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Mead Lovers Digest #1213
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1213, 12 September 2005
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1213 12 September 2005
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1212, 10 September 2005 (Jeannette)
Re: Beach plum melomel (Mail Box)
Re: Piscamel (Vuarra)
Re: Sulfite/sorbate [was Re: Beach plum melomel] (Mail Box)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1212, 10 September 2005 (David Lane)
Re: MLD #1212, 10/9/05 - Piscamel, Cranberry Mead ("Arthur Torrey (no spam...)
Re: experimental piscamel results are in ! (Mark Tumarkin)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1212, 10 September 2005 (Carter Brown)
Different strains of yeast ("Trevor James")
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Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1212, 10 September 2005
From: Jeannette <JeanneNoSpam@comcast.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 09:37:14 -0700
On Saturday 10 September 2005 09:16 am, mead-request@talisman.com wrote:
> Mead Lover's Digest #1212 10 September
> 2005
>
> Subject: Beach plum melomel
> From: "Elaine Cunningham" <elainecunningham@cox.net>
> Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 15:23:45 -0400
>
> Which leads me to a general question for the forum: how best to handle
> stone fruit. I've read contradictory advice--leave the stones in, pit
> the fruit. Any advice?
>
> Many thanks,
> Elaine
Elaine, I'm a newbie to mead-making, but I pitted both the cherries and the
peaches in my melomel. It's quite a pretty color, and darned near a fire
hazard now, and the yeast still hasn't died off. Will let you all know how
it turned out when it's done.
Jeannette
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Beach plum melomel
From: Mail Box <mail-box@adelphia.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 13:47:12 -0400
> Subject: Beach plum melomel
> From: "Elaine Cunningham" <elainecunningham@cox.net>
> Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 15:23:45 -0400
>
> Ken,
>
> Thanks for sharing your recipe! I'm looking forward to making the
> melomel!
>
> I have a couple of follow-up questions, if you don't mind. First, was 3
> pounds the measurement of whole fruit, or did you pit them first? For
> that matter, did you pit them at all?
>
> Which leads me to a general question for the forum: how best to handle
> stone fruit. I've read contradictory advice--leave the stones in, pit
> the fruit. Any advice?
>
> Many thanks,
> Elaine
Elaine,
Three pounds was the weight of the whole fruit, prior to freezing.
I wish I could answer your question regarding the pits with certainty,
but I unfortunately did not log my exact process with regards to the
stones. I do know that I thawed and mashed the fruit (without breaking
the pits) and put everything into the primary in a fruit bag. I also
can tell you that when I'm dealing with a small stone fruit such as
cherries that I typically remove the fruit bag from the primary prior to
the first racking and typically at about a week from pitching. This is
to avoid the extraction of woody or other unwanted flavors from the
pits. But I neglected to take notes on the fruit removal for this
batch, and so I can not say for certain when I removed the fruit.
For larger stone fruit (peaches, nectarines, etc) I will split the fruit
as you would an avocado and remove the stone prior to pitching. This
can be very time consuming for a five gallon batch with 40 lbs of
nectarines!
Cheers,
Ken Taborek
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Piscamel
From: Vuarra <vuarra@yahoo.ca>
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 11:13:28 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: experimental piscamel results are in !
From: "robscott@freeshell.org"
<robscott@freeshell.org>
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 18:46:20 +0000 (UTC)
I have to say, Rob, that I had to look at the
timestamp on your post to make sure I read it
properly.
Thank you for your amazing experiment, and I will
attempt not to make any piscamels in the near
future... but there is some rainbow trout that ....
uh... NO!
Vuarra
Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound.)
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Sulfite/sorbate [was Re: Beach plum melomel]
From: Mail Box <mail-box@adelphia.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 14:43:43 -0400
> Subject: Re: Beach plum melomel
> From: Robert Keith Moore <Rob@ineedachef.com>
> Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 15:38:21 -0700
>
> hey,
> what is up with all the sulfite. The recipe sounds good except for the
> chemicals. Was this a special occasion or do you always add sulfite like
> that. WOW! I have been making wine and mead for over ten years and I
> have only used sulfites once, and that was because of a Candida that
> started growing in a rhubarb melomel. You should be adventurous and try
> not sulfiting. :) What is sorbate for? How could that possibly a needed
> ingredient?
>
> I am always amazed at the use of all these chemicals in a beverage that
> was being made since....... Did the Vikings use sorbate? Did the
> ancient Ethiopians use sulfites? When I sit down and drink one of my 5
> year old meads, I never missed the sulfites..
Robert,
You sound positively offended that I use sulfites!
