Noob Mead Makers Wanted - Apply Within

[newguy]

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.

I've made 2. The first was drinkable from bottling on and didn't really improve much over time. I think it was in the fermenter around 2-3 months. The one I have on the go now was made just before new year's and it is almost clear now. I withdrew enough to fill a 650ml bottle to take to a friend's place for supper last Saturday and it was enjoyed by all. I plan to bottle it as soon as it clears, which should be quite soon - 1 or 2 weeks probably. I'll have to report back from time to time to let you know how it's holding up.

 

[Airgead]

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.

Best research I can find indicates that they were drunk young but not while still fermenting. Think English real ale and you are probably pretty much on the money. Fermented in the cask. naturally carbonated in the cask and served in the cask. Probably cloudy when served as rolling the casks up from the cellar would have mixed the yeast back in (think coopers or a heffe). That would account for the liquid bread description. It is likely that a cask would be emptied over a small number of nights and the beer was probably made locally (probably on site0 and consumed pretty quickly. They didn't start warehousing it for distribution till the 1700s.

Cheers
Dave

 

[pdilley]

Bringing it back to Mead


I'm heading out tomorrow to pick up some bulk honey.

Will be picking up some Stringy Bark, and then when the hives come in and packing starts in the next couple weeks go back and pick up some Iron Bark which is used by one of the packers to make his own meads.

I'll give JAO some of the Stringy and see how it goes. I'll need some more airlocks to get all four of my carboys in operation at once but then I have a collection of baker style yeasts from all over the world and some Vinters Harvest Premium Wine Yeast SN9 (came with high recommendation for mead use from the LHBS) to do my mad mead experiments with.

Hope to have enough puff after tomorrows big list of errands to start one or two off, if I'm feeling crazy I'll see about setting off four carboys worth of mead by the end of the weekend.

Cheers Guys,

Brewer Pete

 

[Bribie G]

Best research I can find indicates that they were drunk young but not while still fermenting. Think English real ale and you are probably pretty much on the money. ........................................
Cheers
Dave

Until the Industrial Revolution barley was malted and dried over wood fires, then coke was invented for steel production and steam-raising and quickly became adapted to malting. So most malt would have been brown and rauch-bier ish no doubt. There wouldn't have been much of a need to serve it clear. However their system of brewing was quite different to ours, they did a parti-gyle brew without sparging. The first mash would yield a strong ale for getting pissd purposes and the second mash would give the 'small beer' that most people quaffed on all day, same as tea and coffee nowadays. Stopped them getting dysentery as well.

The stronger beer would have been kept for quite a while, in fact up till the 20th century there was still a category called 'keeping beer'. Our current bitters or 'running beers' are quite recent.

However the small beer would certainly have been quickly drunk.

ON TOPIC

My Braggott is finally looking like it's due for secondary then bottling a couple of weeks later and I'll be getting my first sneaky taste test on Monday at this stage.
Will report.
:icon_cheers:

Edit: doubt if it wll be ready for the March BABBs meeting, prolly April.

 

[pdilley]

Feeling rather Off and On today

OT is that keeping beer the one they'd mix with the new beer to create custom blends in house in the Pubs?


Back on Topic:

If anyone is interested in useless Honey Fact #252

Honey is roughly 1.4 Kilograms per 1 Litre or 4 Metric cups.

 

[pdilley]

Feeling a bit jazzed, after spending some free time reading up on yeast strains turns out bakers yeast is simply an Ale yeast. Same scientific species categorization. Also makes sense why all the diaramas of ancient Egyptian bakeries showed a common shared wall and the other side was the brewery, they are using the same yeast. Also makes sense why the barm (foam or scum) on top of fermenting beer can be and is used for leavening bread; nonwithsanding the English term barmy for someone who's head is full of foam and no room for brains. Just checked all the bakers yeasts I have in the cupboard and they all are listed as the ale yeast. That's probaly why JAO turns out just fine for everyone and maybe that's what's in those anonymous yeast packs under the lid of the kit tin. -- been reading the late yeast master Dr. George Fix's papers on yeast.

