Noob Mead Makers Wanted - Apply Within

[pdilley]

Our club brought in a local commercial meadmaker a couple of years ago to give us a talk about mead. Some of things he said had most of the crowd politely raising their eyebrows in disbelief because there's just no way that you can get away with them for beer. For instance, his matter-of-fact assurance that you can make a very good mead with baker's yeast. The man had never heard of liquid yeast either. However, his meads were good so he must know what he was talking about.

I pasteurise my must because I'm just way, way too paranoid. It only takes me a little longer to do and it affords me piece of mind, so I'm going to continue doing it. But you can still make great mead without pasteurisation. I just can't bring myself to not do it, that's all.



This is the same thing as the yeast nutrient available in north america I mentioned earlier. You can get diammonium phosphate here (sorry no picture).

*raises hand* I have made mead from bakers yeast it can be done. In the olde days the germanic/scandinavian families would pass down the mead stirring stick that magically made mead. I am not sure if it was ash based wood as that wood is said to naturally harbor yeast cultures.

I think it boils down to what you are comfortable with to what method and adjuncts you put into your mead.

I even tried letting wild yeasts naturally culture a mead once, but then that stuff could strip the wax of your kitchen floor!

What got me back on to mead was finding some Maxwell's at the Queen Victoria Market where I picked a few bottles up and even took a few overseas. It was a nice break from beers and even the wife would drink them.

I've got some smaller carboys or demis on my next shopping trip to the LHBS with the sole purpose for getting back into meads. Will post results as they come in.

 

[chappo1970]

Welcome Brewer Pete all input and advice welcome here on this thread.

 

[pdilley]

Welcome Brewer Pete all input and advice welcome here on this thread.

Good to be here!

If anyone wants to try the wild yeast method, the basic idea is to mix up enough for a pitching starter, a 1:9 ratio honey to water should suffice. A day or two outside exposed to the air should suffice. If you are lucky it will ferment out and smell and taste good. You could spend up to 8 goes or more to get the right start with wild yeasts. If you have good one, then you keep your starter like a plant with boiled water cooled and mixed with a little honey added to it to feed it.

The commercial yeasts won't be crash hot the first couple runs you do with them. They will get stronger as you keep them back and reuse them as they adapt to your specific honey and mead adjunct nutrients. A quick way to catch up without having to go through some rather average but drinkable batches is to find someone thats been brewing and has built up a healthy stock of yeast and they will in most cases be nice and pass on some of their mead yeast.

Also good to grab the ol thermometer out and watch your boiling temperatures. You don't want to exceed too high a temperature when bringing the honey up to temp. Honey is resistant to bacterias, virii, etc. and was used to store food for long term back in the olde days before refrigeration by sticking the food items inside honey in a clay pot. You only want a gentle sanitistion not a sterilisation! if you want to preserve the finer aromas and flavours in the honey. Wait until fermented to add herbs and fruits (wrap in muslin or cloth if you want quick and easy removal later) so you can get more delicate aromas and flavours absorbed as it ages -- and this way any wild yeasts on the skins or surface of the additions won't have much of a chance as the mead yeast(s) have had their go already.

Water quality and components and honey are the main factors affecting flavours. Strong honeys give you flavour, weak honeys make a very average tasting mead. Beer fans would probably enjoy adding Thyme.

I though I read a while back to avoid eucalyptus honeys but I have always seen eucalyptus honey meads brewed commercially, so I guess you just need to take all advice with a grain of salt and not be afraid to experiment and break the rules you've built up in your head for brewing other things such as beers. Meads are easier, and my own first brews were meads.

 

[Wolfy]

What got me back on to mead was finding some Maxwell's at the Queen Victoria Market where I picked a few bottles up and even took a few overseas. It was a nice break from beers and even the wife would drink them.

Along with the Swift's Creek Horny Goat Mead, the 3 different Maxwell's Mead's are one of very few things my GF likes to drink, she does not like wine or beer so making some Mead is actually is actually something she considers my HB hobby to be useful for. However I do feel that the Maxwell Mead's are more wine-like than I'd prefer, but I have no idea how they are made or what they're made from.

 

[Airgead]

Along with the Swift's Creek Horny Goat Mead, the 3 different Maxwell's Mead's are one of very few things my GF likes to drink, she does not like wine or beer so making some Mead is actually is actually something she considers my HB hobby to be useful for. However I do feel that the Maxwell Mead's are more wine-like than I'd prefer, but I have no idea how they are made or what they're made from.

