Dave's Meads

[davewaldo]

Hi everyone,

I had a great time out at Chappo's today brewing and sampling several peoples beers. Thanks guys! I also shared a couple of my meads with everyone. They seemed to be well received and I was asked to post some of the details and recipes. So here goes....

I don't intend this to be a indepth study in mead making, or to say that my way is the only way. Hopefully this will be a quick intro to making mead using contemporary techniques (staggered nutrient additions and aerating till the 1/3 sugar break).

The sweet mead from today was a simple Organge blossom honey mead using US05 yeast. The Dry mead (which most prefered) used Eucalyptus honey and Lalvin D47 wine yeast (a great yeast for simple pale meads).

Firstly a few things to note about making mead. Mead takes time, you need patience. Making mead in a modern way such as I prefer differs in many ways from brewing beer. And like making good wine or beer you need good raw ingredients if you want good mead. This usually means finding nice unprocessed honey which has good flavour and aroma properties to start with.

I will post my recipe notes here now and explain things underneath:

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Sweet Mead:

• 1.5kg Orange Blossom Honey (Beeutiful Honey Brand - South Australia)
• FermaidK or Craftbrewer Yeast Nutrient
• Batch Made to 4L

Warm Honey in a water bath in sink. Prepare 3L of warm water inside Carboy at using filtered water. Add honey and stir well to ensure thoroughly mixed and aerated. Cool carboy and mixture.

Re-hydrate yeast in Go-Ferm as recommended. If you don't have Go-Ferm just use water. Nutrients when re-hydrating are bad as they contain DAP which can damage re-hydrating yeast cells. Use yeast hulls can be good.

Wait until must is around 20C then pitch yeast. Mix in thoroughly and aerate some more. Ferment at 18-19C

Add 1g (1/4 teaspoon) of Nutrient after lag phase

Starting Gravity: 1.120

Aerate everyday until 1/3 sugar break. Once 1/3 sugar break is reached add another 1g Nutrient and aerate for the last time.
Continue to swirl the carboy to keep yeast in suspension everyday or every other day.

Fermentation should cease within a week or two (mine finished very sweet at 1.045), then cold crash to help the yeast fall out then rack to a fresh carboy for ageing. If little yeast has been brought across no more racking should be necessary. The mead will clear and then can be aged and bottled. The mead should be left to age in bulk for as long as possible. I try to leave for 6 months at least before bottling. the mead should be clear enough to read newspaper through the carboy.

I find this mead is good to drink as young as 2 months, but it really gets very good after 6 months and is scary how un-alcoholic it tastes after a year.


Dry Mead

Ingredients:

• 1.7kg Honey
• Water to 4.5L
• Lalvin D47 Yeast
• Fermaid K 2g per 4L Total amount
• GoFerm

Essentially the same process as above. However more honey is used as the wine yeast has a higher alc tolerance.

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So how do you plan a mead? My thought process often goes like this...

Do I want it sweet or dry? If I want sweet I need to include enough honey so that when the yeast stops at its alc tolerance there is still sugar remaining. If I want dry I just ensure the sugar level is lower than the yeast's alc tolerance.

EG: I want a slightly sweet / off dry mead over 14% alc. So I want it to finish around 1.010. I want to use D47 which has an alc tolerance of 14%. A SG of 1.103 will give me 14% alc when it goes down to 1.000 so I would want 1.113 (plus 10 points) as a starting gravity. Make sense? I would usually round up a bit as some yeasts can go beyond their stated alc tollerance.

If I want dry I could choose any alcohol percentage I want less than 14% and aim for than in the finished mead.

All this info is to make plain simple mead, those which just have honey, water and yeast. Once you understand these principles you can go crazy and start adding fruit, spices, grain...... I also manage must PH levels during fermentation and lots of other crazy things. But following these steps should produce a nice clean mead.

Bring on the questions!!!!

But first here are some links:

A calculator to determine honey/ mead must gravities: Mead Calculator

Excellent info from Brewer Pete and Airgread (good people to listen to) about managing Mead fermentation: Thread 1 Thread 2 More info from others

There is lots of info already on this site so do a search but also visit the gotmead website and have a read, especially there newbees sections.

Thats enough for now, my head hurts....

 

[InCider]

thanks Dave - must give mead a try soon... need to find some honey from a local beekeeper. Is that OK to use?

