Below is the meadmakers wordlist, a list af most of words a meadmaker needs. Some of the words are highlighted as links, leading to the place in this dokument concerning that word. You can either look up one word, or browse the whole list of tips. Again, if you have anything to comment or add, just e-mail me.
It is very important that you aerate the wort after it has cooled down to yeast
pitching temperature There are two reasons for aerating the COOLED liquid:
- undesirable reactions occur between oxygen and some compounds in the wort/must when hot,
and
- gas does not dissolve very well in hot fluid.
Typically, you can get oxygen into the must by splashing it when you siphon into your primary fermenter. A really great way to do this is get a tube of some rigid material about a foot or two long that will fit into the end of your siphon tube, and drill 3-4 small holes into the tube at the end where it joins to the siphon. The suction from the siphon will pull air into the fluid and aerate it thoroughly.
Of course, the reason why you aerate is that yeast requires oxygen during it's initial reproductive stage. Once the yeast has populated the must and the main fermentation phase has initiated, then you DO NOT want to add any oxygen, because you can cause some undesired reactions that will give you off flavors. That is why you must siphon very quietly when transferring the must from primary to secondary, or from secondary into bottles.
'yuhh! LEMONCITRUSACID !' Yep, I think I must have added too much acid blend. I followed the instructions on the kit I got at the homebrew shop and took the acidity level up to .8. After I brewed the mead, I was a little concerned since I've seen in a couple of places, including here, that a level of .4 is better. (I feel kinda stupid about this -- I added 4 1/2 tsp of acid blend in a little bitty 1 gallon batch.)
Acid is added to the must both to adjust the ph and to balance the sweet flavor of the honey. Yeast love an acidic environment. Many other microorganisms don't. The acid you add protects the must before the high alcohol level creates a hostile environment for the competition.
Acid can be added in many forms. Winemaking suppliers sell acid blends, powder or liquid. Acid is measured in "as tartaric", or how acidic the must is compared to pure tartic acid. For example, if the must is 0.5 percent acid as tartic, it is as acidic as if 0.5 percent of the must is pure tartic acid. Inexpensive test kits will let you measure the acidity so that you can adjust it. Acid blends may be a combination of tartic, citric, malic and other natural acids. Sometimes you may be able to get pure acids. Acid may also be added from tea (tannic acid) or from the natural acid in fruits and berries. This is why many melomels do not need additional acid.
As to what to do if the mead is too acidic, well that depends on the why of the excess acidity. One method of dealign with excess acid is to dilute the mead with water. Another method is to titrate out some of the acidity by adding small amount of precipitated chalk. If one has added too much acid blend (citric/malic and tartaric acid) to the must before fermenting, and the resulting mead is SOUR (not just tartly acidic), then you have a real problem. From Johan's description of needing to add "a LOT" of sugar to make the mead drinkable, this may be the case. I'd try diluting the mead and adding sugar.
What I'd strongly suggest is getting an acid test kit and good ph papers. Check the acidity of the must before adding any acid blend. I've found that in wine making and cider making, if you don't check the volatile acidity of the must befoer adding acid blend, you frequently will end up with something that is so SOUR (sorry for the shout) that it won't be drinkable. The volatile acidty should be between 0.6-0.8% tartaric. See a kit for details.
Acid-blend is added primarily for taste. Most people seem to prefer wine-like beverages that are somewhat acidic. You don`t have to use acid-blend to accomplish this - some mead makers add the juice from one or two lemons. I also suspect that wine yeasts prefer acidic environments, but I`m not sure about this last point.
Having the proper acidity is important in beverages, even soda pop!
If the beverage is at the proper PH it will thwart off infection easier, (a simple answer for a complicated question).
It is __very important__ to have the proper acidity in mead. Grapes are a natural for wine, because of the naturally balanced sugar/acid content.
When using th acid test kit to determine total acidity (TA), you wnat your mead to have a TA of 0.7-0.8% by tartaric acid. If you need to adjust your acidity up (increase it), 0.89 g/l malic or citric acid will increase the TA by 0.1%. 1.04g/l tartaric acid will increase the TA by 0.1% also. If you need to lower the TA, dilute with a mixture of honey and water ( 0.5kg honey/4 l water. I don't think that you would need to go beyond a 15% dilution. Or you can also use one of two chemical methods to reduce the TA.
1. Use calcium carbonte (precipated chalk) to treat about 1/3 (4-6liters) of your must. 2.5 g of calcium carbonate will reduce the TA by 0.1%. Don't exceed 5 g/25 liters. To use this, put the chalk in a container and pour your must un slowly; stir or swrill untill the foam subsides. Store in a cool place for a day or two, then add to the rest of the must.
2. Potassium bicarbonate can also be used to reduce the TA. Use 3.4 g per 4-6 liters of must. Follow the same method as foir calcium carbonate.
Acid blend (citric, malic, and tartaric) can be found at your homebrew or winemaking shop. It's used to balance out the sweetness of the mead, plus the yeast enjoy a more acidic environment. A good range is anywhere from .3 to .7 percent acidic. This can be tested easily with an acid titration kit, also found at same shop.
Bentonite is pure powdered clay and is used in wine and mead making. It is inert and tasteless. You can get it at your local homebrew shop or by mail order quite inexpensively.
Bentonite is used during racking to flocculate out the leftover yeast so that it settles to the bottom, leaving crystal clear mead behind. The clay particles are tiny flat sheets of mineral with minute electric charges sticking out at the edges. These charges attract the yeast cells, which then stick together in visible clumps that settle out rapidly.
The time to bentonite is any time after active bubbling ceases. If you bentonite while there is still fermentation activity, the yeast that settles to the bottom will keep bubbling and re-cloud the mead. If you use a yeast nutrient, fermentation will proceed rapidly and cease in a month or so. By using bentonite, your mead will be clear and ready to bottle in a few days, freeing your carboy for more mead!
Use 1/2 tsp. bentonite per gallon of mead to be clarified. To prepare the bentonite for 5 gallons, boil 1 cup of water in a small saucepan. Pre-measure 2 1/2 tsp. of bentonite granules into a small bowl. As the water boils, SLOWLY sprinkle in the bentonite, stirring occasionally with a fork.
