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Mead Lovers Digest #1367
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1367, 23 February 2008
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1367 23 February 2008
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
RE: competition medals ("Vicky Rowe")
Re: Pouring Honey (stencil)
Titratable Acidity: Useful after all? ("Erroll Ozgencil")
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1366, 13 February 2008 Subject: Pouring Honey ("...)
Re: Meadllennium drama and angst (Mail Box)
three questions (dan@geer.org)
MLD Archive search (ashford@whisperpc.com)
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
A searchable archive is at http://www.gotmead.com/mldarchives.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: competition medals
From: "Vicky Rowe" <gotmead@gotmead.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:15:37 -0500
Suzanne,
I think I can speak for Gotmead folks at least in that we appreciate what
you and other competition organizers do for the home meadmaking community.
I've heard many good things about your competition from my site visitors
over the years. You give good competition (LOL).
It is a shame that such statements have been made here, and Dick has done an
admirable job of defusing and debunking the various comment, IMO. Thanks,
Dick. (Sorry we didn't connect up this weekend, as usual it got crazy again.
My 'quiet' Sunday turned into taking around one of our non-US folks, and
running to the airport to drop people off. I never did get much sleep...We
need to make harder plans, I guess! I realized when I got there that I
didn't have a phone for you, and the computer never got taken out.)
I know many (if not most) mead competitions run partly on the love (and
money) of the organizers. I also know that over 1,000 man/hours of work, by
over a dozen people (and that is just the 'core' group) are put in each year
on the home and commercial International Competitions in Colorado. I donated
2 websites (inc. programming, hosting, email, updates, add-on software,
ongoing support, etc.) to the former IMA (now Mead Makers International),
over $40K in software, hosting and man-hours to date (over 3 years w/ 2
websites). I don't expect to recoup that. It was done to help expand the
ability of home and commercial meadmakers to compete and get evaluation of
their meads, and, I think, was money well spent.
The Mazer Cup ran at a loss most years, and put on a helluva competition.
Because they sincerely wanted to offer a well-run competition.
It isn't about being the 'best' or the 'biggest'. Its about giving the folks
out there who make mead a venue in which they can compete honestly and
fairly. Its about expanding mead and home (and commercial) meadmaking.
You (and the rest of us out there, I think) do this from the love of the
thing, and it shows, Suzanne. Please do not let the ill-advised comments of
one person affect you, I think that it is a safe bet that most don't look at
things that way.
Thanks for doing what you do, and keep on doing it. Valhalla is a great
competition.
Wassail!
Vicky Rowe
The Gotmead Webwench
http://www.gotmead.com
gotmead@gotmead.com
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Pouring Honey
From: stencil <etcs.ret@verizon.net>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:50:36 -0500
On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 12:25:47 -0700 (MST),=20
in Mead Lover's Digest #1366, Dick Adams wrote:
>[ ... ]
>The new problem is the flow rate slowly decreases upon closing the
>spigot. My work-around solution is to close the spigot about 20 seconds
>into the pour.
If I understand the problem correctly, you are dissatisfied
with having the honey flow taper off gradually when you
close the air-relief spigot; your goal is to make the honey
flow terminate sharply and completely.
>My thought is to make a large spigot to use with a regular lid. One first
>thought it would require a threaded stainless steel tube 1-1/4" diameter,
>two stainless steel nuts (one inside & one outside), a sheet of food grade
>material that can be used to cut out washers, a stainless steel faucet with
>a thread spout and a stainless steel cap to cover the spout when it is
>closed.
>
> [ ... ]
This larger spigot with its associated feedpipe then would
replace the EZ-Pour, is this correct? Then there is no need
to go to the hideous expense of stainless steel, especially
for the valve. PVC is perfectly suitable. You can get PVC
knife-gate valves in this size range from a number of
sources; US Plastic
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=3DUSPlastic&c=
ategory%5Fname=3D16117&product%5Fid=3D19532
AKA
http://tinyurl.com/2wbc7r
is just one. Observe that you can get half a dozen of these
puppies for the price of a bucket of honey. In stainless,
one, if you can find it, will cost around $150. You can
get PVC bulkhead fittings and elbows in this size range very
easily, at HD or even WallyWorld. =20
=46WIW my own experience in this activity has been that you
can achieve excellent flow control simply by intervening a
smaller container to interrupt the stream; this is made
even easier if the viscosity has been reduced by heating the
60-lb bucket to 80F overnight in a water bath. The lid, the
EZ-Pour, and the container are certainly less of a cleanup
hassle than a valved lid will be.
gds, stencil
------------------------------
Subject: Titratable Acidity: Useful after all?
From: "Erroll Ozgencil" <errollo@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:34:12 -0800
The problem with titrating mead to find it's acidity is well known:
the base used to neutralize the acid also neutralizes the
gluconolactone so your final result indicates how much acid *and* how
much lactone is in your mead. For some time I followed, and gave, the
"taste, don't test" advice, but I was never happy with it.
So I began titrating mead and using the result as an upper limit. If I
was trying to adjust the acidity of my mead to a certain range, then I
would aim for the high end of that range, knowing it was really less
than that but not knowing how much less. This gave me a starting
point, to adjust to taste, and I think it was an improvement.