 

[davewaldo]

I think local honey is great. Some honeys will make great mead others wont be so good. The americans seem to think Eucalyptus honey doesn't make good mead, but my best mead has been Eucalyptus honey from a local beekeeper. Don't worry if there are some lumps or bee bits in the honey, it just shows its good and unadulterated. I usually just pour my honey through a fine metal sieve to remove the bits.

 

[pdilley]

Great post Dave,

Both are good mead yeasts in there.

I think that everyone can learn from this is your explanation that sweet mead or dry mead is a recipe formulation, and NOT a yeast! Much to the chagrin of marketers and yeast companies everywhere there is no such thing as "dry mead yeast or sweet mead yeast".

You have it spot on that you choose your yeast based on desired alcohol and work around that in recipe formulation to leave residual sugars for a sweeter mead or less residual for a drier mead.

Fermaid can be very hard to find so I use Bintani Yeast Nutrient mixture (If you are out of luck finding either give Collin at Brew Your Own At Home in Kambah, ACT a call as he stocks it regularly.) GoFerm is another hard to find so I do plain water rehydration method.

Keep brewing Meads and spreading the love of them!


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[chappo1970]

Dave,
i must once again thankyou for sharing those precious meads (no jab yeah?). Since the first time we brewed I do enjoy seeing brewers surprised faces when they try one of your meads. SENSATIONAL! :icon_cheers: :icon_cheers:

 

[davewaldo]

Cheers Chappo, you're far too kind! I can't wait to collaborate on a few meads with you!

Thanks Pete, in mead making there sure are a few processes which are very different (almost opposite) to the beer brewing process. Forums like this one and gotmead help a lot to explain these differences when there are people like yourself committed to sharing their knowledge. Cheers!

As for FermaidK.... I think you are right Pete, the Bintani Nutrient is the closest we can get in Australia. I know that the nutrient sold on the Craftbrewer site is the Bintani nutrient, so its probably the best, and easiest to acquire for mead making. The reason its better than normal nutrient (in basic terms) is that it contains yeast extract as well as the DAP and minerals. Common nutrient just looks like salts, whereas the Bintani nutrient looks much like yeast.

Anyways... make mead! Its easy once you get your head around it, and its perfect for small batch brewing! Its also good for SWMBO

 

[Verbyla]

These meads sound really well balanced from what you've said! I'll definity be trying these two for my next meads. Hopefully i'll get them underway in the next few weeks.

 

[Cannibal Smurf]

+1, those meads rocked Dave. Loved 'em. Will be planning a mead in the not too distant future.. esp since I can't drink it for a year.

 

[davewaldo]

Thanks guys, They are nothing special really, just nice simple mead. I'm really enjoying playing with oak and fruits now I'm hoping my latest meads will be a little more "special".

 

[chappo1970]

...fruits now

I think I have close to 10kg of mullberries with your name on them Dave. BTW thanks for sharing those fantastic meads this weekend once again a real treat and highlight.

Chap Chap

 

[davewaldo]

Thanks Chappo, I do enjoy sharing my Meads. Its fun to give someone a drink which they have no idea what to expect, or may have had bad mead. And usually get a positive response. Its also fun to show how different mead can be, sweet, dry, oaked with fruit. I think it is mind opening for a lot of people, and its fun to be a part of...

As for those mulberries... :icon_drool2: I can see one mega Morat on the cards! Half oaked half nude (?)

Have you had any luck finding 10L glass carboys?

 

[Gavo]

Thanks for posting that info Dave, both those Meads were great. I will have a go at one probably after the worst of Summer is over out here.

Gavo

 

[chappo1970]

Thanks Chappo, I do enjoy sharing my Meads. Its fun to give someone a drink which they have no idea what to expect, or may have had bad mead. And usually get a positive response. Its also fun to show how different mead can be, sweet, dry, oaked with fruit. I think it is mind opening for a lot of people, and its fun to be a part of...

As for those mulberries... :icon_drool2: I can see one mega Morat on the cards! Half oaked half nude (?)

Have you had any luck finding 10L glass carboys?

I found one place on Ipswich rd South of the Gabba. I haven't bought them yet. Bugger to get to but I reckon he carries some stuff that would interest you.

Chap

 

[davewaldo]

Thanks Gavo, I prefer to make meads in the cooler months too. That way they are ageing at the coolest temp possible.

Chappo, what place is this that you've found? Do you want me to pick up the carboys for you? I pass nearby everyday.

 

[chappo1970]

Thanks Dave for the kind offer but I like to do to the umming and arrrghing before buying. But wouldn't mind tagging along one if possible?

Chap Chap

 

[davewaldo]

cool no worries