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Mead Lovers Digest #1495
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1495, 19 October 2010
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1495 19 October 2010
Mead Discussion Forum
Contents:
Re: First Time Mead Making, and pectinase again (Dick Dunn)
Re: sweet woodruff (Rebecca Sobol)
Dwojniak (Russ Riley)
pumpkin mead with a twist (hansvater@comcast.net)
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Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn
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Subject: Re: First Time Mead Making, and pectinase again
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:22:00 -0600
Ken's suggestions for an apricot melomel using apricot nectar...
[snip]
> Time 0 - Pitch yeast and pectinase;
> Time 2 months - Rack, sulfite and sorbate, add more pectinase;
> Time 4 months - Rack, add nectar to sweeten (1 bottle?), sulfite and
> sorbate, add more pectinase;
> Time 6 months - Rack to bottling bucket, bottle.
Hold on here...the additives are out-of-whack with the timing.
Pectinase goes in once at the start, and that's it. It is an enzyme which
breaks down pectin, and that action won't be reversed, so one addition is
enough. Moreover, the presence of ethanol inhibits the action of
pectinase. (So if you want to use pectinase on the back-sweetening with
nectar at 6 months, add it to the nectar and give it time to act -before-
adding the nectar to the mead.)
Next: No sorbate until fermentation is done! Ken's suggestions above are
surprising, since Ken is one of the people who's reminded us over the years
that if you add sorbate while fermentation is still going on, you get a
nasty geranium odor.
Really, the additives need to be synced with events, not just the calendar.
First racking wants to come when the fermentation has slowed and a lot of
sediment has fallen out. At that point you could add a protective dose of
sulfite, but there's still fermentation going on so you don't want to hit
the yeast too hard.
Second racking when the mead is looking pretty clear, gravity at/under
1.000, and no evident fermentation, to get it off the rest of the sediment
and the lees. That would be the time to sulfite, to get the yeast shut
down for sure. Once that's finished settling, rack for bottling and add
the sorbate.
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
------------------------------
Subject: Re: sweet woodruff
From: Rebecca Sobol <ris@g4coop.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 19:46:16 -0600
On Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:07:18 -0600 (MDT)
mead-request@talisman.com wrote:
> Subject: sweet woodruff
> From: Timothy Harris <jrsyby88@yahoo.com>
> Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2010 10:57:35 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Has anyone used sweet woodruff in mead? How much to use in a 5 gallon
> batch? Thanks! Tim
We've made a few different batches.
http://www.unicornunchained.com/mead/mf.html Mayflower
http://www.unicornunchained.com/mead/wmm.html May Mead
http://www.unicornunchained.com/mead/ww.html Woodruff Waiting
http://www.unicornunchained.com/mead/m3.html Midsummer May Mead
The ones I like the best are Mayflower and Midsummer May Mead
in which we made a flower tea with a cup of flowers. The other two do
continue to get better with age.
Rebecca
- --
Rebecca Sobol Boulder, CO
ris@UnicornUnchained.com http://UnicornUnchained.com/
------------------------------
Subject: Dwojniak
From: Russ Riley <russriley61999@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2010 08:31:25 -0700 (PDT)
Thank you to everyone for your responses to my Dwojniak question. I suppose I
should clarify a little what Mosher says in his Radical Brewing book. What he
describes is a spontaneous fermentation, but he says that the extremely high
sugar content of a 1:1 honey/water dilution makes it so only osmophilic yeast
already present in the honey can ferment it. Anyway, I still want to try it
because it sounds so unusual, but I only plan to brew a half a gallon (3 pounds
of honey mixed with a quart of water - so if it ends up being awful I didn't
waste much money. I'll let you know how it tastes in 5-7 years (how long he
claims it takes to taste good)!
Russ
------------------------------
Subject: pumpkin mead with a twist
From: hansvater@comcast.net
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:36:51 +0000 (UTC)
This idea came to me today and thought I would throw it out here to see
what others may think of the merits of it.
I have a recipe for a pumpkin wine made in the pumpkin. what do people
think of the idea of making this as a mead in the pumpkin. The wine recipe
calls for water, sugar and raisins inside the pumpkin and the top is sealed
with wax and a plastic tube is stuck through the top of the pumpkin stem
and run into a jar of water.
The question is what are your thoughts on a pumpkin mead made in the pumpkin.
Brian Hakman
------------------------------
End of Mead Lover's Digest #1495
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