Lately I've been thinking about trying to correct a measured TA value
with a rule of thumb based on the typical ratio of lactone to acid
found in honey. Jonathan White provided this data in USDA tech
bulletin 1261: average ratio lactone/acid = 0.335, standard deviation
= 0.135. After a bit of algebra, I came up with two numbers to adjust
a measured TA value. Divide the TA by 1.470 and 1.200 to get a one
standard deviation range of "free acid" values. One standard deviation
covers almost 70% of all cases. Ok, not perfect, but I think it's
another improvement. I've written more about this approach here:
http://www.washingtonwinemaker.com/blog/2008/02/14/know-your-honey-acid-and-lact
one/
I'd like to do better, and I have another thought. As I understand it,
the equilibrium between gluconic acid and gluconolactone depends on
temperature and pH - I can measure those. What I don't know is *how*
it depends on them. I'm imagining a function f( pH, temperature) that
would yield a (more) accurate correction for measured TA. Does anyone
know if the dependency is that straight forward? Does anyone know more
about how that dependency works?
Erroll
http://www.washingtonwinemaker.com/blog/
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1366, 13 February 2008 Subject: Pouring Honey
From: "Lane O. Locke" <shaggyman@kc.rr.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:49:53 -0600
Subject: Pouring Honey
Get a honey gate from a beekeeping supply house and mount it on a lid, as
close to the edge as possible. The increased diameter and positive
gate-type cutoff make for a quick and accurate pour. Placing the honey
bucket on a scale allows a more accurate dispensing, as you don't have to
wait for the honey in motion to hit the bucket and register- just note the
starting weight, subtrct the amount you want to dispense, and cut off the
flow when your target weight registers.
Just for insurance, you might consider shortening a locking cargo tie-down
to fit around the lid, and cinch it down when you put the lid on the bucket.
I have nightmares about a lid popping off....
Thanks to JC for this one.
Lane O.
AKA: The Great And Powerful
(Although Mostly Harmless)
Shaggyman
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Meadllennium drama and angst
From: Mail Box <mail-box@comcast.net>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:41:17 -0500
Ladies and gentlemen,
I think this debate has become blown well out of proportion. The
sniping is coming from both sides, and both sides should just take a
deep breath and realize that we're all in this hobby together.
If you'll re-read the original post by OCurrans, there was nothing in it
which was in any way attacking any other mead judging event or
organization. It was very brief, merely announcing the approaching end
of acceptance for any further entries, and the only reference to any
other event was in their statement that they handed out more medals
"than anyone". That is not an attack, regardless of the accuracy or
relevancy of the remark.
The sniping started when a "quality over quantity" discussion about
medals ensued. Perhaps the Meadllennium representatives made some
unfortunate choices when defending the event against the charges
brought, but it's natural for people to become passionate about the
things that they put a lot of time and effort into doing.
I'd like to see both sides call truce on this, and perhaps sip a mead in
quiet reflection of how well this niche hobby has grown through the
ongoing efforts of many persons in many ways, from digest hosts to web
hosts to contest organizers.
I thank you all for your contributions to this hobby.
Regards,
Ken Taborek
------------------------------
Subject: three questions
From: dan@geer.org
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:37:44 -0500
After reading the style sheets I got back from
Meadlennium, I have three questions. I did not
expect the judges to answer back, but I did give
them an opportunity to do so before I consulted
the list here.
[1] Everything I have was fermented in a cellar which never
exceeded 65F and was generally at lower temp, yet several
comments called out the presence of fusel alcohols. I am
probably not yet capable of identifying those myself and, in
any case, prevention is the idea. My reading has said that
fast fermentation under warm temperature is the cause, but
that is not consistent with what I did. All samples have
the "official" Schramm amounts of yeast nutrient and
energizer, so over-fertilization would not seem to be the
issue either. My best guess is that I introduced the fusels
during pitching of the yeast as I pourd in the entire
contents of the starter vessel, i.e., I ran the starters
hot and poured some small amount of fusels into the must.
[2] Do judged scores tend to reflect a preference for bottle
aging versus carboy aging? All of my entries were bottled
just prior to shipment and it occurs to me that this is a
variable that can be adjusted/managed. I said as much at
entry, but one judge's comments asked if it was young in the
bottle.
[3] What does one do to evaluate acid levels if one is
color blind? (Phenolphthalein titration is a non-starter.)
Can this be merely recipe driven? I gather not and far
from it.
- --dan
------------------------------
Subject: MLD Archive search
From: ashford@whisperpc.com
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:49:15 -0800 (PST)
> Subject: effect of UV light on mead
> From: Michael Hetzel <hetzelnc@yahoo.com>
> Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:25:43 -0800 (PST)
>
> Off subject - someone in the last post mentioned that the MLD archives in
> Gotmead end in Oct 06. I found the same thing, and it seems the coverage
> is spotty (1 post for 2005 for example) - is there another archive elsewhere?
I don't know if this will help anyone or not, but I'm currently working on
entering the archives into an MS-Access DB. I have ~1.5 years of archives
entered, and am slowly crunching through the rest. I've been doing this by
hand (copy/paste), and reading all the posts as I go. There's a LOT of good
information in these archives.
If anyone wishes to assist, and speed up this project, I can send them an
empty DB and 3 months of archives to be entered; just send me an email.
Peter Ashford
[Janitor's note: Anyone who is working on efforts like this, please keep
in mind that the authors of articles which appear in the MLD hold copyright
in them. The nature of the MLD--the way it is distributed and archived in
various places--allows for further archiving, indexing, etc. Moreover, I
welcome any efforts which will make the material of past digests more
accessible. But keep in the back of your mind that they're not public
domain. Nothing dark intended here, and I'm not speaking against any of
the current efforts to index the MLD! Just a reminder to understand the
status of the material you're working with.]
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #1367
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