Guidelines
> From: Adam Funk <adam@ducksburg.com>
> Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 21:32:15 +0100
>
> > I've said this many, many times. Mead is wine, honey wine. It is not
> > beer. I questioned early and often since passing the BJCP exam why
> > mead is even part of the BJCP style guidelines, which are for beer.
> > Jeez, sake is closer to beer than mead is, and the BJCP doesn't have
> > even have a category for that. So I still question the inclusion of
> > mead as a "style of beer". It is wine. Always was, always will be.
>
> I have made a few batches of what I would describe as "ale-like mead":
> fermented using ale yeast, primed and bottled as for beer, with an ABV of
> around 6%, using honey as the sole source of fermentable sugar. I
> thought it was very good. Should I not call it mead?
Did you use any Grains in your fermentation process? Just because you are
brewing something with an Ale Yeast to only a few percent alcohol doesn't
make it a "beer". Quady vinyards makes a delightful "picnic wine"(Electra)
that has only 5% alcohol and doesn't use a traditional wine yeast in the
fermentation process.
A friend of mine makes some damn nice hard cider each fall using standard
baking yeast (he makes a starter culture before pitching). It only ferments
out to about 6-7% alcohol, but to date he hasn't made a batch that tastes
off or bad because of his using baking yeast (the cake kind, not the instant
kind).
IMHO:
Beer == brew that is made with grains.
Wine == brew that is made with fruit juices (Grape, apple, etc.)
Mead == brew that is made with Honey.
Yes there are crossovers such as pyments and braggots, but those
should be judged either as meads or in their respective companion
categories.
- --Dave
------------------------------
Subject: High Alcohol Meads
From: Vuarra <vuarra@yahoo.ca>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 06:37:06 -0700 (PDT)
/Quote/
After reading the compleat meadmaker I've had the urge to make a strong
mead.One section of the book discussed feedind the fermentation.That by
starting out with an averagev gravity mead you keep adding a pound of honey
every so often and the yeast will keep working beyond it's naturaL
limitations.If a pound of honey added to one gallon of water has a gravity
of 1.033 it would take 7 pounds and 2 ounces of honey per gallon of water to
make a mead with 30% alcohol by volume.Do you think that a strong yeast like
lavlin EC-1118 combined with the feeding the fermentation method you could
reach an alcohol level of 30% abv.Because i feel like experimenting.thank you
/quote/
Lavlin EC-1118 is rated at 18% alcohol. The best that
one should be able to achieve is about 21% - 22% with
luck. I've been thinking about that as well. Most of
my workmates think I'm full of it when I say I have a
dry mead :)
=====
Vuarra
Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound.)
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1100, 18 May 2004
From: "Lane Gray, Czar Castic" <CGray2@kc.rr.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 08:52:52 -0500
On Tue, 18 May 2004 21:29:32 -0600 (MDT), Patrick Devaney wrote:> Hi
everyone,
>
> Is there anyone here who does NOT use sulfites to
> kill off any activity prior to bottling? What have
> your experiences been? I want to avoid "botle bombs",
> but I just hate the damn sulfites so much.
>
> Any advice will help me a great deal.. thanks!!
I can't use them, either (well, I could, but I couldn't drink them,
sulfites give me tinnitus for a couple of days), and I just tend to
ferment them out until they're done. If that makes a mead too dry for
you, you could either sweeten with more honey, or add grain alcohol to
raise the alcohol level until the yeasties can't survive. If you need a
lower alcohol mead, change yeasts to less alcohol tolerant strains.
- --
Lane Gray
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Gen
2:25
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead vinegar, celebration meads
From: "Dan McFeeley" <mcfeeley@keynet.net>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 08:54:19 -0500
On Sun, 16 May 2004, in MLD 1100, Chuck Wettergreen wrote:
>> Another venture, this one into mead cuisine, was with a mead
>> vinegar made by Chuck Wettergreen. Mead vinegars have been
>> described in the literature as having an especially good aroma
>> and flavor, and this vinegar certainly lived up to that reputation.
>> The tarragon sprig added an extra touch. Very nice, exceptional
>
>Actually Dan, that was a rosemary sprig. Not to worry, the
>oak-enhanced mead vinegar is on its way. :)
Wha . . . (takes another look) dang it, that is rosemary! Time to
get the bifocals changed. :-)
I'm looking forward to the oaked mead vinegar -- think I'll make
to versions of the marinaded chicken recipe, one with the oaked
vinegar and the other with the rosemary vinegar. That should be
an interesting comparison.
Curiously, whenever I've substituted mead in a recipe that called
for white wine, I always found myself using twice as much mead
as the amount of white wine that was called for.
<><><><><><><><><><>
<><><><><><><><>
Dan McFeeley
------------------------------
Subject: RE: Mead vs Wine
From: "Brian Lundeen" <BLundeen@rrc.mb.ca>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 09:35:23 -0500
> Subject: Mead vs Wine
> From: Robert Sandefer <robertsandefer@yahoo.com>
> Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 15:17:17 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Why is mead a wine but not a beer? Is it not different
> enough to be its own class?