 

[pdilley]

Now the proud parent of two new children.

May I introduce to the world two new members of my family,

Stringy Bark 1 Clove JAO
and
Stringy Bark 2 Clove JAO


Both are going to sleep now, will let them rest for a while in the darnk and see how they develop with saccharomyces cerevisiae getting to know the local fruits. With the next two I'll try to put in fresh grapes off of my grape vine to get some additional natural yeasts in the mix as very minor players in the ferment. I was aiming to keep 1 Clove down to 1.5 kilos and 2 clove at 1.6, but 1 cloves measure came more to 1.55 kilos of stringy. 2 clove came to 3.81 liters while 1 clove managed a lower 3.8.

But a parent loves their kids no matter how they are. Word is also Iron Bark is on the way by months end so I may have two more children at this rate for a big happy family brood of four.


Looks like I made it just in time for the thunder god Thor to send his greetings through the sky.




Down below is an example of a what a JAO mead racked off into a secondary and glowing like crazy looks like.

 

[Airgead]

Until the Industrial Revolution barley was malted and dried over wood fires, then coke was invented for steel production and steam-raising and quickly became adapted to malting. So most malt would have been brown and rauch-bier ish no doubt.

:icon_offtopic:

Back off topic again...

Actually, most malt was dried on a straw fire. The reason being that it gave less smoke taint than a wood fire. The old books say to pick malt that is sweet and free of the taint of smoke (and that's going back to the 1600s). It was brown though. I made a batch of beer using home made brown malt and it came out like a dark English Brown (strangely enough).

Coke (and a different type of kiln that firing with coke allowed them to build) allowed them to make pale malt.

On the mead side again, now that I have my barleywine in the fermenter I'll be putting down some meads next weekend. I'll do a raspberry mel. One with the fruit added to the secondary, one to the primary to see what the difference in fruit character is.

Stay tuned...

Cheers
Dave

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

View attachment 25428

:icon_drool2: - are they all 5 gal? i've got some serious glass envy!

 

[barls]

View attachment 25428
looks like my front room ive got 2 different cysers sitting on raspberries and blackberries

 

[pdilley]

Hehe.. Carboys are so North America!

I'm building up a I've moved back to Oz gear setup, but this time with demijohns. Handles on the built-in plastic basket make lifting easier than a carboy, and easier to share to load when someone gives you a hand one to a handle. Things cost more here so I've pretty much used my tax rebate and have to wait for another year or two to expand. I'll wait until next year to expand. Once I saw what you guys are forced to pay for stainless I almost fell over in the grave

This is my current setup. 4 5's, 2 34's and a 25.

Oh and a 15 kilo bucket of honey fresh from the farm for one and only cameo appearance.

Missing from the photo is my one and only foray into plastic, the 32? for beer and bottling and bathtubs.



I'm thinking of using the 5's a lot more than intended or perhaps pick up some more next time the government has a cash splash as I would rather do lots of little batches to adjust recipes, experiment and try new things without running a full batch. That way I can be a lot more batches under the belt when drinking isn't the priority and get up to speed again after a 12+ year hiatus. If you think about it, splitting up even your beer brewing into smaller batches makes it easier to handle brew days as you're dealing with 1/4 the weight and materials, if you are a tin person you can split a tin(s) 4 ways. A contamination will effect 1/4 the brew. You get to adjust 4 different recipe variations you were thinking about in one go and taste the results. If you brew 6 plastic fermenters in x amount of time, now you get 24 brews done, each can vary out what you want to modify. Once you find something you like you can take it up to the normal scale 20-23 litres or higher knowing what to expect. Brew in a single wine bottle if you want to rack up lots of experiments in one go to cut your time down considerably.


