I Need Help From Mead Makers

[barls]

who here also makes meads in any of their forms?
im currently brewing a cyser and was think of doing an raspberry cyser as well. my current batch is only a small 5L batch and i was thinking of doing the same size again. heres the intended recipe
2.4L of apple juice
2.4L of apple and pear juice
500g of honey type yet to be decided
600g of raspberries( the frozen type) im thinking 500g in the primary and the rest in the secondary after a moth or more
and the wine yeast from the other cyser repitched along with some yeast nutrient

id like some suggestions as to how would be the best way of making this one happen. ie prepping the berries and mixing, whether or not i have to boil or not. i really have no idea on this as im new to brewing in this section, beer i have some idea this im learning fast but its a big curve. so any help would be appreciated

 

[GMK]

i ahve made meads, cysers and krieks.
Pm me and i will give you my phone number - much easier to discuss tahn to do all that typing.

 

[barls]

cheers kenny i already have your number from the last time i spoke to you. ill give you a ring on wednesday night mate

 

[Borret]

who here also makes meads in any of their forms?
im currently brewing a cyser and was think of doing an raspberry cyser as well. my current batch is only a small 5L batch and i was thinking of doing the same size again. heres the intended recipe
2.4L of apple juice
2.4L of apple and pear juice
500g of honey type yet to be decided
600g of raspberries( the frozen type) im thinking 500g in the primary and the rest in the secondary after a moth or more
and the wine yeast from the other cyser repitched along with some yeast nutrient

id like some suggestions as to how would be the best way of making this one happen. ie prepping the berries and mixing, whether or not i have to boil or not. i really have no idea on this as im new to brewing in this section, beer i have some idea this im learning fast but its a big curve. so any help would be appreciated

[post="112772"][/post]​

Although I can't offer any advice, I too pitched the yeast into my first mead this evening. So all the best with it mate. I know there are others here that pose only as 'beer guys' that can actually give you some mead pointers as they did me.

Brent

 

[barls]

cheers borret my first one is now been going about a month and i transfered it to a secondary the other day and then put the yeast in a jar and stored it in my beer fridge which has my pilsner that im brewing at the moment

 

[berapnopod]

I suggest just chucking the raspberries in the secondary. In the primary, you might lose some of the subtle aromas as the CO2 gas scrubs them out. Your recipe looks pretty good, although I would prefer more honey than that. More like a kilo. But depends on how strong you want it.

Double check that the juice you will use does not have any preservatives. Because preservatives = yeast killers.

I am not sure how wine yeast tolerates alcohol. Obviously better than beer yeast, but I would never repitch a beer yeast thats fermented a high gravity wort. So I'm not sure you'd want to do it with your wine yeast. Maybe get some fresh yeast, or take a bit of your spent cyser yeast and buildup a new starter from it to get it back into shape.

Frozen berries are good because they'll come out mushy when you thaw them. If you want, you can put them in a blender to truly mush them up and chuck in the secondary. Failing that, a clean potato masher is good for mushing.

Berp.

 

[Airgead]

id like some suggestions as to how would be the best way of making this one happen. ie prepping the berries and mixing, whether or not i have to boil or not. i really have no idea on this as im new to brewing in this section, beer i have some idea this im learning fast but its a big curve. so any help would be appreciated

[post="112772"][/post]​

Barls

I've done several of these. the best way to add the berries is to freeze them overnight to help break down the cell walls and release the juice. Thaw, mash and add to the scondary. I tend to use between 1-4kg for a 20l batch depending on how strong I want the flavour to be. I get frozen berries wholesale so throwing a few kg in is pretty affordable. I can give you some addresses if you are in Sydney.

Cheers
Dave

Edit:typos

 

[pint of lager]

I make fruit wines and have done some meads.

To sanitise the fruit, I would never boil it, you end up with boiled fruit flavours, and as berapnopod said, you also lose the aromatics of honey if you boil that.

To treat fruit, I use camden tablets. Crush your fruit, add some water, nutrients, sugar (if using any), honey (if using any), one crushed and dissolved camden tablet per five litres and wait 24 hours. If it is going into secondary, then it is now ready to use. If it is primary, at this stage I add pectinase or pectinex, wait 24 hours then pitch the yeast.

The potato masher often gets used to pulp fruit. Apples go through the juicer.

Brewery.org has a mead section that you can read up on.

Mead has come up from time to time here on AHB, if you pop mead into the search section, you should come up with some recipes and reading.

 

[barls]

thanks guys i made sure that i got the no preservative juices. i might get another yeast just incase the starter doesnt take off like it should. i could go more honey but the problem is then im limiting my self as i only have one 1Kg jar and its lucerne honey, the rest are all 500g. so ill most likely go with 750g of the lucerne honey. tomorrow ill make the starter and ill put some of the fruit and honey on to be sterilized in about 500ml of Sodium Metabisulphite. i might get some pectinase as well.

 

[pint of lager]

500ml of sodium met? That sounds way too much.

The standard rate is 1 camden tablet per 5 litres of juice.

Camden tablets are sodium met and sometimes potassium met. They are an easy way to dose juice and wine with a known amount of sulphite. Most people do not own scales that are accurate enough to weigh this amount of sulphite out.

Crush the tablet, dissolve in half a cup of water, then stir thoroughly through your must.

One tablet weighs 0.44 grams.

After dosing with camden tablet, wait 24 hours before pitching the yeast.

 

[Steve]

Not sure if you're interested but came across this site a while ago whilst searching for a Boddingtons recipe - very interesting:

www.gotmead.com

Cheers
Steve

 

[barls]

ok so 1 gram of the Sodium Metabisulphite in the juice/berry/honey mix. i just thought since i still have some left from when i use to use it for sterilizing, ie before i knew better. would this be ok? because my scales are in 1g increments.

 

[pint of lager]

Barls, I cannot give you a good answer, except to say you may be adding too much.

The correct dose is 0.44 grams of sodium metsbisulphite per five litres of juice or pulp.

If your scales are only accurate to a gram, you may be adding 1.5 grams which is three times too much.

Scales can suffer alot of errors at the very start and end of their ranges, so 1 gram that you weigh out may be 2 or 3 grams.

If you add too much, it will not have dissipated when you add your yeast, and your yeast will be killed.

 

[barls]

cheers mate. ok to a question i think you can help me with. how big a starter should i make in your opinion and how much light dme should i add to it? i was thinking 1L in volume but havent had a chance to look how much dme to put in yet?

 

[barls]

and ill get some of the tablets when i go to the lhb tomorrow

 

[Stuster]

One way you could go about this barls would be to weigh out 4g worth. Your scales will be more accurate for measuring 4g than 1g. Then divide this by eye into two piles, then one of these into two, then one of these into two. It may not be exceedingly accurate but you will probably get much closer than measuring 1g.

 

[barls]

thats another option but for the couple of bucks i think ill just buy them and leave the bottle ive got sitting in the back of the cupboard

 

[pint of lager]

It is not going to help you this time, but if your budget allows, there are plenty of scales for sale on ebay that weigh down to 0.01 gram.

I decided for fruit wines that 5 litres really wasn't enough, by the time you rack a few times and topped up with some other mead or wine, 5 litres isn't a very big batch size. So the fruit wines and meads are brewed at 15 litre batch size. Primary is in regular plastic fermenters, secondary is in 15 litre glass demijohn.

 

[barls]

sounds good i might start doing that after i have a few experimental batches to see how they go

 

[barls]

ok does anyone know where i can get some bottles from a wholesaler in sydney? ive also just racked this one as im going away for a couple of months and didnt want to leave it on the fruit for that long, it tasted great but that could just be me.