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Mead Lovers Digest #1261
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1261, 26 April 2006
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1261 26 April 2006
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
NYC mead gathering (Phil)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1260, 20 April 2006 (Robert Keith Moore)
Re: Adding syrup for melomels (Dick Adams)
Mead Lovers Digest contribution ("Paul Millns")
NOTE: Digest appears when there is enough material to send one.
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Subject: NYC mead gathering
From: Phil <dogglebe@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 11:18:21 -0700 (PDT)
On Tuesday, May 16th, the New York City Homebrewers
Guild will host its fifth annual mead meeting. This
year's guest speaker will be Vicky 'the Mead Wench'
Rowe.
This gathering will take place at Burp Castle, located
at 43 East 7th Street, in Manhattan. Starting time is
7:30pm. Last year's mead gathering was a great
success and we expect this year's to be no less.
Phil
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Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1260, 20 April 2006
From: Robert Keith Moore <rob@ineedachef.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:37:02 -0700
Gee Wiz,
Did the syrup come with any kind instructions as to how much to use?
What kind of syrup is it? I have flavored meads with syrup. I make
ginger ale, lemonade, root beer. All sparkling meads I make by adding
syrup to sweet meads. Then I carbonate in kegs. I have never fermented
with syrup in the primary....whoops I take that back. I make my own
ginger syrup for the ginger ale and it does go in the primary.
If you make a non alcoholic drink with your syrup, do you like it?
You might be simply using too much syrup or maybe you just do not like
that particular brand of syrup in that flavor.
Hope that helps,
Robert
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Subject: Re: Adding syrup for melomels
From: rdadams@smart.net (Dick Adams)
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 20:52:39 -0400 (EDT)
> I just recently made a cheery cherry melomel and used a cherry syrup with
> the honey in the primary fermentation stage. After doing some QAT,
> (quality assurance testing - drinking) I sampled some of the most hideous
> tasting mead I had ever sampled. The problem I believe is that I added
> to much syrup. Does any one have any guidelines as to how much syrup
> to add? I also did a Cyser with some apple nectar and got similar results.
> Comments would be greatly appreciated.
First, if you live near Baltimore, come over to my place and
taste a 9-month old Braggot that tastes worse!
Second, I have found that syrups have problems when fermented.
Along the way I fermented some sweet sorghum syrup which is
the Southern country boy's answer to maple syrup. It was
like having a dowel rod with a glob of hot tar stuck in my
throat.
I had one bad experience with Maple Syrup. Now when making
Maple Mead, I add the Maple Syrup to the secondary.
Fresh fruit Melomels and I have never been close friends. So
I have cheated and used extracts adding them after about four
weeks in the secondary. My findings are that somewhere between
one tsp and two tablespoons of an extract are usually enough
for me in five gallons of mead.
I did have one success using a quart of raspberry puree in the
primary.
Dick
P.S.: Don't ferment molasses unless you are planning to distill
it into rum.
------------------------------
Subject: Mead Lovers Digest contribution
From: "Paul Millns" <Paul.Millns@nottingham.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 09:12:23 +0100
Hi
Ed has started an interesting line of discussion, namely the bad tasting
meads. I have been making meads for about three years and still consider
myself a 'newby' and a lot to learn and experience. I've had some great
meads which comprise of show meads fruit and spicy meads but I have had some
disappointing ones as well. The worst was a spicy mead that I left the spices
in for to long and the cinnamon gave the mead a very bitter after taste -
I'm hoping aging will fix that. The other notable bad mead was an elderberry
melomel where I left the crushed berries in the primary for about two weeks,
there was enough tannin to treat a cows hide, again aging might help over
the next couple of years. I have also found that making melomels to dry can
be disappointing and try to make them medium dry and not dry. I'm not put
off because the good meads inspire me to strive for perfection (I can only
try!). This might seem like a negative thread but failure is as important
as success and I would like to hear of other peoples triumphs and disasters.
On another note, it is great to hear so many people enjoying mead making. I'm
in England where there is a strong tradition of mead making but where mead
has a very low profile. Thankfully I keep bees so I have a ready supply of
honey, the price of honey and the demise of home brewing probably accounts
for the small number of UK contributors to the Mead Lovers Digest but I
will try to keep the UK end up.
Cheers
Paul
------------------------------
From: Vuarra <vuarra@yahoo.ca>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 09:24:47 -0700 (PDT)
On an issue received on April 21, Ed wrote:
I just recently made a cheery cherry melomel and used a cherry syrup with
the honey in the primary fermentation stage. After doing some QAT,
(quality assurance testing - drinking) I sampled some of the most hideous
tasting mead I had ever sampled. The problem I believe is that I added
to much syrup. Does any one have any guidelines as to how much syrup
to add? I also did a Cyser with some apple nectar and got similar results.
Comments would be greatly appreciated.
I really could not say for certain, without knowing how much syrup was used,
and how it was supposed to be originally diluted
I would think that you may have to water it down, but by how much is uncertain.
Vuarra
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #1261
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