>
Question 1 is easy to answer. Beer fermentables must first be converted
from starches to sugars by the action of enzymes. Wine and mead
fermentables are there from the get-go. If there is a beverage that
truly suffers from an identity crisis, it is sake, not mead. I mean,
coexisting starch conversion and sugar fermentation, how weird is that?
I don't even want to talk about braggots. That just sounds like some
"breakfast blend"* made out of desperation. ;-)
Question 2 comes more to the heart of the debate. Although I'm no mead
expert, I would say yes, it is sufficiently different to warrant its own
judging criteria but not so much that you can really say it is not
wine-like. While there are some types of meads that are clearly
different, many meads, or perhaps more correctly fermented beverages
with a high percentage of honey, that show alcohol levels, acidity and
pH levels, flavours and aromas that are clearly wine-like. One could
just as easily argue that the pyments and cysers and what have you are
no longer meads (in the sense of pure honey meads), but some hybrid of
wine and mead and they should therefore rate their own special judging
categories, and should not be lumped in with that class of pure honey
beverages. And how the braggot faction can stand being associated with
ANYONE else is beyond me. ;-)
Point is, the term wine covers a lot of ground. It is not just grapes,
although anything made from non-grape sources generally gets modified
with the term "country", as if to say, OK, we'll let you into the
neighbourhood, but you have to live in that little house on the
outskirts, 6 to a bedroom. ;-) Many of these wines use simple sugar as
their main source of fermentables, with the fruits, veggies, herbs, etc
providing some degree of flavouring. Is parsnip wine closer to a nice
Auslese than a sweet mead? I wonder....
Don't get so bent out of shape out of being compared to wine. They are
kissing cousins.
Cheers
Brian
* Breakfast blend: A beverage formed from the dregs of the previous
night's party's wine and/or beer bottles, mixed together to create
enough volume to wash down the leftover pizza.
------------------------------
Subject: Sulfite and High-alcohol mead
From: Robert Sandefer <robertsandefer@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 12:56:46 -0700 (PDT)
Sulfite in Mead:
I do not usually use sulfite in mead because of
concerns given pH variability of mead/must and its
effect on SO2 production from sodium/potassium
metabisulfite.
I generally allow at least six months in a secondary
fermenter for the yeast to settle out. I have yet to
have a bottle-bombing mead (even on my first batch
when I bottled at 3 months from date of
pitching--yeast settled out in the bottle but the
bottles did not develop a noticeable carbonation).
Incidentally, I believe sulfite addition at bottling
is usually intended to control oxidation, not to knock
out yeast, which are generally fairly sulfite
resistant.
High-Alcohol Mead:
Yeast strains have varying alcohol tolerances but even
with feeding a fermentation (which has its limits) I
don't think there are many yeasts that could get to
30% abv. Even 20% abv would be stretching most yeast
strains past their abilities.
Robert Sandefer
------------------------------
Subject: Re: MLD #1100, 18/5/04 Sulfites, High alcohol
From: "Arthur Torrey (no spam please!)" <atorrey@cybercom.net>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 18:56:04 -0400
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Sterilization
> From: Patrick Devaney <damien777@yahoo.com>
> Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 05:21:55 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Is there anyone here who does NOT use sulfites to
> kill off any activity prior to bottling? What have
> your experiences been? I want to avoid "botle bombs",
> but I just hate the damn sulfites so much.
>
> Any advice will help me a great deal.. thanks!!
I have never used a sulfite to kill activity at bottling time. I will
sometimes use sulfites when I'm initially making a batch, but only if I expect
there to be lots of wild beasties present to cause problems (I.e. if I'm
making a fresh fruit mead) My experience with commercial wines suggest to me
that the claim of sulfites causing headaches is true, so I minimize their use
in anything I brew.
Normally, I want a fairly dry mead, and I get that by picking a yeast with the
attenuation value I want, and using enough honey that the yeast will give up
about the time the S.G reaches 1.010 or thereabouts. If it gets to dry, I
feed small additional amounts of honey until I get a nice S.G. and no sign of
activity. I then leave it in the carboy for another couple of months to
verify that there is no sign of bubbling and that the SG stays stable.
I have also used potassium sorbate a few times when the alcohol was already
higher than I wanted, so I didn't want to feed the yeast, but still needed to
sweeten things up a bit. The sorbates are supposed to kill off the yeasts
without the nasty side effects of sulfites.
At any rate, I've never had a problem doing it this way. The only 'bottle
bomb' I've had (actually a 'bottle bazooka') was when I first started bottling
my initial batch, and used water to top off that last bottle. This was a
fairly sweet mead, with a low alcohol tolerant yeast. When I watered it, that
lowered the % alcohol to the point where the yeast could start working
again... None of the other bottles in that batch gave me any trouble at all.
