Noob Mead Makers Wanted - Apply Within

[pdilley]

I have been looking at the Ancient Orange Mead recipe in depth more in plans on what to do with my 4 new carboys that taunt me by sitting there in front of me empty.

The AO recipe looks intriguing as it ferments out quick is drinkable young compared to more modern recipes although it improves with age as well.

The sticker is the recipe is balanced for the US people. Clover honey balancing out the Fleishmann's brand dry yeast. Fleishmann's has an alcohol tolerance of 12% and high flocculation. I have not been able to discover the alc. tol. rates on the Australian brands. What I have dug up is that for a while now all the dry yeast sold in Australia is imported from China no matter what you read on the package in the supermarket. This I think will make my job harder in finding out more details on the yeast strain used.

Until then the AO recipe has to be re-balanced out through trial and error with a set Australian honey and Australian-Chinese imported dry yeast. Keep upping the honey content if it finishes dry instead of sweet.

As such I am not sure if it is worth it myself as I didn't get in on any great bulk buy . Do we have anyone here in Oz who has run a few of these recipes with results to share? 5L carboy will require filling to only 3.87 liters to make it a US 1 gallon liquid level.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Airgead]

The sticker is the recipe is balanced for the US people. Clover honey balancing out the Fleishmann's brand dry yeast. Fleishmann's has an alcohol tolerance of 12% and high flocculation. I have not been able to discover the alc. tol. rates on the Australian brands. What I have dug up is that for a while now all the dry yeast sold in Australia is imported from China no matter what you read on the package in the supermarket. This I think will make my job harder in finding out more details on the yeast strain used.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

Supermarket yeast? Do yourself a favour and get some real dried wine yeast from the LHBS (or one fo the sponsors). its easy to find out the alc tolerance and floculation values for them. Last time I bought dried yeast from the LHBS it was about $4 so it won't break the bank.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Airgead]

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.

I tend to use an acid blend - tartaric and malic as the citric ends up tasting very, well.. citrusy. I still find that without enough background complexity from the honey it ends up tasting like you added some acid to some sugar water.

I've not tried the old tannin from tea trick. I add grape tannin powder. If I play with oak that should help the tannin balance as well.

I bottled that cyser batch over the weekend. Still needs another 6 months to really balance out but its getting pretty nice.

Cheers
Dave

 

[davewaldo]

Yep, I'll second the use of an Acid blend. I have read that using just citric acid can be a problem as Yeast can metabolise citric acid, therefore lessening its effect.

Also (I can't remember if this has been mentioned), when making mead it is generally recommended to make no acid additions until the end of fermentation. Wine yeasts like to work in a ph between 4.2-3.5. When yeast begin to metabolise the nutrients and sugars in the must, the buffering minerals and quickly consumed and the acid created by the yeasts and the CO2 (carbonic acid) will cause the ph to drop very quickly. I use Calcium Carbonate to raise the PH when this happens.

I have a current batch of Mead I started 2 days ago. It started at ph4.2 Within 32 hours of fermentation it had dropped to ph3.2. So I added some Calcium Carbonate to raise it again to 3.8. Some yeasts tolerate low PH better than others.

Once fermentation is complete you can add any acid you like, and you can do it to taste instead of guessing at the start.

 

[Ronin]

Yep, I'll second the use of an Acid blend. I have read that using just citric acid can be a problem as Yeast can metabolise citric acid, therefore lessening its effect.

Also (I can't remember if this has been mentioned), when making mead it is generally recommended to make no acid additions until the end of fermentation. Wine yeasts like to work in a ph between 4.2-3.5. When yeast begin to metabolise the nutrients and sugars in the must, the buffering minerals and quickly consumed and the acid created by the yeasts and the CO2 (carbonic acid) will cause the ph to drop very quickly. I use Calcium Carbonate to raise the PH when this happens.

I have a current batch of Mead I started 2 days ago. It started at ph4.2 Within 32 hours of fermentation it had dropped to ph3.2. So I added some Calcium Carbonate to raise it again to 3.8. Some yeasts tolerate low PH better than others.