If you sprinkle it in too fast, the granules will stick together as they absorb water, making large thick clots, which is not what you want. If that happens, just throw it out and try again.
If you sprinkle just right into the boiling water, it will stay soupy. Take it off of the heat and store covered for 24 hours while the clay goes completely into suspension.
Fill a clean pot with water, and bring it to a rolling boil for 10 minutes to drive off all of the oxygen. This water will be used after racking to fill up the head space. If you leave a head space after racking, the oxygen in the head space air will get into the mead and produce flat off flavours.
Stir the bentonite mixture with a fork to get it all into suspension. Pour the bentonite mixture into the second (empty) carboy. Then rack from the first carboy into the second. Avoid splashing, which will oxygenate the mead. Top off the head space with the boiled water. Stir the mixture thoroughly without splashing by rotating your J-tube in the carboy.
The bentonite will bind with the yeast into visible particles and flocculate out fairly quickly. After two days or so, it will all be resting in the bottom 1/2 inch of the carboy.
Sometimes there is so much yeast in a mead that the first bentonite cannot flocculate out all of the yeast. In that case, do it again. The result will be crystal clear.
Now I have to ruin a perfectly nice post by saying that there is no need to boil or heat the honey or the fruit. Since this is not beer, you will have no problems with contamination. Ever. No heat means no haze, and no aroma destruction, which is really critical for berry meads.
I boil the honey and water for about 15 minutes; this produces clear meads. I hear this is supposed to hurt the aroma, but my meads still smell pretty good!
When adding honey to hot or boiling water, STIR CONSTANTLY!! Otherwise, the honey will go straight to the bottom of the pot, where it will caramelize, scorch, and otherwise ruin the whole thing. KEEP STIRRING, until the honey is *completely* dissolved.
You will notice, in mead recipes, instructions to skim off any scum that forms as the mead heats up. This is very important, as that scum is the equivalent of the krausen in beer. Apart from the nasties in it that can contribute to hangovers, there are nasties in the scum that can adversely affect the flavor and appearance of the finished mead.
DO NOT BOIL! Continue to simmer at a moderate rate, skimming off any white scum that forms on the top. If the scum is yellow, the heat is too high. Once no more scum forms, turn off the heat, place the lid on the pot, and leave overnight.
Boiling is also safe, but reduces the aromatics, and seems to produce nasty/funky off-flavors that take years to mellow out.
To boil or not to boil? On the one side, boil and get rid of all that stuff, that crud. On the other side, don't boil and keep all the delicate essence. It's curious that we should even consider the long boils we use sometimes...we talk about getting the best honey, minimally processed, then boil the bejeezus out of it?
I've boiled the honey and gotten good mead. The last handful I've made, I haven't boiled...I've boiled the water, added the mead, and brought it to sterilization temp, then cooled. I've gotten good mead. If anything, the more recent meads have matured faster...but it would be bad science to say that not boiling has anything to do with it, because I've changed a lot of other things along the way.
I read that boiling will settle out the proteins. That's a brewer's maxim, but does it apply to mead? How much protein is there in honey, anyway? I see that you can skim off all the scum, but what's in it? Anything that matters? I don't know! It's not clear-cut, the way that "don't boil the fruit" is clear-cut (because it sets the pectin, and also caramelizes it a bit). But maybe this is someplace that science could help us a little. What are the real facts supporting either side of "to boil or not to boil"?
In the book on mead put out by the american Bee-keepers association (and I'll skip home and get the title and post tomorrow), they recommend boiling, to eliminate having to add gel at bottling time to clarify the mead. I've done both, and certainly the mead I get with boiling is clearer, I have had much more usable mead to guck at the bottom, and it seems to me the flavor is better.
Some time ago there has been a discussion about boiling or not the must. A book says that boiling and skimming enables to throw off the proteins , bad ferments and wax but the wax is more soluble in hot water. So there is an unwanted effect. Have somebody already heard about furfurol? Its seems that this is a molecule that appears in heated or ageing honey and that is toxic.
This is the more traditional (pre-1600s) way to make mead. The only thing that's changed since then is that we're (at least most of us) not living in the Old World where the wild yeasts are friendlier. New World wild yeasts haven't had as many years of coexisting with humans brewing stuff. In general, good sanitation, getting any chlorine out of the water, and proper aeration will make for good mead.
Yeah, I learned the hard way too. My tragedy was different. No one told me too keep the bottles up for a month. It seems mead usually has a dissolved CO2. After corking I laid them on their side. Well.....
.
Buy the longest corks you can afford and of the best quality. Soak them in a strong solution of SO2, (.25 tsp/ 1 gal water), overnight. Sink them well into the bottle - about .25 inch into the mouth of the bottle.
I like to keep my "big meads", (OG > 1.100), in the carboy for a minimum for two years. Also most winemakers add about .25 tsp sulfite to their 5 gal of wine at bottling to help stabilize it.
First, you must make sure the mead has stopped fermenting. Mead is such a slow fermenter that it may appear completely done, but continue to ferment in the bottles producing glass grenades. Some techniques to make sure the mead is done fermenting are to take hydrometer readings for three to five consecutive days and make sure the readings aren't still falling; or make sure they are down around 1.000 or below. You can also tell by seeing if the mead is clear and there are no visible (tiny) bubbles rising through the mead. Be careful, though, because being clear is not enough.
Use sturdy bottles, either cheap champagne (which are thick enough totake the higher carbonation) or returnable beer bottles. The bottles may be capped or corked. Do not use the thinner walled disposable twist off beer bottles.
Mead that has finished fermentation and is then bottled will be flat. Sparkling mead is primed by adding a small amount of sugar at bottling time so that it is carbonated; the amount will vary depending upon how complete the fermentation is when you bottle. The most you would ever want to add is about 1/2 cup of sugar for five gallons.
Store the bottles in a cool dark place. Mead is not as sensitive as beer to light (unless you have hops in it), but should not be left in bright light.