Wolfy

All the maxwell meads I have had have been atrocious. Sweet lolly water with massively overdone spices.

A good mead (wine style) is much more like a good dry or slightly sweet table wine. They don't tend to be sweet or sickly like the Maxwells stuff. The beer style meads (usually braggots) tend to be like beez kneez only with some body and flavour.

As for how they are made, I think they make up a must that would ferment to around 15-18% ABV or so but stop fermentation at around 10-12% to leave it sweet. I suspect they heat treat to stop fermentation but can't be sure. I don't think they sterile filter but they could use massive suplhate doses instead.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Wolfy]

All the maxwell meads I have had have been atrocious. Sweet lolly water with massively overdone spices.

Yes, but I'm talking about someone who otherwise enjoys sugar-sweet-alco-pop - so mostly I'll need to compromise and find something we both like, one of the advantages of brewing your own Mead etc.

 

[Bribie G]

The Braggott's in the fermenter

Final recipe:
2000g Maris Otter
100g Dark Crystal


69 degrees for one hour


30g Newport 60 mins
1 cinnamon quill
10 whole cloves
10 cardmom pods

60 min boil, one whirlfloc tablet

3kg ALDI honey

Poured onto ice and pitched immediately, US - 05

I didn't use aroma hops as I'm hoping the honey and spices will come to the fore. When boiling it was amazing how the hops, cloves, cinnamon and cardmom blended, you couldn't tell where one ended and the others began.

I'll bring a bottle to the March BABBs meeting, I'm aiming for just normal Ale times.

 

[chappo1970]

I'll bring a bottle to the March BABBs meeting, I'm aiming for just normal Ale times.

:chug:

Look forward to that one BribieG.

Was it pretty straight forward? Did you BIAB style?

 

[Airgead]

I'll bring a bottle to the March BABBs meeting, I'm aiming for just normal Ale times.

I have found that although they are drinkable in normal ale times, Braggots (especially those with > 20% honey) really benefit from 2-3 months maturation. The higher the honey % the longer. I do a 50% braggot and its hitting its peak after about 4 months.

Edit : corrected 2% to 20%...

 

[Bribie G]

Yes straightforward BIAB. I was just using up grain that I had on hand, if I like it I'll use 3kg next time and probably some carared. I was going to use carared but my order from Ross hadn't arrived by then.

The proof will be in the tasting
Oh and in the ingredients I forgot to mention a sliced up large stick of the lovely fresh new season ginger we are getting in SEQ at the moment which will also be going into the Vindaloo !

Ah the fusion, the fusion

 

[Airgead]

I'm working from memory here but my normal braggot is something like -

50% Ale Malt
50% Honey (I used ironbark last time)

Aim for 1.045-1.050

15-20 IBU using Northern Brewer
15g tetnang or tetnang/hallertau mix for 5 mins

Ferment with a decent ale yeast. I've used WLP001 or one of their British strains (05 I think). I'll give it a try with a lager strain next.

Age for 3-4 months if you want it at its best.

Very simple and a damn fine drop.

Cheers
Dave

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

All the maxwell meads I have had have been atrocious. Sweet lolly water with massively overdone spices.

A good mead (wine style) is much more like a good dry or slightly sweet table wine. They don't tend to be sweet or sickly like the Maxwells stuff. The beer style meads (usually braggots) tend to be like beez kneez only with some body and flavour.

Yes and no - I totally agree that maxwells are gross, lack any complexity and depth - just taste sweet and boring. BUT I've made a few batches of super sweet mead that have turned out really well - more in the style of dessert wine than anything else - the sweetness is balanced a little by adjuncts like juniper and cinnamon, and the very high ABV also helps.

 

[pdilley]

I'm with the guys on Maxwell. The key word is wife, or gf. I for one have a hard time with the wife drinking anything other than ultra sweet wine, and only one particular Italian sweet wine. I can drink anything but I have a hard time putting a glass of that stuff down. Now if I could just deal with the wastage side I'd be set she has no issues just sipping half of it and tossing the rest or letting the remainder in the bottle go off. -- guess thats a good reason to homebrew!

So moving her onto an occasional Maxwell mead is a big step for me. I've tried giving her a tour of a selection of beer styles but the most I've moved on that front is responses from her that "They are all disgusting, but in unique and different ways"

I can get her onto cider as well, so I have a full demijohn of cider a few days away from bottling.

Maybe alcoholic lemonade or a simply pilsner + non-alcoholic lemonade is the next step up for her.