Once fermentation is complete you can add any acid you like, and you can do it to taste instead of guessing at the start.

So how often do you check the pH? I'm assuming it keeps dropping throughout the fermentation so you have to keep adding the calcium?

 

[davewaldo]

Yeah thats right, the ph will continue to drop. But I guess how fast is determined by the type of honey (darker honey should contain more minerals) and also the hardness of the water you use.

I check the ph everyday for the first few days at the same time as I'm aerating. I have a cheap digital PH meter, and I think its great! Very quick and easy. After the 1/3 sugar break I check it every second or third day...

But I like to fuss and be in control of my fermentations. Very good mead can be made without worrying about PH. However, fermentation can become completely stuck or slow drastically if the ph drops too low. And it can be hard to get going again (or it might just start again easily with a calcium carb addition).

You can make mead making as complicated or as easy as you like. I tend to do things slightly more complicated than most. But I like to think it saves me time in the long term, having less fermentation problems, and I think I get a fast and clean fermentation with fewer off flavours which take a long time to age out.

 

[davewaldo]

Hey Airgread, what sort of apple juice do you like to use in this yummy sounding cyser of yours?

 

[Airgead]

Hey Airgread, what sort of apple juice do you like to use in this yummy sounding cyser of yours?

I usually use regular preservative free apple juice from the shops (the bilpin stuff is pretty good). In an effort to get more complexity out of the apples and lessen the need to add acid/tannin I will be using a 50/50 mix of apple juice and crab apple juice (from my tree) for the next batch. I am also chasing a source of real cider apples (Kingston Blacks I believe) which are apparently grown by a small orchard up in Bilpin.

On the PH side of things, I did a few experiments where I added acid to one half of a batch and not the other then fermented side by side with identical yeast. I couldn't pick a difference between the acid and no acid batches in terms of fermentation duration/efficiency. Given the natural acidity of grape juice which is what those yeasts are designed for I'm not sure this is really an issue (unless you are adding more acid than the amount present in grapes).

having said that I usually add acid after fermentation as its easier when you are adding fruit. if you add before then add fruit to the secondary you end up over acid. I add acid once its finished fermenting and I rack off the fruit.

Cheers
Dave

 

[davewaldo]

Sounds good Airgead, let me know if you manage to track down any genuine Cider apples in OZ. I've looked for varieties such as Russets (different sorts of russets) but with no luck.

Getting back to ph.... Just like when people are mashing, some have issues with ph others never seem to have any trouble. I guess its down to the various influences of water and ingredients.

However acidity should not be confused with Low ph (although they can go together). Ph is a measurement of the ratio of acid to alkalinity including any buffering effects by other compounds.

Acidity is just the quantity of acid in a solution.

Grape juice can be high in acidity, but due to the buffering compounds in the fruit (this also goes for other fruits) the PH does not seem to drop considerably during fermentation. The small amounts of acid produced during fermentation has little effect on ph because the buffering compounds still exist. Take away those buffering compounds (like in plain mead) and the same small amount of acid can have a large effect on ph.

So PH management is mainly only important for pure meads, those which are just honey and water (and nutrients). Cysers, melomels and pyments are not effected as strongly.

I write all this info mainly for the benifit of new-comers. Airgead, you seem to have everything under control

 

[leiothrix]

However acidity should not be confused with Low ph (although they can go together). Ph is a measurement of the ratio of acid to alkalinity including any buffering effects by other compounds.

Acidity is just the quantity of acid in a solution.

Just to be pedantic, that's not quite right.

pH is the measure of acid in a solution. p means -log10, so pH is -log10 [H]. A lower number here refers to a higher concentration, and conversely a higher number means a lower concentration.

pOH is how basic a solution is (i.e. the opposite of acid), and refers to the quantity of OH (hydroxide) in solution.

pH + pOH = 14 (well, most of the time. there's always exceptions to everything), and pOH is generally derived from pH.

Alkalinity is the amount of dissolved minerals (in water it's generally calcium and magnesium carbonates) which affects both the pH of the water and its buffering capacity (i.e. the greater the buffer, the greater the ability of the solution to resist a pH change when acid is added).