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: making a high alcohol mead
> From: "john mallon" <vidapretas@hotmail.com>
> Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 15:04:43 -0400
>
> After reading the compleat meadmaker I've had the urge to make a strong
> mead.One section of the book discussed feedind the fermentation.That by
> starting out with an averagev gravity mead you keep adding a pound of honey
> every so often and the yeast will keep working beyond it's naturaL
> limitations.If a pound of honey added to one gallon of water has a gravity
> of 1.033 it would take 7 pounds and 2 ounces of honey per gallon of water to
> make a mead with 30% alcohol by volume.Do you think that a strong yeast like
> lavlin EC-1118 combined with the feeding the fermentation method you could
> reach an alcohol level of 30% abv.Because i feel like experimenting.thank
> you
>
I haven't tried the feeding thing, but I can say that 1118 will go to 21% in
a cyser blend, using every last bit of available fermentables (SG went to
0.095 !) I'm not sure just how potent you can get with it, but it seems to go
far stronger than you are normally supposed to be able to. (I was annoyed by
this, and no longer brew with that strain as I want mead, not rocket juice...)
ART
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Sulfite sterilization
From: "Kevin Morgan" <kevin.morgan2@verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 21:22:40 -0400
>Subject: Sterilization
>From: Patrick Devaney <damien777@yahoo.com>
>Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 05:21:55 -0700 (PDT)
>Hi everyone,
> Is there anyone here who does NOT use sulfites to
>kill off any activity prior to bottling? What have
>your experiences been? I want to avoid "bottle bombs",
>but I just hate the damn sulfites so much.
> Any advice will help me a great deal.. thanks!!
I have never used sulfites to sterilize. I do, on occasion, use Potassium
Sorbate to stabilize prior to bottling. I did have one batch that I bottled
to early and without Sorbate, popped the corks on those and made a big mess.
Would have had Bottle Bombs if it had been capped vice corked!!
Kevin, Brewing and Meading in South Jersey (USA)
------------------------------
Subject: BJCP; mead _vs_ wine/beer
From: rcd@talisman.com (Dick Dunn)
Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 08:54:45 -0600 (MDT)
Bill Wible, and then Robert Sandefer's reply:
> >I questioned early and often since passing the BJCP exam why
> >mead is even part of the BJCP style guidelines, which are for beer.
> >Jeez, sake is closer to beer than mead is, and the BJCP doesn't
> >have even have a category for that. So I still question the inclusion
> >of mead as a "style of beer".
>
> I have read (on the Cider Digest?) that BJCP did not
> include cider and mead guidelines because it was
> arguing they were "beer" but because ciders and meads
> were being submited to competitions and no one else
> was stepping up to make guidelines. Any takers?
Robert is right, that the inclusion of mead and cider as BJCP categories
came about from interest in the homebrewing community and a lack of other
venues for competitors. Ciders could sometimes be entered in wine comps,
but that just put the winemaker's bias on the results instead of a brewer's
bias.
Frankly, mead would be nowhere today without the interest of homebrewers
and the support and push of the AHA and BJCP. There'd be minor interest
from the SCA and a little from beekeepers, but not enough.
Nevertheless, Bill has a point in that the past guidelines were written
by/for brewers with not nearly enough attention to mead and cider as
separate beverages with their own criteria. (little things like having
SRM and IBU values attached to every style...) Similar criticism came up
on the Cider Digest late last year. It's not that the BJCP really did
consider mead and cider as types of beer, but the old styles were written
in such a way that good meadmakers or cidermakers could feel that they
were just sideshow freaks in the beer circus, and that the styles didn't
come anywhere close to representing their worlds.
In the current revision, the BJCP folks are listening to, and working with,
the mead and cider communities. It's still going to be a long haul, even
with good style descriptions, because of the practical challenge of getting
judges to understand meads.
As to the taxonomic questions "is it wine or is it mead?" etc., this
devolves into people more-or-less making their own definitions and then
demonstrating that their classification is consistent within their defi-
nitions! Doesn't help much. Keep in mind that there are multiple levels
of classification, such that things lumped together at a higher level are
split out at lower levels. Moreover, the splitting can be drawn along
different dimensions. Also consider that terms have different meanings
in different contexts, and that historical usage may not lead to wonderful
consistency. In one context, "wine" means only that made from grapes; to
describe wines made from fruits other than grapes one says "fruit wines"--
but of course grapes are fruits! Legal and functional classifications can
differ: mead is, legally, in the US, a wine (unless it's a beer!...a
braggot or "malto-mead"). Process descriptions sometimes matter: beer is
brewed while wine and cider are not; mead isn't generally "brewed" (again,
except for a braggot) except sometimes the process is close to brewing,
and metheglins are, in a sense, "brewed". Whew!
Mead covers such a wide variety of characters that it doesn't seem helpful
to argue on the basis of mead being "like" or "unlike" wine. One can make
general pronouncements to help people try to understand (at the outset)
what they're drinking, but the analogies break down quickly. How do you
explain mead to someone who's never tasted and wants to have some idea what
it's all about? Saying "mead is mead" isn't helpful in that case! But as
soon as you try to describe it in detail, you have to cut free of the "mead
is wine" explanation.
- ---
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #1101
*******************************