 

[chappo1970]

...she has no issues just sipping half of it and tossing the rest or letting the remainder in the bottle go off. -- guess thats a good reason to homebrew!

Nooooooooooo!

White wine vinegar culture for those left overs!!! Home made vinegar is the go.

 

[Airgead]

Yes and no - I totally agree that maxwells are gross, lack any complexity and depth - just taste sweet and boring. BUT I've made a few batches of super sweet mead that have turned out really well - more in the style of dessert wine than anything else - the sweetness is balanced a little by adjuncts like juniper and cinnamon, and the very high ABV also helps.

Ahhh... now dessert style drinks are a different thing altogether. A nice sticky wine is fantastic. Its hard with a mead to get enough acid and tanin to balance the sweetness without it tasting a bit odd. Not sure of the best word to describe the oddness... I blame the porter I'm drinking right now...Especially with a light honey. I think its a lack of complexity that's the problem. A really dark complex honey helps a lot. I find though that mels make the best dessert wines as the fruit gives it that bit of extra complexity which rounds things out nicely. Spices help too.

I have a batch of liqueur cyser maturing at the moment. Its a basic mead but the honey is diluted with apple juice rather than water. I adjust the OG for a target gravity of about 16% but use a yeast that doesn't handle more than 12. Leaves quite a bit of sweetness behind. Once its cleared I fortify up to 18-20% with brandy and age for a year in bottles. Its damn nice.

I also made a semi sweet mead using some really odd honey I picked up from a beekeper friend. He inherited a couple of hives from a guy who died. They had been neglected for 4-5 years prior to him getting them and when he pulled the honey out it was thick and black. Tasted like treacle or molasses. I tasted it and bought the whole 20kg off him. It made a dark amber mead, semi sweet. Absolutely vile when I first tasted it after a few months but after nearly 2 years its developing into something fantastic.

Cheers
Dave

 

[davewaldo]

Wow Dave, those meads you describe sound GREAT! I like the idea of your fortified Cycer

Another way I like to add complexity to my Meads is to age them on oak cubes. I prefer cubes to chips as they give a more rounded and complex, and less mono-dimentional flavour compared to chips. They also can have a much longer contact time (months instead of weeks) compared to chips.

Cubes or staves can be harder to get though in OZ... this is where I get them from: More Wine

Oak (if you like it) can add great character to a mead, and can help give "something more" to a sweet mead.

mmmmmmmm OAK!

 

[Airgead]

Wow Dave, those meads you describe sound GREAT! I like the idea of your fortified Cycer

Another way I like to add complexity to my Meads is to age them on oak cubes. I prefer cubes to chips as they give a more rounded and complex, and less mono-dimentional flavour compared to chips. They also can have a much longer contact time (months instead of weeks) compared to chips.

Cubes or staves can be harder to get though in OZ... this is where I get them from: More Wine

Oak (if you like it) can add great character to a mead, and can help give "something more" to a sweet mead.

mmmmmmmm OAK!

I really must play around with oak some day. The main thing that has held me off doing it is my Mrs who doesn't really like oaked wines much. i suspect meads will be a different story through. Next few batches I might grab sone oak cubes and play around a bit.

Cheers
Dave

P.S. Bottling another cyser batch today...

 

[barls]

i fortified a cyser the other day, ended up being 33% in the end might aim a little bit later.

 

[chappo1970]

Ok need some serious critique's here please, good or bad I don't care just be honest. I am about to order the grains from CB'c for this and my next few brews so if I've got it wrong I would rather know now. Remember I have never done one of these before complete Noob?

5.2kg Wheat malt
0.9kg Lager malt
1.4kg Ironbark Honey
80gr Fresh Ginger
Juice of 5 Lemons
4 Cinnamon sticks

Hops
45gr Tettnang 60mins
30gr Tettnang 30mins
30gr Tettnang 0mins
20gr Lemon Zest 0mins

Ok suggestions on best yeast to use would be good as well. I was thinking Wyeast 9093?

Also temp for fermentation I can't recall any note of this issue or isn't it an issue?

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

Ahhh... now dessert style drinks are a different thing altogether. A nice sticky wine is fantastic. Its hard with a mead to get enough acid and tanin to balance the sweetness without it tasting a bit odd.

Cheers
Dave

I add a lot of acid - usually citric acid in the form of lemon and orange juice, plus some green and black tea to add tannins. mixed results, but all very drinkable. I've got 5 small carboys full, sitting on lees at the moment that desperately need racking - I'm just too lazy at the moment. Really hope they haven't picked up any off-flavors.

your cyser sounds great, btw.