People often refer to a solution as alkaline when they mean basic. With water this is generally close enough, but whilst they're closely related they're not the same thing.

Hopefully that makes sense . . .

Rob.

 

[leiothrix]

The sticker is the recipe is balanced for the US people. Clover honey balancing out the Fleishmann's brand dry yeast. Fleishmann's has an alcohol tolerance of 12% and high flocculation. I have not been able to discover the alc. tol. rates on the Australian brands. What I have dug up is that for a while now all the dry yeast sold in Australia is imported from China no matter what you read on the package in the supermarket. This I think will make my job harder in finding out more details on the yeast strain used.

I made a 1gal batch using the Joe's Ancient Orange recipe, Capilano honey and Tandaco bread yeast.

I think it tastes nice, it's just too damn sweet. I tried adding some EC-1118 to it afterwards, but didn't make too much difference.

I bought some Wyeast dry mead yeast, but haven't gotten around to using it yet.

Also, I'd make a bigger batch than the 1gal/5L. By the time you take samples, rack off the lees and whatever else, you only get 5-6 longnecks out of it. For the effort involved it just seems like a waste. I bought an 11L glass carboy to use for the next batch, effort is only marginally higher, it's not too great a quantity to have turning out average, and you get a bit more of a satisfying bottle count at the end of it.

Rob.

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

I'm uber skeptical about anything that calls for bread yeast. I'm all for authenticity and anachronism in brewing, but I think its a really long streach to suggest that bread yeast is anything near what they'd be using in 'ancient' times (whatever that means, anyway). Far more likely specific mead yeasts were cultured and used by the brewers, just like we tend to do today.

Why not use a mead/wine yeast? or any specific brewing yeast for that matter? I couldn't bring myself to add bread yeast to such expensive honey!

 

[AndrewQLD]

I'm uber skeptical about anything that calls for bread yeast. I'm all for authenticity and anachronism in brewing, but I think its a really long streach to suggest that bread yeast is anything near what they'd be using in 'ancient' times (whatever that means, anyway). Far more likely specific mead yeasts were cultured and used by the brewers, just like we tend to do today.

Why not use a mead/wine yeast? or any specific brewing yeast for that matter? I couldn't bring myself to add bread yeast to such expensive honey!

I made Joes recipe for my first Mead and used Allied bread yeast. And as I said earlier in the thread it tastes great, I was very impressed with the results. I think that the recipe is not just about the yeast, the oranges and raisins add a lot as well and I think it is the blend of all these ingredients that make it so successful.

And sure I think your right, a purpose mead or wine yeast is a better choice than bread yeast for your usual meads but I think you'll find Joes recipe was designed for the beginner to use common ingredients on hand in the kitchen, to brew a simple mead that turns out well without having to add acids and nutrients and to get a good result fairly fast.

Andrew

 

[pdilley]

Yeah I was specifically talking about running the JAO mead recipe.

In addition to JAO I also have Mead recommended yeasts from the LHBS that I have bought for other mead making purposes, but I was meaning to indicate the question was related to the JAO specific recipe, not any other modern mead recipes in general.

I doubt the ancients were balancing PH levels and mucking about with wine yeasts. Nor in a romanticized version where rain entered the hive and drizzled down the tree trunk to collect in a nook where it was warmed by sunlight and god quickly snuck in and sprinkled on some Wyeast Sweet Mead Yeast #4184 when no one was watching then this amber gold was drunk by some passing honey collector.

I've done mead with bread yeast and it works. Although I was at the time in the states and used the same brand in JAO. So I don't have apprehensions as I would coming from another brewing discipline and worrying about straying from the methods I built up there.

I think the key to JAO is the raisins, skins of the fruit have naturally occurring wild yeasts and provide good additional nutrients. Same way you'd go about making a sourdough starter as well (raisins or grape skins provide what is needed).