I have used sulfites on all of my meads save my very first batch. The
last few bottles years later had picked up an oxidative flavor similar
to a sherry, and it was not a positive addition to the mead. This has
never repeated itself since I began using sulfites, even with batches
which have aged much longer than my first. But I didn't know this would
happen when I began using sulfites, and so I'll try to explain my
rationale for the use of sulfites.
As I learned more about mead and wine making I learned that almost all
commercial wineries sulfite their wines. And in this case "almost all"
is very nearly all with only a very few exceptions. These wineries use
sulfites because it has a great many benefits, and nearly no drawbacks.
The advantages are several:
Greatly increased protection against oxidation
Greatly increased protection against wild yeasts and undesired bacteria
Improved color retention
Increased potential for aging/extended shelf life
The drawbacks are few and trivial:
Using sulfites costs more than not using them
There is an insignificantly small amount of the population that has a
reaction to sulfites
Let's examine all of the above. On the positive side all of the points
listed are things that I would desire for my meads and wines. On the
negative side the cost of the sulfite is a nearly insignificant part of
the total cost of making a wine or a mead. And 8oz container of
potassium metabisulfite costs less than US$5 and will serve to protect
many batches. I make 40+ gallons of mead and wine yearly and I
typically discard a bottle of sulfite due to age before I use it all.
And while I sympathize with anyone who has an allergy of any kind I have
never met a person who has an adverse reaction to sulfites, and so this
is not of any concern to me.
Sorbate is a preservative which inhibits the reproduction of yeast. I
add it to any wine or mead which is not completely dry, as an assurance
that the residual yeasts will not be able to ferment the remaining
sugars and possibly cause bottle bombs. It's a means of protection and
control, so that the wine or mead remains at the level of sweetness and
carbonation you wish it to remain at.
Now I'll address your other point, that the Vikings and ancient
Etheopians didn't use sulfites or sorbates. I find this kind of
argument to be specious. Given that you are not able to tell me with
certainty that the Vikings and ancient Ethiopians made mead or wine
which was palatable and had a decent shelf life, their methods are not
able to be applied to modern wine or meadmaking with any degree of
confidence. Ancient cultures did what they could with what they had.
This does not necessarily translate into their methods being good enough
for modern practice. To offer an analogy, look on the use of sulfite
and sorbate as insurance. The Vikings and ancient Ethiopians did not
have home owners insurance, health insurance, or automobile insurance.
I carry all of those forms of insurance, and I would suspect that you do
as well. Were I to suggest that you drop your insurance policies
because they were not needed in the days of old, I would expect that you
would demur. Can you make good wine or mead without the use of sulfite
and/or sorbate? Sure. You can also own a home, drive a car, and visit
a doctor without owning insurance (assuming your state law and lending
companies will allow this, of course!). But the prudent person chooses
to protect themselves against the possible negative effects of the
failure to take the precautionary steps of securing this insurance. And
I believe that the prudent wine or mead maker must also take
precautionary steps to protect their wines and meads.
I enjoy this hobby greatly, and I wish for the fruits of my labors to be
as good as I can possibly make them. If adding sulfites helps me to do
this, with only a trivial cost and a tiny bit of added effort, then this
is something that I will gladly and eagerly do. When I sit down and
drink one of my 5 year old meads, I never notice the sulfites. You
should be adventurous and try sulfiting!
Cheers,
Ken
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1212, 10 September 2005
From: David Lane <david.lane@utahisp.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 13:58:56 -0600
Hi Elaine,
You were asking about cranberry melomel.
Here are my notes of a cranberry mead cordial nearing compleation. :)
24 lbs clover honey
1/2 gal cranberry juice
2 lbs frozen cranberries (macerated)
1 oz yeast nutrient
Enough water for 5 gallons
White Labs Merlot Yeast WLP740 started in 3/4 gallon grape juice
1/8/05 - simply mixed them all together at room temp. No heating, no nuthin.
1/19/05 - racked off the berries and added 3/4 gal cranberry juice.
2/12/05 - tasted it at a little party. It's very hazy, sweet/tart, alcohol
is well integrated, and hard to believe it's so young. Everyone thought is
was really good.
2/17/05 - added an OakBoy stave
4/8/05 - racked and tasted, still hazy, still bubbling, very tasty, left
the stave in.
8/16/06 - racked and tasted, took the stave out. Beginning to clear a
little.
Not bubbling anymore. It's become a real prize.
I intend to try Super Kleer KC on it in the next four or five days, and with
luck I'll bottle just before Yule.
I liked the Merlot Yeast and I think it worked well. The only thing I'd
change would be starting the initial must with about 18 pounds of honey
and then adding about two pounds of honey at each racking. I believe I
could have bottled by October following this method.
By the way, I tried a very similar recipe (to the original) using Pomegranate
juice. This is extremely good too, though I had to pitch some WYeast Eau
de Vie in order to get it going! The taste is more complex and somehow
more "green". Again, I think if I'd used less honey originally it would
have gone faster.
