Jao The Ultimate Beginners Mead Recipe

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G'day all. Virgin brewer here. Well unless you count coffee. 2 batches of JAO bubbling away now. Only problem might be I started too late this year for lower temps as I have no temp control. I'll keep an eye on it anyway and do my best to keep the temps down. Fingers crossed it works out for me!.
 
The OP recipe is for a 5L demijohn.

I want to make some in a 10L cube/jerry can and was just going to double the amount of everything. Is doubling everything a good/bad idea?

Is it okay to glad wrap (rather than air lock) during initial ferment? And then each time I rack to another cube/jerry can to squeeze as much headspace out as I can and tighten cap to seal it?
 
I just bottled my 3rd batch of this and done a side by side test with some that's nearly 6months old. It's good straight out of the fermeter but it's incredible at 6months.
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Kingy said:
I just bottled my 3rd batch of this and done a side by side test with some that's nearly 6months old. It's good straight out of the fermeter but it's incredible at 6months.
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Hi Kingy,

I like your syphon technique here mate, can you block the short hose to stop the flow? It's very similar to one of these I've been looking at getting one. Did you drill the stopper yourself?

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Yea mate just drilled 2 holes and used beer line. I let the beer line sit up from the bottum and wet the outside with starsan so it slides easy through the rubber, as I fill the bottles I move it closer to the bottum as the sediment is fairly floaty as you know if Ya bump it. I just give a little blow in the short tube to get things going.
I've never tried to stop the flow by blocking it as I just transfer to each bottle untill I'm done. Using beer line the flow is steady and doesn't make much mess when you move onto the next bottle.
 
Just finished making this along with another similar recipe from elswhere (Champagne yeast). The difference is huge. Yours is perfect and the other........YUCK!!! 5 different people tasting and they all loved this recipe.
THANKS, THANKS, THANKS!!!
 
I am going to try this (yes a lame post so it stays in my history)
 
skb said:
I am going to try this (yes a lame post so it stays in my history)
Just make sure you use regular oranges, I used the only ones I could find at my local little Shop and I think they were a marmalade orange. Bloody bitter as! Been sitting for about a year now so it's time to give it another test.
 
I cracked my last bottle of JAO at a christmas party earlier this week. I have not tasted it since I bottled it, and then it was "Hot" and like drinking Orange Peel. I have given bottles away over time, entered them in shows etc, but never actually got down to the business of drinking it.
I, and the half a dozen other people game enough to try my wares, were pleasantly surprised. The volatile flavours and racing fuel burn have subsided and mellowed into something quite palatable over the last 2 and half years, not dry not cloyingly sweet either. But the honey profile was there for sure, as was a hint of citrus and a touch of spice.
One guest suggested it was reminiscent of Brandi vino (correct spelling?) I just thought it was a far more relaxed bevarage than the angry liquid it once used to be. And on that basis I am mixing up another batch of JAO this afternoon. Some other meads I have made in the meantime have had a much blander flavour profile than the JAO, so pretty happy about it to be honest.
Cheers
Deep End (Michael)
 
How does/would Petes original recipe go with White Labs sweet mead yeast (WLP720)?
 
I've never used WLP720, but from what I can see it has a high alcohol tolerance (15%) so it will finish very dry. I tried this recipe with a champaigne yeast and it turned out extremely hot and took 9 months to settle down. I've also made it with Tandaco bread yeast and it was delicious in only 2 and a half months. The idea of using bread yeast it has a low alcohol tolerance so will the yeast will die out and leave more residual sugar (sweetness). Plus Tandaco is a lot easier to get and cheaper.

Hope that helps.
 
It does have a high tolerance but according to their description, "A wine yeast strain that is less attenuative than WLP715, leaving some residual sweetness" so I wondered if it would actually work rather well?
 
Where are people getting their Fleishman's bread yeast from?
 
I made this for the first time at the weekend and just used Tandaco Dry Yeast from Coles.
 
kaiserben said:
I made this for the first time at the weekend and just used Tandaco Dry Yeast from Coles.
How's it working for you?
 
jewwie said:
I've never used WLP720, but from what I can see it has a high alcohol tolerance (15%) so it will finish very dry. I tried this recipe with a champaigne yeast and it turned out extremely hot and took 9 months to settle down. I've also made it with Tandaco bread yeast and it was delicious in only 2 and a half months. The idea of using bread yeast it has a low alcohol tolerance so will the yeast will die out and leave more residual sugar (sweetness). Plus Tandaco is a lot easier to get and cheaper.

Hope that helps.
Sure does. I misread it before. I'll give Tandaco a whirl. How do you think it would go in a big batch?
 
Simdop said:
How's it working for you?
It's definitely fermenting. Started up very quickly (an hour or 2). It'll be a couple of months before I package it up and taste the results.

FYI the box of Tandaco I bought has 5 x 7g sachets of yeast. So I used 7g (the recipe calls for a "teaspoon", so 7g is close enough).

I would think 5 x 7g would be more than enough yeast for a ~25L batch.
 
Hey Simdop, I would only use 2 packets of yeast for 20 to 25L (any more would just be an overkill cause those yeasties will double in population as soon as they acclimatise). If you want to deviate from the recipe (which I am not recommending), you could rehydrate your yeast for 10 to 15 minutes then pitch.
As far as "some residual Sweetness" from the WLP720 that would depend on the OG (which is high in this recipe because it is meant to be a sweet mead) but it will still be a lot drier than the bread yeast. If it was me, I'd do one batch original and one with WLP720 to compare because you don't want anyone telling you not to try something that could just turn out to be the best mead ever :super:
 
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