A short jump back through history the recipes were like:

quoted from a 17th century volume, FROM THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED
TO MAKE EXCELLENT MEATHE
"To every quart of Honey, take four quarts of water. Put your water in a clean Kettle over the fire, and with a stick take the just measure, how high the water cometh, making a notch, where the superficies toucheth the stick. As soon as the water is warm, put in your Honey, and let it boil, skimming it always, till it be very clean; Then put to every Gallon of water, one pound of the best Blew-raisins of the Sun, first clean picked from the stalks, and clean washed. Let them remain in the boiling Liquor, till they be throughly swollen and soft; Then take them out, and put them into a Hair-bag, and strain all the juice and pulp and substance from them in an Apothecaries Press; which put back into your liquor, and let it boil, till it be consumed just to the notch you took at first, for the measure of your water alone. Then let your Liquor run through a Hair-strainer into an empty Woodden-fat, which must stand endwise, with the head of the upper-end out; and there let it remain till the next day, that the liquor be quite cold. Then Tun it up into a good Barrel, not filled quite full, but within three or four fingers breadth; (where Sack hath been, is the best) and let the bung remain open for six weeks with a double bolter-cloth lying upon it, to keep out any foulness from falling in. Then stop it up close, and drink not of it till after nine months.

This Meathe is singularly good for a Consumption, Stone, Gravel, Weak-sight, and many more things. A Chief Burgomaster of Antwerpe, used for many years to drink no other drink but this; at Meals and all times, even for pledging of healths. And though He were an old man, he was of an extraordinary vigor every way, and had every year a Child, had always a great appetite, and good digestion; and yet was not fat."

Not a mention of pitching yeast, or tossing in fresh leeches thank god!

I hope the hair bag used in the recipe was cleaned first

Looks like wild yeasts, highly flocculant muck, filtration, racking, and what we have in common with all meads, aging makes best no matter what the yeast used.

 

[troublebrewing]

Then Tun it up into a good Barrel, not filled quite full, but within three or four fingers breadth; (where Sack hath been, is the best) and let the bung remain open for six weeks with a double bolter-cloth lying upon it, to keep out any foulness from falling in. Then stop it up close, and drink not of it till after nine months.

There's your yeast. He's racking straight onto the trub from the last batch of sack mead, plenty of dormant yeasties from the last batch.

 

[Airgead]

A short jump back through history the recipes were like:

quoted from a 17th century volume, FROM THE CLOSET OF SIR KENELM DIGBY KNIGHT OPENED
TO MAKE EXCELLENT MEATHE

I love Digby. If you look at some of his other recipes though he does specifically pitch yeast and if you look really carefully he classifies ale yeast and beer yeast differently.

MY OWN CONSIDERATIONS FOR MAKING OF MEATHE

Boil what quantity of Spring-water you please, three or four walms, and then let it set the twenty four hours, and pour the clear from the settling. Take sixteen Gallons of the clear, and boil in it ten handfuls of Eglantine-leaves, five of Liverwort, five of Scabious, four of Baulm, four of Rosemary; two of Bay-leaves; one of Thyme, and one of Sweet-marjoram, and five Eringo-roots splitted. When the water hath drawn out the vertue of the herbs (which it will do in half an hours boiling,) let it run through a strainer or sieve, and let it settle so, that you may pour the clear from the Dregs. To every three Gallons of the Clear, take one of Honey, and with clean Arms stripped up, lade it for two or three hours, to dissolve the honey in the water; lade it twice or thrice that day. The next day boil it very gently to make the scum rise, and scum it all the while, and nowPage 20 and then pour to it a ladle full of cold water, which will make the scum rise more: when it is very clear from scum, you may boil it the more strongly, till it bear an Egge very high, that the breadth of a groat be out of the water, and that it boil high with great walms in the middle of the Kettle: which boiling with great Bubbles in the middle is a sign it is boiled to it's height. Then let it cool till it be Lukewarm, at which time put some Ale yest into it, to make it work, as you would do Ale. And then put it up into a fit Barrel first seasoned with some good sweet White-wine (as Canary-sack) and keep the bung open, till it have done working, filling it up with some such honey-drink warmed, as you find it sink down by working over. When it hath almost done working, put into it a bag of thin stuff (such as Bakers use to bolt in) fastened by a Cord at the bung, containing two parts of Ginger-sliced, and one apiece of Cinamon, Cloves and Nutmegs, with a Pebble-stone in it to make it sink; And stop it up close for six Months or a year, and then you may draw it into bottles. If you like Cardamon-seeds, you may adde some of them to the spices. Some do like Mint exceedingly to be added to the other herbs. Where no yeast is to be had, The Liquor will work if you set it some days in the hot Sun (with a cover, like the roof of a house over it, to keep wet out, if it chance to rain) but then you must have great care, to fill it up, as it consumeth, and to stop it close a little before it hath done working, and to set it then presently in a Cool Cellar. I am told that the LeaPage 21ven of bread will make it work as well as yest, but I have not tryed it. If you will not have it so strong, it will be much sooner ready to drink; As if you take six parts of water to one of Honey. Some do like the drink better without either herbs or spices, and it will be much the whiter. If you will have it stronger, put but four Gallons and a half of water to one of honey.