Peace,
David
------------------------------
Subject: Re: MLD #1212, 10/9/05 - Piscamel, Cranberry Mead
From: "Arthur Torrey (no spam please!)" <atorrey@cybercom.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2005 20:25:48 -0400
When my GF heard my giggling over this post, I had to read it to her. Her
initial guess as to what a Piscamel is made from was sort of obvious, but even
less appetizing than your recipe... ;-}
While I have *NO* interest in trying the experiment, I suspect that it might
be possible to make some sort of Piscamel with a different technique. I think
your initial OG was on the high side, I think you would have done better to
start with a ratio closer to 1 gallon of honey to 4 gallons of water. I would
also have used a sealable container, with the intent of closing it and
shutting off the bubbler as soon as the yeast started to ferment. (Note that
this would be very bad for the health of the fish, but then so was your
process...)
Alternatively, one could try using already dead fish (or other seafood)
obtained at the local grocery store's fish counter. One would then need to
experiment with whether adding the fish at the beginning of primary
fermentation or later when going from primary to secondary would produce the
best results.
Note that this is purely speculation on my part. I will not be doing any
experimentation. However, if anyone is interested in further research please
let us know how things turn out - Preferably by E-mail from downwind. (Note
that I am NOT going to supply my snail address as I do NOT want samples...)
>
> Subject: experimental piscamel results are in !
> From: "robscott@freeshell.org" <robscott@freeshell.org>
> Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 18:46:20 +0000 (UTC)
>
> I thought I had detected a studied disinterest for my March 28 questions
> about raising fish and making mead in the same aquarium --- now I realize
> that you mazers probably thought I was drunk. My hypothesis was that fish
> manures would provide valuable fertilizer to the yeast, the aquarium
> bubbler would keep O2 levels high, and the fish would get a nice honey
> drink.
<SNIP>
- -------------------------------------------
I've made a cranberry that came out quite well, but I seem to have misplaced
my notes on the exact recipe.
I started out with a fairly standard 'simple' recipe, 4 gallons of water + 1
gallon of 'wildflower' honey from my backyard hive, nutrients, acid blend, bee
products (Royal Jelly, Pollen, Propolis) and fermented with Lalvin K1V-1116
yeast.
When primary was mostly done, I added several bags (about 8-10 lbs worth) of
cranberries from the local grocery. While these were purchased fresh, I
deliberately froze them, then ran them through the food processor using a
grating disk to break them up and maximize the juice / flavor release. (This
was done by experiment, I found the chopper blade just pushed them around the
bowl while slowly abrading the skins, the grater disk was much faster...)
After grating them, I dumped the still mostly frozen cranberry slush into a
filter bag which I tied shut and submerged in the primary bucket (I used a
couple of ceramic coffee mugs for ballast so the bag would sink)
I also stirred in a couple of lbs of additional honey, and about 1/2 tsp of
pectic enzyme.
This got a gentle fermentation going again, when it stopped I pulled the
filter bag, and squeezed as much liquid out of it as I could, then racked to
2ndary w/o worrying to much about sediment.
I then racked several times in secondary, every 2-3 months. At each racking I
checked taste and SG. If the SG was low (<1.005) I would feed a small amount
of honey, 1-2 C. mixed with an equal volume of water (makes the honey easier
to mix and makes up for racking losses) depending on the SG. When I had good
taste, and an SG around 1.010 that was unchanged for at least two racking
cycles (indicating a stopped fermentation) I clarified with Kielsol, then
bottled.
> Subject: Cranberry melomel?
> From: "Elaine Cunningham" <elainecunningham@cox.net>
> Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 15:27:16 -0400
>
> Has anyone made a cranberry mead, and if so, would you be willing to share
> your advice?
>
> I'm planning to start with cranberry honey, as I absolutely love the flavor
> of this variety and I'm interested to see what it brings to the mead. I
> found a small apiary on Cape Cod that has bee hives on a cranberry bog
> and sells raw cranberry honey at a very reasonable price.
>
> Thanks!
> Elaine
>
ART
------------------------------
Subject: Re: experimental piscamel results are in !
From: Mark Tumarkin <tumarkin@hogtownbrewers.org>
Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2005 11:34:07 -0400
Rob,
You mention a "studied disinterest" to your earlier post, I guess I'm
guilty of that. In fact, I must have missed it entirely. I've been
swamped of late and not keeping up with the mead digest as I should
(though I have to admit I haven't posted to it or the HBD for a LONG
time, though I do read both regularly).
Anyhow, this post was hilarious, I loved it and your experimental
approach. Are you sure you want to give up so easily? Maybe you just
need to vary your technique somewhat. Perhaps, oxygenating the must
(always a good thing anyhow) would ease the transition for the fishies.