For a primary fermentation, the headspace is not critical since the yeast needs oxygen for the initial stages of fermentation. For my 1-2 gallon batches of mead I use a 5 gallon carboy as my primary fermentor (because I have a number of them for brewing beer). Although there is an enormous headspace, the oxygen will be consumed/driven out during the first stages of fermentation. Using a large fermentor with an airlock is roughly equivalent to doing an open fermentation except that airborn contaminants are excluded. It's also handy since you don't have to worry about matching the size of your primary to the size of your batch. The krausen (foamy head) never gets anywhere near the level of the air lock. When I rack to the secondaries, (an appropriate number of gallon jugs), I minimize the headspace. Introducing oxygen at this stage is to be avoided because the alcohol (which was not present at the beginning of primary fermentation) can be oxidized. It should also be noted that introducing oxygen at this point can also cause the fermentation rate to increase if the fermentation was 'stuck'. This probably explains the original poster's observation that his fermentation rate increased after racking. While the repeated rackings would probably have been best avoided, I would not worry too much. If, after several months in the secondary, it tastes drinkable, bottle it.
Mead will take longer than beer to ferment. Fermentation times can be measured in months, so get another carboy. Mead likes to ferment a little warmer than beer (70F - 80F), but should be stored in a cool place to bottle condition. You will have to rack mead (transfer it to a separate vessel, leaving behind the sediment) while it is fermenting. If you make any kind of mead beside traditional, you will have to rack about a week after starting to remove the bits of fruit and spices that settle out. Rack again every several weeks to get the mead off the dormant yeast and other matter that settles out. This improves the flavor and clarifies the mead.
When I have a stuct fermentation, I find that a pinch of MgSO4 (Epsom Salt) usually does the trick. Magnesium is a mineral that yeast need to grow. Copper is another needed mineral, altough I've never had a problem with it. You could boil a penny to sterilize it and drop it into the fermenter. If the mead has cleared, repitch after adding the minerals.
Clarifying mead with gelatine is similar to using bentonite. Powdered unflavoured gelatine is available in most grocery stores (the Knox brand is probably the most widely known). I generally dissolve a packet of the powder into 1 cup of cold water in a pot. Heat this on the stove, swirling gently, until it's all dissolved. Cover it and let it sit 20 minutes to pasteurise it. Warning: do *NOT* let this stuff boil over! It's very difficult to clean up!
Put the pot somewhere where you can grab it easily, and start siphoning your mead into an empty carboy. When there's a gallon or so in the new carboy, take the gelatine solution, and slowly drizzle it in (if you dump it directly into the empty carboy, it will just coagulate on the bottom in a useless lump). Finish siphoning, and stir if necessary to distribute the gelatine evenly throughout the carboy.
Johan, the "gravity" you ask about is a measure of the dissolved sugars present in the must. This is expressed in one of three ways: 1) as the specfic gravity, 2) degrees balling or Plato, or 3) as degrees brix. Pure water has a specific gravity of 1.000, that is it has no dissoved materials in it. Honey or sugar will add to the specific gravity by being dissolved in the water. A vintners or brewers hydrometer or saccharometer is the most common instrument used to determine the gravity of the mead. The gravity of the mead can be adjusted upward by adding honey to the must or downwards by adding water to the must to dilute it. Whether ot not you need to worry about all this is up to you. However, if you are serious about improving your meads, I'd at least laern ot use a hydrometer to "gauge' the strenght of your mead. The hydrometer is aslo quite useful in determing when a mead is finished fermenting, and can be useful in calculating the alcohol content.
There are many kinds of honey, based on which flowers the bees collected the nectar from. Honeys range in taste and color from the light clover and alfalfa to the stronger tasting (and darker) buckwheat. Which you will use depends both on which you like the taste of, and what type of mead you are trying to make. Stronger flavors go well in metheglins, while the milder honeys make a good base for melomels.
You can buy honey in bulk from road side stands, or health food stores. You may also be lucky enough to live near a honey farm (or apiary) and can buy right from the beekeeper. Look in the phone book for honey, or health food, or beekeepers. Sometimes, exterminators will remove hives and give the bees to beekeepers, and sell the honey. University agriculture departments occasionally sell honey. Be inventive. If all else fails, you may have to buy it from the grocery store.
The honey will be either raw or processed in some way. Raw honey has bits of wax, bee parts, dust, pollen, microorganisms, and the like in it. You have the most control in how you process raw honey, but you also have the most to do. Honey may be filtered, or blended, or even heat pasturized. The more processed it is, the milder it is likely to be. Processing also evaporates some of the honey's aroma. Commercial, grocery store honey is the most processed.
Just like other meads, except more so. When I speak of high-gravity meads, I mean mead in the 4-lbs- honey-per-gallon-of-water range. The added sugar means it'll take longer to ferment. It also makes it very likely that you'll need a yeast nutrient.
Another issue to consider is that some yeasts don't do well under high-sugar conditions. The things to remember are the same as for other meads, but you'll need to expect longer fermentations (having to wait three or more months for fermentation to slow is typical), and once the fermentation is done, these meads typically take longer to age. Given enough patience, you can make some very tasty, very strong meads of a traditional style.
Meads of this style were traditionally started in the summer for consumption in the winter or spring. This will work out nicely from a temperature standpoint, as you'll have warm temps to start the yeast off quickly, and then cooler temps to age the mead once it's mostly fermented. However, these meads are not for everyone. With this type of mead, you'll probably want to rack the mead (transfer it from a primary to a secondary fermenter) twice, as having the mead sitting for prolonged periods on the dead yeast will add `off' flavours to it. The results are typically worth the wait, though.
This is a good area to get into once you've made a few lighter gravity meads and have gotten some extra equipment, since you'll be tying up a carboy for at least six months.
Mead is a honey based fermented beverage that has been produced and enjoyed since the beginning of recorded history. Because of its antiquity, mead has acquired an almost magical reputation in our mythologies. For example, the term honeymoon is intertwined with the custom of drinking honey-based mead for a month (moon) after the wedding; this practice was said to to ensure baby boys. Mead making was once the province of a select, trained guild. Now, it is open to all who have the patience and skill. You are continuing this long and honored tradition. Welcome aboard and enjoy.
In my opinion it does not make any difference. I've used "fresh" honey and two-year-old bulk honey that had to be scooped out of tin with an ice-cream scoop it was so dense. I've had very nice results in both cases. I haven't done a side-by-side comparison, so I can't really comment on the taste issues, but I don't see any problem with using older bulk honey. Most of the reading I've done says you can just heat the honey to get it back to liquid form with no probelms. In addition, honey is so dense (specific gravity) that practically nothing can grow on it (unless mixed with H2O) so you don't have to worry about bacterial or mold infection.... :-)
the environment more hostle to infection. Rather than boil the fruit, put it in a sieve and rinse it with boiling water to kill beasties. Then add the mashed fruit and pectic enzyme to the must.