You may use what Herbs or Roots you please, either for their tast or vertue, after the manner here set down.

So not only pitching yeast but use of an egg as a crude hydrometer...

The recipes certainly aren't consistent, some are definitely wild yeast types but some are more sophisticated. You also have to take into account how they brewed - they re-used barrels for different drinks. A barrel used for mead today may have had a beer fermented in it previously. Most of the beer/ale recipes did call for a pitch of yeast so a beer or ale yeast would have inoculated the barrel and made the mead (and anything else stored in the barrel) ferment. I'm not going to call them consistent, scientific brewers and certainly had no idea what yeast was but they weren't completely clueless.

And for the record - No matter what they did in 1600, I wouldn't recommend using bread yeast for any type of brew.

Cheers
Dave

 

[pdilley]

Just caught that one. The acid components of the wilder yeast strains and bacteria seem to be missing form the mono strain culture of yeast used in modern recipes which is why I always turn an eye at all the additions we have to use with them, tannins and acid blends to stabilize, add bitterness and add complexity which seems like a free ride with JAO.

 

[brettprevans]

Got my copy of Compleat Meadmaker by Ken in the post yesterday. my god there's a lot of info in there. more than you or I will ever need. great reading so far.

actually I also bought designing great beers and brew like a monk. lots of beer/brew related reading for me for a while.

 

[Airgead]

Just caught that one. The acid components of the wilder yeast strains and bacteria seem to be missing form the mono strain culture of yeast used in modern recipes which is why I always turn an eye at all the additions we have to use with them, tannins and acid blends to stabilize, add bitterness and add complexity which seems like a free ride with JAO.

I'm not entirely sure historical meads did pick up acid from wild yeasts. If you look at some of the other period sources they make mention of good beer and ale being free of sourness. I suspect they had reliable strains of yeast (although they didn't know this) since around the dark ages. You hear stories about the beer stiring stick that was passed from generation to generation and magically made good beer or mead. What was of course happening was they were stirring each batch with a stick inoculated with a strain of yeast that made good beer. The same goes for re-ucing barrels and even the practice of picthing the new batch on top of the dregs of the last. That way the good strains were perpetuated. You can bet that bad ones were discarded pretty quickly.

They didn't muck around with ph adjustments and such but what they did do was use spices for balance. If you look at pretty much all of the historical recipes you find that they are heavily spiced. That JAO follows that tradition. A lot of mead recipes do - most mels and meths don't need acid as they have the fruit and/or spices. Its really only the straight meads that need them. What people were making back in the day were meths and mels. Not meads (by our modern definition). I suspect that historically there was no such thing as a straight mead.

Cheers
Dave

 

[pdilley]

Do you know how long the meads were sat between fermentation and consumption? Thats one area I have not found a lot of information on. I did read about the historical ales which were said to taste of "liquid bread" and were consumed within four days of fermenting because they would go sour beyond that time until hopping came into the common knowledge base. I don't have as much interested in making liquid bread though, doesn't sound as tasty as trying to recreate meads.