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Mead Lovers Digest #1554
Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1554, 17 November 2011
From: mead-request@talisman.com
Mead Lover's Digest #1554 17 November 2011
Mead Discussion Forum
Contents:
Re: Freeze Distillation (Steve Piatz)
Sparkling (Patrick King)
Re: Fining of mead (docmac9582@aol.com)
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Subject: Re: Freeze Distillation
From: Steve Piatz <sjpiatz@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:02:42 -0600
In #1553 Richard Adams mentioned a couple of points about freeze
distillation and indicated he found it easiest to just add some vodka
to bump the alcohol level instead. In one of our local competition,
the Upper Mississippi MashOut, we have a special category for
Eis-Anything as fitting for a January competition in Minnesota. Over
the years I've won a few medals in that category with both beer and
mead. A couple years ago I entered an Eis Chardonnay Pyment that did
well and I think gold in the category. A few weeks after the event I
served some homebrewers and novice mead makers some of the base mead
and they questioned why I would ever consider eising it as they really
liked it as it was - then I served them some of the Eised version and
they understood why. Yes, the esied one was higher in alcohol but
there are other changes as well as the eising seems to remove some
other defects (or at least changes them) such that the mead seems
smoother. Of course, esing a poor product is not going to make it
miraculously great.
- --
Steve Piatz sjpiatz@gmail.com
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Subject: Sparkling
From: Patrick King <patkingfilms@optusnet.com.au>
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:55:13 +1100
Hello All,
I would like to ask a little advice.
I have my first mead ready to bottle. It is a six month old metheglin,
champagne yeast dry, original gravity 58 now at 0.
The recipe timed it to be ready to drink for Xmas and after last nights
tasting I am optimistic. It still has a mildly yeasty tang but that has
reduced dramatically in the last 3 months.
I would like to try individualy carbonating a couple of bottles as the
dry taste may fit. but my mead bible, Ken Schramms wonderful book only
mentions adding half a cup of honey to the whole batch. I usually prime
my 750 ml homebrew bottles with a teaspoon of dextrose.
Is this sufficient for a sparkling mead?
Can honey be substituted, if so how much?
Will yeast still be sufficiently frisky to reactivate after six months?
Thanks,
Pat
PS Are there any fellow mead brewers in Melbourne Australia?
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Subject: Re: Fining of mead
From: docmac9582@aol.com
Date: Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:09:56 -0500 (EST)
David Strenio asked about fining of meads because his semisweet mead was
not clarifying after a few months.
1. The very best option is more time.
2. Most traditional meads, like most grape wines, taste better after a
year aging. By that time most (but not all) traditional meads will have
clarified. To hurry the process, almost all of the wine clarifiers will
work to floculate the yeast and many of the protein hazes (e.g. Sparkolloid,
Bentonite (clay), Isinglass (collagen from fish bladders - remember to keep
cool before use), Brewer's Gelatin or Knox gelatin (denatured collagen
is gelatin, but not nearly as strong of a coagulation agent as isinglass
collagen), SuperKlear, egg whites, or many many other additives.
3. Cooling your mead will often drop a lot more of the yeast.
4. I have found that many spices also act as a clarifying agent.
5. A filter pump can be rented from a homebrew shop or bought.
6. For future consideration - differing strains of yeast are known for
easy or poor floculation. And if making a fruit mead (melomel), pectin
enzyme is said to help avoid protein haze.
7. Or - Live with it. I have several carboys of two year old tupulo
mead that is still slightly hazy, but have decided to live with the slight
haze which is not apparent in a smaller glass (and give it yet more time)
rather than risk removing some of the flavor elements. Perhaps not the best
option if the mead is being submitted for judging, but great for drinking.
Even with judging, it might be OK because the appearance category in mead
judging has only a three point range. So you might lose a point for a slight
protein haze - that might be made up in the flavor category, as long as the
haze is not derived from so much yeast that there is a residual yeast taste.
Carl McMillin
Brecksville, OH
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End of Mead Lover's Digest #1554
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