Raw mead is called "must". You will want to add the honey to hot water in a large pot, but make sure the pot is not on the heat while doing this because the honey will fall to the bottom and carmelize (or stir vigorously if you leave it on the heat). Use stainless steel or enameled (the acidic must will leach metallic flavor from aluminum kettles).
Some mead recipes recommend only heating the mead to a high enough temperature to pasteurize it. This is because boiling mead will drive off some of the delicate honey flavors. Refer to the recipes from the mead-lovers digest (a list of them to follow).
While heating if you skim the scum off while heating the must you will get a more clean and delicate flavor. If you don't skim, you may wind up with a much less interesting brew: too much "waxy-taste" and "dullness" to the resulting mead.
There are two different kinds of yeast nutrient available. They are yeast hulls (also known as `ghosts') and di-ammonium phosphate (usually just called `yeast nutrient'--this is the easiest to find). Some people say that the yeast hulls make for better meads more quickly, since you don't have to wait for the chemical taste from the phosphates to wane. My opinion is that both are usable, but the yeast-hulls leave you more margin for error. If you put in too many hulls, you'll just have a larger layer of sediment to deal with. If you put in too much phosphate, you'll have a chemical taste that'll take a while to fade.
In older times, egg white was also used as a yeast nutrient, but given the problems with salmonella in eggs nowadays, I'd recommend against using this method. That said, to use 'em, you basically just whip up an egg white until you've got something resembling meringue, break that up into little bits, and toss it into the must. If more than roughly a third of your fermentable sugars are coming from fruit or barley malt, you won't need to worry about yeast nutrients, since these ingredients contain the things yeast will need.
For my must I use .25 tsp yeast nutrient and .25 tsp yeast enegizer per gallon of must. I find that the enegizer adds some of the trace stuff that mead needs and the nutrient leaves out. I tried to get the poeple at the brew shop to tell me what exactlly is in it but they wouldn't say. As far as the sulfite 1 tab per gallon unless your fruit is of questionable charater then 1.5 MAX no more and you have to qait at least 24 hr before pitching or you will stunn your yeast. And be aware that some yeasts to not put up with sulfite well at all.
Good yeast nutrition is more important when you are making traditional style mead than when making a fruit mead. If you can access the Brewery (URL= http://alpha.rollanet.org) you will find a great deal of additional information and recipes. The Brewery also has links to the MLD archives and the Mead lovers FAQ.
For nutrients I used something that I had around anyway - dry malt extract. I used 1/4 of a cup in a 2.5 gallon batch of blackberry mead. The results were very favorable; fermentation took off right away and was completed fairly quickly
ps. this was light, unhopped dry malt extract!
As for yeast nutrient, yes, there`s a difference between generic yeast nutrient and mead yeast nutrient. Most of the the yeasts that we use to make mead have historically been used to ferment grapes, not honey. These yeasts require nutrients that (usually) occur naturally in grapes, but do not occur in the same quantities in honey. Do you absolutely have to use a nutrient blend that is formulated specifically for mead? No, but you may get better results if you do.
Acid blend is a blend of several different sources of acidity, usually malic, citric and tartaric acid. It is generally available at local homebrew stores and is often used to perk up a wine or cider. The typical acid level of a must is between 0.55 and 0.65 percent acid. Less than that can yield a drink that is flabby. Not every must will have an acid level in that range, so acid blend is used to increase the acidity. Your local homebrew store can sell you an acid testing kit for around $7.
Acid measurements in cider and winemaking are given "as tartaric". This means that the amount of acid is reported as if it were all tartaric acid. "0.6 percent acid" is more properly stated as "0.6 percent acid as tartaric".
Some wine and cider recipes simply call for a measured amount of acid blend. Some of the posted mead recipes have done this. But in making wine acid testing is always a good idea because different fruits contain different amounts of acid. And even different varieties of the same fruit can yield musts of widely varying acidity.
I have never made a mead, but judging from the recent posts it seems that acid blend is put to use in mead making. Is there a generally accepted range of acidity for meads?
Yeasts cannot suddenly change their metabolism to adapt to more complex sugars than they normally consume. Their ability to ferment specific sugars is determined genetically. Simply providing dextrins, etc. in a malt based culture medium will not make your yeast evolve in the starter. The advantage to a malt starter is the nutrients already present in the medium. You don't have to fuss with selecting appropriate nutrients and guestimating the right quantity. The yeast will do very well with the other nutrient components in the malt. Honey is poor in nutrients, being mostly sugars, so it does not make a good culture medium as-is.
On the other hand, it seems that acclimating the yeast to the target environment is helpful. I think this has more to do with avoiding shock by a sudden change in osmotic pressure (high SG), alcohol, or temperature. I don't know if there is any significant time delay in changing metabolic pathways for utilizing different sugars. I doubt it's very long considering the life span and reproductive time of yeast. Perhaps there is no basis for the claims that you should use culture media similar in composition to the wort or must that you want to ferment.
If you're concerned about dumping the `mini batch of beer' from the malt based starter into your mead: slowly chill the starter so the yeast falls out, pour off most of the liquid, and pitch the yeast sediment from the starter.
Honey by itself is low in some of the nutrients that yeast need to reproduce and quickly ferment out the mead must. Fermentation times can be measured in months as the yeast slowly trickles along. Mead makers can add a nutrient to help the yeast. Usually, the nutrient is added when the must is prepared.
There are several kinds of nutrients. Most winemaking shops will sell various salts designed for grape musts. While this is helpful for mead, too much can leave an astringent metallic flavor that will take months or years in the bottle to age out. Yeast extract, pulverized yeast, is also available. Dead yeast are exploded ultrasonically or in a centrifuge, and sold as a powder. Yeast extract will not leave the same metallic flavors as nutrients, but may be more difficult to find. It is not possible to make your own yeast extract at home.
Be sure not to get excessive yeast nutrient in; it will leave a taste that takes a long time to age out.