Maybe even ease into it with a smaller amount of honey & add the rest
gradually, again allowing the fishies to aclimitize to the new
enviornment more gradually. And of course, not pitching the yeast till
24 hours later is risky - who knows if the "jellyfish-like thing" got a
foothold early on that might have been prevented by pitching the yeast
immediately. Lack of nutrients is always a potential problem area with
meads, and I'd have thought the fish manure would have been a great
starter too.
Anyhow, I appreciate your out-of-the-box approach and look forward to
reports of future efforts.
thanks,
Mark Tumarkin
Hogtown Brewers
Gainesville, FL
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Subject: experimental piscamel results are in !
>From: "robscott@freeshell.org" <robscott@freeshell.org>
>Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 18:46:20 +0000 (UTC)
>
>I thought I had detected a studied disinterest for my March 28 questions
>about raising fish and making mead in the same aquarium --- now I realize
>that you mazers probably thought I was drunk. My hypothesis was that fish
>manures would provide valuable fertilizer to the yeast, the aquarium
>bubbler would keep O2 levels high, and the fish would get a nice honey
>drink.
>
>The result, instead, was 3 "piscamels" flavored by rotting fish.
>Description follows.
>
>I prepared three 15-gallon aquariums with 7 gallons of water, and 20
>tilapia, bullnose catfish, and goldfish respectively. All fish were ~1oz.
>and well acclimated to the aquarium environment. Next I added 3 gallons
>(~30 lbs.) orange blossom honey to each for about 10 gallons total volume,
>for an OG around 1.130. At this stage the tilapia and goldfish were
>visibly distressed, trying to feed at the surface (?) I now suspect they
>were dying of low dissolved oxygen, or honey poisoning or some shit.
>Anyway, within 24 hours all the fish were dead, and I hadn't even added
>the yeast! I made sure to put the fish in a nylon bag before proceeding. I
>used Lalvin EC-1118 for a dry finish.
>
>Fast-forward 2 months and I've got 30 gallons at FG~1.000 and I'm racking
>off a huuge ammount of sediment (including scales, etc.) in what could
>only be described as a nauseating siphoning process. With all the solids
>removed, I had a sip. Tastes disgusting, but hey, all young meads are a
>little rough, right?
>
>The goldfish piscamel has some kind of jellyfish-like thing growing in it
>and I think it is vinegarizing. Lovely dark brown and hazey.
>The catfish were preserved by the alcohol (or something) and are now in a
>large mason jar. I will donate them to science. The catfish piscamel is a
>delightful pink.
>The tilapia tastes the best of the three (still: horribly rancid) and is a
>sort of swampy green.
>
>If the goldfish batch becomes a balsamic-like vinegar, it might be the
>only salvagable output of this disaster. I might try distilling the rest,
>or selling it as a weapon to be used in the domain of smell. If you tried
>to fight someone, and the catfish piscamel got on you, you might puke.
>
>I will never ferment fish mead again!
>
>Rob Scott
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1212, 10 September 2005
From: Carter Brown <painthappy@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 08:52:23 -0400
Elaine Asked....
>'m planning to start with cranberry honey, as I absolutely love the flavor
>of this variety and I'm interested to see what it brings to the mead.
I had the exact same thought! Now I can't impart any finished experience as
mine is fermenting as we speak, but I can tell you what I did:
For 3 Gallon Batch
10 Lbs Cranberry Flower Honey
Water to make 3 Gallons
32 Fluid Ounces of Mountain Sun Pure Cranberry Juice (Organic,
nothing added, unsweetened)
Pkg Red Star Yeast - Dry Wine Yeast Packets Premier Cuvee(Champagne & Mead)
3 Tsp Yeast Nutrient
I had a taste or two of this from the left overs when I took my first
hydrometer reading, and all I can say is WOW.
Good luck and let us know what you do.
Carter
------------------------------
Subject: Different strains of yeast
From: "Trevor James" <James@management.uottawa.ca>
Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2005 09:15:58 -0400
My friend and I are having some problems deciding on which
yeasts to use. We are doing mostly fruit based meads, and to
start we have used the trusted Champange yeast (EC1118). Very
hearty, very easy to work with, but we are finding it drys out
the wine too much. The standard answer we have gotten has been
"kill the yeast and add sweeteners". Although we don't mind
this option, I suggested that maybe choosing different yeast(s)
would be a better choice.
Lalvin seems to be readily at hand, and reading what little is
posted on their web site has made me think the RC212 or D47 may
be better choices. 212 for fruits, and D47 for meads.
She is looking for something that has about a 12-14% tolerence,
keeps the aromas from fruits, and allows a sweeter taste.
Thanks for any input.
T. James--
james@management.uottawa.ca
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #1213
*******************************