The pH of the meads should be low, 3.8-4.2 in order for a good ferment to take place.
During fermentation, the yeast puts out acid. If the pH of the mead drops too low (too acid), the yeast slows down and/or stops. He adds calcium carbonate (precipitated chalk) to keep the pH in the 3.7-4.0 range.
I highly recommend doing a secondary ferment for any fruit.
Last summer, I made two 5 gallon batches with fresh ripe local strawberries (10# apiece). During the ferment, they smelled wonderful! Unfortunately, that wonderful smell was the strawberry essence blowing off with the CO2! The result was very disappointing. It had the *taste* of strawberries, but almost no *aroma*, which is to say that one could barely tell that it was strawberry mead.
We usually taste and smell simultaneously, so we don't realize that most of what we "taste" is really the taste plus the aroma, with the *aroma* making up the majority of the "taste" of fruits. Strawberrys without aroma don't "taste" like anything much at all!
So now I ferment the honey alone in a 5 U.S. gallon (19 liter) carboy, with little enough honey so that the yeast doesn't die, and the mead ferments dry. In my case, that is 12# of honey (4 U.S. quarts) with Lalvin K1V yeast. When it is finished, I put my fruit into the bottom of a 6 U.S gallon (23 liter) carboy. I stir up the sediment in the plain honey mead to get the yeast back into suspension. Then I siphon the dry mead along with all of the yeast into the 6 U.S. gallon carboy on top of the fruit. Leave head space for the secondary ferment. There will be a short (one week) secondary ferment. When it is complete, rack off of the fruit back into the 5 U.S. gallon carboy (fruit rack). While avoiding siphoning the fruit, I cannot really also avoid the yeast, so there will be another rack to get off of the yeast (yeast rack). You can finish as usual. I personally clarify with bentonite, so I can bottle a fruit mead 6-8 weeks from yeast pitching. Use yeast nutrient for a fast dry ferment.
All the beer brewing "experts" say that not racking off the trub leads to off flavors.
As for contamination, I don't worry to much about it due to the high alcohol percentage usually attained with mead.
I have one plastic bucket that I use for doing melomels. I always store it with a pickling solution of 1 tblsp. of bleach and 7 gallons of water. That way it remains in a sanitary environment. I read that on the HBD along time ago.
Mead is very sensitive to oxidation during racking, so siphon quietly, don't splash it around. Head space in the carboy should not matter much.
Water (or any other liquid) will try and achieve a level surface. Another way of stating this is that water flows downhill. The goal of siphoning is to give the liquid a path from one container to another. Since it has to flow briefly uphill, the way to do this is to have a closed tube full of water, and then the weight of the liquid on the downhill side of the tube will be greater than the weight on the uphill side, and gravity will do it's thing. This is an over-simplification, but it holds until the uphill side gets into many feet of height. If you want a much more complete description of the physics involved, Halliday & Resnick, which was my college physics textbook has one, as does Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy of Homebrewing.
What you want to do is achieve a tube full of liquid leading from the higher, full container to the lower, empty container. There are a few ways to do this. The easiest method I've found is to take your siphon tube, and fill it with water (just don't empty it out when you rinse it the final time after sanitising it). It doesn't have to be absolutely full, but having the water within a couple inches of each end will be best. You hold both ends of the tube at about the same height, and lower one of them into the full container, and once it's in the liquid, lower the other one to the empty container. Your mead will start flowing.
The other method is the tried and true "sucking" method. What you do is place one end of the tubing in the full container, bend down to the empty container, and suck on the lower end of the tube until the mead starts to flow.
In both cases, there are two things to watch out for. One is to have the lower end of the siphon tube close enough to the bottom of the container you're siphoning to that the mead doesn't spash around and get aerated, which can give your brew an oxidised flavour (tastes like wet cardboard. Bleh). The other is to keep the upper end of the tube below any floaties in the liquid you're siphoning, and above any sinkies sitting on the bottom. Each method has it's pluses and minuses. Working with a siphon tube full of liquid can be a little tricky your first few tries, and even after you've mastered the technique, you're liable to spill a little. You also dilute your mead a little with the water you have in the tube. Sucking on the tube adds the possibility that you'll get some bacteria from your mouth into your mead. The dilution isn't a big deal, unless you're working with a very small batch. When you're bottling, the dilution means that your first bottle goes to waste. As for infection from the bacteria in your mouth, you can always sterilise your mouth briefly with a little firewater. I'm partial to Wild Turkey or Rumpelminze.
One last thing that can cause problems for you is that if the liquid you're siphoning has a lot of dissolved gas in it (carbon dioxide in a carbonated liquid, for example), that gas will tend to come out of solution at the top of the siphon-tube. The only real way to solve this problem is to make the uphill leg of the tube shorter by tipping the upper container. If the amount of gas in the tube gets to be too much, the siphon will stop, and you'll need to restart it. No big worry, but it's a hassle. The point is, try not to have to siphon carbonated liquids, and if you do, keep the uphill leg of the siphon as short as possible.
Again, I've never done this, but I recall having read in a book the recommendation to add honey slowly over the course of the ferment, both to facilitate higher finishing alcohol and to avoid stuck fermentations. One of the recipes called for 0.5 lb/ gallon to start, and then .25/gal added each time the fermentation stopped. This is supposed to be gentler on the yeast, and a good way to judge when you really have topped out. Presumably, this method could be adapted for making a sweet sparkling mead. Maybe. Maybe not. Any comments? I haven't done any real research on this technique, but it reminds me of my first batch of mead. We had no recipe, and didn't really know how much honey to add to 10 gallons of water, so we added 10 pounds and then added more each time the fermentation stopped, just like you're suggesting. It turned out to be a very strong, very tasty batch (unfortunately, it didn't last long at all). We had no problems at all with stuck fermentation, despite the fact we didn't really know what we were doing. I haven't been able to make another batch that strong since, though i confess i haven't tried too hard (it was REALLY strong). I'd say it's worth trying if you want to make an especially strong drink, and i'm going to test your idea on my next batch, in a week or so.
My normal procedure is to feed my meads with honey; however, I start out at 2 pounds per gallon. Then when the fermentation slows down, but before it stops, I add 0.5 lbs/gal every few days. How much I add in total depends upon what yeast I am using and how sweet I want the mead to be. If my carboy get too full, I bottle some of the mead. If I accidentally let the mead stop fermenting, I rack it before adding more honey. Unless it is close to its alcohol tolerance limit, the mead will start fermenting again. The last additions, when I am fine tuning the sweetness, can be small. I usually use potassium benzoate when it is where I want it.
If I were to try to make a sweet sparkling mead (but why make soda pop?), I would do it this way:
You get the carbonation from bottle refermentation in step 2. You get the sweetness from the dosage. You prevent further fermentation by removing most of the yeast, and by stabilizing the remaining yeast with sorbate.
A couple of ways to make sweet meads:
In general, I've gone for #1 -- use more honey and a medium attenuative yeast like Montrachet. Stabilizer sometimes leaves noticible flavors of sulfur that take a while to age out. Also, #1 and #4 are the only ways to get a sweet sparkling mead by bottling before fermentation is done. But you have to know where it will finish or you'll get glass grenades (not recommended unless you are VERY sure of the FG).
Regarding Low Fermentation Tempa. I have always fermented at cellar temperatures- 60-66 degrees F. and have never noticed at any age the hot alchol characteristic that others mention. I don't know if they are related.
Temperature: Papazian, in TNCJOHB, tells you to use 21-26 degrees C (70-78F), and references LC Gayre. Papazian, in Gayre's book Brewing Mead/Wassail! In Mazers Of Mead, tells us to use 18-24C (65-75F). Morse, in Making Mead (Honey Wine) tells us to use 18-19C (65-68F). They all agree that changes in temperature are more detrimental than the 'wrong' temperature. Acton and Duncan in Making Mead tell us to start at 26C, drop to 18C during most of the fermentation, and complete at 27C, but also tells us that 21-24C (70-75F) is satisfactory. We've got a temperature controlled waterbath made from trash cans to keep things at a constant temperature using an aquarium heater and airlift water circulator, but the only temperature we've tried so far is 22.6C. In general, it appears that higher temperatures will cause faster fermentation, but may cause Off Flavors (TM). Note that these temperatures are quite warm, especially compared to basements and beer fermenting, so mead has a reputation for taking years to ferment. Reasonable times are on the order of 10 to 20 days. Our current batch used a lot of honey (10 lbs in 3 gallons) and is almost done at 4 weeks. Aging appears to work best at temperatures below about 60F, and though it's difficult to leave it alone, aging for a year appears to be A Good Thing.
Mead is classified not by the kind of honey that it is made of, but by what else may have been added to it for flavoring.
Depending on the initial amount of honey, and how attenuative the yeast is, the final mead may be dry or sweet. A dry mead may also be called a sack.
There are a number of yeasts you can use to make mead. I've used various champagne yeasts a lot, as I don't make my meads incredibly strong, and I like a dry, sparkling mead. The drawback of champagne yeast is that it's not too tolerant to very high original gravities, and it is very tolerant to high alcohol content. This means that it will start very slow if you're brewing a high-gravity mead, but it will ferment out almost all the sugar available. If you're brewing high-gravity meads, I'd suggest starting with either a wine or mead yeast, and if you like a dry, strong mead, finishing it with champagne yeast. If you like a sweeter mead, you can use a mead or a wine yeast right from the beginning.
Some yeasts that I've had good results with, or have heard recommended by others, are Lalvin K1V, which is a fast starting, intermediate finishing wine yeast; Flor Sherry yeast, for a sweet finish (or you could use more honey with the Lalvin K1V); and Prise de Mousse, which is similar to champagne yeasts in finish. I've heard of people having good results with Vierka mead yeast, but I've had mixed results. I've also tried YeastLab Dry Mead yeast, which worked nicely. I think the problems I've seen with the Vierka may have been due to older yeast. As mead continues to increase in popularity with homebrewers, more new varieties should become available, and they'll be fresh more often.
Be aware that this list is far from complete, and there are probably many other suitable yeasts out there. For lower gravity meads, I've used Edme ale yeast with good results, and it's becoming a favourite of mine. As long as you don't make the mead with such a high starting gravity that the yeast never get a good start, results are pretty good, and slightly higher-than-normal temperatures don't bother ale yeasts as much as they do other strains. An added benefit is that the mead doesn't need as much ageing as mead made with wine or champagne yeasts do, and you can enjoy it earlier.
In short, don't be afraid to try something new, but make sure you check the expiration dates. Some mead yeasts sell slow enough that keeping fresh stock in a homebrew store is a challenge. You may also want to check out the Zymurgy special issue on yeast and beer, or the Summer 1994 issue, which has a table listing yeasts and their characteristics. They describe a large number of yeasts, many of which will work well for mead-making.
You should take your yeast to it highest alcohol levels it has to struggle to keep from dieing from alcohol poisoning. I think 12% is a very respectable level for mead.
Mead is more a wine than beer, with a final alcohol level anywhere between 12 and 18 percent. Wine yeasts, which have a higher alcohol tolerance, will ferment faster, or more completely than ale or lager yeast. A partial list of some of the popular yeasts are:
This list is by no means exhaustive. Each yeasts will impart its own unique characteristic to the mead. Champagne ferments out very dry with small bubbles, and has a high alcohol tolerance. Epernay has a fruity bouquet. Montrachet, Prise De Mousse and Tokay are good general purpose wine yeasts. Some yeasts will produce detectable levels of phenols (the throat burning part of cough medicine), but this ages out in bottle conditioning.
There is a mead yeast (Werker) which has been reported to be quite good. It makes a very sweet and very lightly bubbly mead (it works to keep the sweetness of the honey). Be aware that the Werker yeast starts slowly, so be extra careful about cleaning your equipment and pasteurizing the must so that the must does not get infected before the yeast has a strong foothold.
Yeast: Papazian calls for champagne yeast or Pris de Mousse. Papazian in Gayre mentions wine or champagne yeast. Morse tells us that Brother Adam, the famous beekeeper of Buckfast Abbey in England uses Maury, Madeira, or Malaga wine yeasts, and suggests yeasts used in making "sauterne-type wines", champagne yeast, or white wine yeasts. Acton/Duncan tell us that others reccomend Maury (but they don't), Tokay (which ferments at 35C! (95F)), and they recommend sedimentary white wine yeasts (Sauternes, Bordeaux, Stienberg, Bernkastler, Zeiltinger, Champagne, Liebfroumilch, Graves, General Purpose), but especially Steinberg and Sauternes. We've had good results with Red Star (yes, I know their beer yeasts are supposedly atrocious) Pris de Mousse, it's pretty constant in activity from start to end, and drops off quickly when complete. We've had mediocre results with Red Star champagne yeast, it was very active at the start and tapered off over a long period of time. Our current batch is fermenting with a Vintner's Choice (TM) liquid Champagne yeast (3021), which slept for over 24 hours, exploded into action for a day, and has been tapering off ever since. I'm not too impressed, and unless it turns out to make a drastic improvement in taste, I think we'll go back to Red Star Pris de Mousse.
With both clove-like phenolics and alcohol spice, the Belgian will tell you right away that it's no ordinary yeast. Tartness often develops over time. Ferment warm or with inadequate aeration and you're likely to get a bubblegum-like note. Intended for abbey beers, and works very well for that.
Some yeast strains are more active and vigorous than others. Lager strains in particular do not show as much activity on the surface as many of the Ale strains. We provide an adequate quantity of yeast to complete fermen- tation with varying amounts of lag time depending on strain, freshness, handling, and temperature. If you find it too slow, make a starter as recommended on the package. In any event, a closed fermenter with an airlock is recommended.
The slow onset of visible signs of fermentation can be improved by starting fermentation at 75 deg. F (24 deg. C) until activity is evident, then moving to your desired fermentation temperature. A few degrees does make a significant difference without adversely affecting flavor.
Apparent attenuation of yeast normally ranges from 67-77%. The attenuation is determined by the composition of the wort or juice and the yeast strain used. Each yeast strain ferments different sugars to varying degrees, resulting in higher or lower final gravities. This will affect the resid- ual sweetness and body.
All brewing yeast flocculate. The degree and type of flocculation varies for different yeast. Some strains clump into very lary flocculate. Some floc very little into a more granular consistency. Most yeast strains clump and flocculate to a moderate degree.
Typical pH range for yeast fermentations begins at about 5.1 and optimally 4.8. During the course of fermentation the pH reduces to typically 3.9- 4.1 and as low as 3.1 in some wines.
The alcohol tolerance for most brewing yeast is as least to 8%. Barley wines to 12% can be produced by most Ale strains. Pitching rates need to be increased proportionally to higher gravities. Alternately, Champagne and Wine yeast can be used for high gravities sometimes reaching alcohols to 18%.
Use unblended honey when making mead, and raw honey if at all possible. Thus, unless there is someone with an apiary in your neighbourhood, the best place to get honey is at a health food store or roadside stand. If the honey has bits of wax, or other particulate matter in it, that can be strained out before cooking. Do NOT, under *any* circumstances, use "blended to death" honeys, like "SueBee". Remember: the taste and character of the honey you use will be the principal determinants of the taste and character of your mead.
Please note that meads don't need any malt added, for *any* reason. Apart from altering the flavour and character, there are quite enough fermentables present already, thank you! :-)
Use a white wine yeast in brewing mead; "Montrechet" is recommended. *Don't* use ale or lager yeast; the end result will most likely be exploding bottles!
Most mead recipes call for the addition of some citrus juice or tea (tannin). This is important, as it balances the sweetness, preventing it from becoming cloying. This is the same reason caffeine is added to many sodas.
The molecular structures of the sugars involved in meads are different from those found in brews. Thus, meads can take anywhere from a few weeks or months to several years to age properly. And, they won't taste very good if one isn't patient; the time is necessary.
When adding honey to hot or boiling water, STIR CONSTANTLY!! Otherwise, the honey will go straight to the bottom of the pot, where it will caramelise, scorch, and otherwise ruin the whole thing. KEEP STIRRING, until the honey is *completely* dissolved.
You will notice, in mead recipes, instructions to skim off any scum that forms as the mead heats up. This is very important, as that scum is the equivalent of the krausen in beer. Apart from the nasties in it that can contribute to hangovers, there are nasties in the scum that can adversely affect the flavour and appearance of the finished mead.
The length of time mead is allowed to ferment is the other principal factor in determining not only the final alcoholic content, but how dry _vs._ how sweet your mead will be. Remember: mead is not necessarily a sweet drink! Also, meads can be sparkling, or still. It's all a matter of individual preference.
A word of warning about mead hangovers: they are the stuff of legend-- and rightly so! The combination of high alcohol content (relatively speaking) and high sugar content are perfect for the induction of the Ultimate Hangover. One author I've read on meads, in an attempt to convey to the reader the potential severity of a mead hangover, referred to the Biblical story of Judith and the Holofernes. The author pointed out that Judith saw to it that the Holofernes got thoroughly drunk on mead, waited until they had slept awhile, and then had the Hebrew army attack-- beating on their shields! As the author put it: "What else could the Holofernes do but throw down their arms and accept slaughter with gratitude?"
Following the thread on sweet sparkling meads. Why not try Lactose. Beer brewers use it to make sweet stouts. The Lactose adds sweetness, but will not ferment.
1: Read from the top down to find out how many "X" units there are in "Y". For example, to find out how many cups there are in a barrel, find the "cups" column, and read down until you reach the "barrels" row, and you'll find that there are 496 cups in a barrel.
2: To convert back and forth between units, "divide down and multiply across". Find the number at the intersection of the row and column of the two units you're interested in. If you're reading down a column to get to that number, you'll have to divide by that number to convert to the other unit. If you find yourself reading across, you'll have to multiply.
For example, to convert from cups to barrels, you'll be reading down the cups column to get to barrels, so take the number of cups you have and divide by 496 to get barrels. To convert from barrels to cups, read from barrels across to cups, and multiply the number of barrels by 496 to get cups.
*Note* The units are listed in the leftmost column, and their abbreviations are listed across the top row of each table.
Liquid (Volume) Measure Equivalents:
U.S. Measures: tsp. tbl fl.oz. c pt qt gal bbl.
teaspoon
tablespoons 3
fluid ounces 6 2
cups 48 16 8
pints 96 32 16 2
quarts 192 64 32 4 2
gallons 768 256 128 16 8 4
barrels 23808 7936 3968 496 248 124 31
Metric: ml cl dl l dal hl
milliliters
centiliters 10
deciliters 100 10
liters 1000 100 10
dekaliters 10000 1000 100 10
hectoliters 100000 10000 1000 100 10
*Note* A cubic centimeter (cc) is the same as 1 milliliter (ml).
U.S. / Metric Conversions:
ml cl dl l dal hl
teaspoon 4.93 0.49 0.05 0.005 0.0005 0.00005
tablespoons 14.79 1.48 0.15 0.01 0.001 0.0001
fluid ounces 29.57 2.96 0.30 0.03 0.003 0.0003
cups 236.59 23.66 2.37 0.24 0.02 0.002
pints 473.18 47.32 4.73 0.47 0.05 0.005
quarts 946.35 94.64 9.46 0.95 0.09 0.009
gallons 3785.41 378.54 37.85 3.79 0.38 0.03
barrels 117377.71 11737.77 1173.78 117.38 11.74 1.17
quarts / 1.057 = liters
gallons x 3.7854 = liters
U.S. / English Conversions:
U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S.
tsp. tbl. cup pint gal.
Eng. teaspoon 1.2500 0.417 0.026 0.013 0.002
Eng. tablespoon 3.7500 1.250 0.078 0.039 0.005
Eng. cup ("gill") 57.600 19.20 1.200 0.600 0.075
Eng. pint 115.20 38.40 2.400 1.200 0.150
Eng. gallon 932.60 307.2 19.20 9.600 1.200
Dry Measure Equivalents:
U.S. Measures: pt qt peck
pint
quart 2
peck 16 8
bushel 64 32 4
Weight Measure Equivalents:
U.S. Measures: drams oz. lb.
ounces 16
pounds 256 16
Metric: mg g kg
milligrams
grams 1000
kilograms 1000000 1000
U.S. / Metric Conversions:
ounces pounds
grams 0.03527 0.0022
kilograms 35.2736 2.2046
kilograms x 2.2046 = pounds
pounds / 2.2046 = kilograms
U.S. / English Conversions:
U.S. U.S.
ounces pounds
Eng. ounces 1 0.063
Eng. pounds 16 1
Temperature Conversions:
Degrees Centigrade = 5/9 x (Degrees Fahrenheit - 32)
Degrees Fahrenheit = (Degrees Centigrade x 9/5) + 32
Miscellaneous Factoids:
A gallon of honey weighs about 12 pounds.
Water weighs 8.3454 pounds per gallon (U.S. units).
Pasteurization: hold at 160 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 - 30 minutes.
U.S. standard beer bottles: 12 fl. oz.
U.S. large beer bottles: 22 fl. oz.
Grolsch & Jubel swing-tops: 1 pint (16 fl. oz.)
Fischer swing-tops: large: 22 fl. oz.
small: 11.5 fl. oz
5-gallons: 640 fl. oz.
1 gallon: 128 fl. oz.
Formula to Compute Target Starting Gravity:
V x (Gs - 1)
h = ---------------
(Gh - 1)
where:
h = the total volume of honey required to achieve the desired starting
gravity,
V = the total final volume (5 for a 5-gallon batch, etc.),
Gs = desired starting gravity,
Gh = the specific gravity of your sweetener (honey's is 1.445)
For example:
If you wanted a 5 gallon batch with a starting gravity of 1.120, the
formula would look like:
h = 5 gallons x (1.120 - 1) / (1.445 - 1)
= (5 x 0.12) / (0.445) = 0.60 / 0.445 = 1.35 gallons
To get the required amount of honey in pints, just substitute 40 pints
for the 5 gallons
Gs = starting gravity
V = total volume
Gh = SG of honey
h = volume of honey
then
h = V * (Gs - 1) / (Gh - 1) (Amount of honey to hit Gs.)
and
Gs = (h * (Gh - 1)) + 1 / V (Gs for amount of honey.)
also
Alc%vol = (Gs - 1) * 130.8 (According to Fred Eckhardt.)
Specific Gravity Potential Percent Alcohol by Volume
----------------------------------------------------
S. G. 0.000 0.001 0.002 0.003 0.004 0.005 0.006 0.007 0.008 0.009
- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----
1.000 0.0% 0.1% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 0.8% 0.9% 1.0% 1.2%
1.010 1.3% 1.4% 1.6% 1.7% 1.8% 2.0% 2.1% 2.2% 2.4% 2.5%
1.020 2.6% 2.7% 2.9% 3.0% 3.1% 3.3% 3.4% 3.5% 3.7% 3.8%
1.030 3.9% 4.0% 4.2% 4.3% 4.4% 4.6% 4.7% 4.8% 5.0% 5.1%
1.040 5.2% 5.4% 5.5% 5.6% 5.8% 5.9% 6.0% 6.1% 6.3% 6.4%
1.050 6.5% 6.7% 6.8% 6.9% 7.1% 7.2% 7.3% 7.4% 7.6% 7.7%
1.060 7.8% 8.0% 8.1% 8.2% 8.4% 8.5% 8.6% 8.8% 8.9% 9.0%
1.070 9.2% 9.3% 9.4% 9.5% 9.7% 9.8% 9.9% 10.1% 10.2% 10.3%
1.080 10.5% 10.6% 10.7% 10.8% 11.0% 11.1% 11.2% 11.4% 11.5% 11.6%
1.090 11.8% 11.9% 12.0% 12.2% 12.3% 12.4% 12.6% 12.7% 12.8% 12.9%
1.100 13.1% 13.2% 13.3% 13.5% 13.6% 13.7% 13.9% 14.0% 14.1% 14.2%
1.110 14.4% 14.5% 14.6% 14.8% 14.9% 15.0% 15.2% 15.3% 15.4% 15.6%
1.120 15.7% 15.8% 16.0% 16.1% 16.2% 16.3% 16.5% 16.6% 16.7% 16.9%
1.130 17.0% 17.1% 17.3% 17.4% 17.5% 17.6% 17.8% 17.9% 18.0% 18.2%
1.140 18.3% 18.4% 18.6% 18.7% 18.8% 19.0% 19.1% 19.2% 19.4% 19.5%
1.150 19.6% 19.8% 19.9% 20.0% 20.1% 20.3% 20.4% 20.5% 20.7% 20.8%