On Topic:
Mead Podcasts and Video Podcasts - FREE

- Brew Bubbas Radio - BB Episode #60 Making Mead

- Basic Brewing Video - 03-21-07 Basic Brewing Video - Tasting the Mead Yeast Experiment
- Basic Brewing Video - 02-27-07 Basic Brewing Video - The Mead Yeast Experiment Begins
- Basic Brewing Video - 12-27-06 Basic Brewing Video - Mead Update and Small Batches
- Basic Brewing Video - 04-09-06 Basic Brewing Video - Making Mead

- TBN Presents - The Jamil Show - Mead - The Jamil Show 12-01-08

 

[davewaldo]

On the mead side again, now that I have my barleywine in the fermenter I'll be putting down some meads next weekend. I'll do a raspberry mel. One with the fruit added to the secondary, one to the primary to see what the difference in fruit character is.

Stay tuned...

Cheers
Dave

Sounds great, keep us informed.

 

[pdilley]

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...

If you're dealing with the 1/3 sugar break it sounds like you are using Ken Schramms method. If you are doing a turbo ferment have you run into run into a foam volcano while decarbonating?

Who's PH meter do you have. I have to start looking around for one myself so I can put this honey through full attenuation with a variety of yeasts in a pure water/honey mead mix to see what it is capable of and I think I'll shoot for a PH of 4 and let it drop to about 3.8.

If you are using Shramms, are you rehydrating in a cake pan with 20 grams of Go-Ferm at 40C?

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[pdilley]

One of the older and more respected mead resources on the net:
Hightest's Honey Haven


One of the more technical brewers who devised his own fruit sugar content spreadsheet to aid in brewing meads back when there was little to go on. If you love technicals you'll love hightest's site chock full of goodies.

 

[pdilley]

Before I forget, Bentonite can be used to clear a mead, but from TBN Radio I heard of heated honey (quick microwave to clear/dissolve the candied bits) pitched in a cloudy cider and the cider cleared in 15 minutes.


Refractometers: These things. Instead of hydrometers if you want accuracy and versatility.

They are made in China, and you really have to shop around for them. You can buy them for $35-50USD In the states. One company imports them from China and sells them from California. Be warned that I have seen some vendors in Australia trying to sell these for $150+ AUD. All this is the same RHB32-ATC Model. Its up to you to buy direct from China or from a reseller in USA or local. Depends on how much money you are willing to part with to get the same exact unit.

Two groups of refractometers that would be very good for working with Honey and with Wines/Meads:

Group #1: For Honey Work

RHB-90 ATC
Measuring range: Brix: 58-90% Baume: 38-43Be'water: 12-27%
Resolution: Brix: 0.5% Baume: 0.5Be' water: 1%
Compensation temperature range: 10C-30C
Calibration: Calibration liquid
ATC = (Automatic Temperature Compensation) for accurate measurements without recalibration after shifts in ambient working temperature.

The three common indexes are sugar content, baume and water content

Group#2 for Wort/Must work:

RHB-40 ATC
Measuring range: 0-25%VOL 0-40%Brix
Resolution: Brix: 0.2%VOL 0.2%Brix
Compensation temperature range: 10C-30C
Calibration: zero calibration with water at 20C

It is specially designed for measuring the sugar content of the original grape juice, that helps the manufacturer of wine to control the mature period of grape before harvesting. The model can directly and approximately read out the alcohol degrees of the grape wine made by the original juice.

RHB-32 ATC
Measuring range: 0-32% Brix.
Accuracy : +/-0.20% Brix.
Compensation temperature range: 10C-30C
Calibration: zero calibration with water at 20C

Beer & Wine: Use the Brix readings to get your wort sugars and help to determine your finished alcohol readings.

 

[davewaldo]

Hi Brewer Pete,

I do have to be careful when degassing that I don't get foam out the top. It hasn't been much of an issue for me though. I'm just careful and take it slowly. I'm thinking of doing my primary fermentations in pail style fermenters (instead of carboys) so I have more head room for foam during the early stages. I would then rack to secondary as usual after a couple of weeks. I give the carboys a good swirl everyday so I don't let the CO2 build to dramatically.

The PH meter I use is a cheap one from eBay. The pen style ones are easy to use and quite cheap. You should do some reading about proper care for PH meters. They should be stored in a "storage solution" and not in buffer solution. With proper care the probe should last a year, so it might be worth looking for a unit with replaceable probes.

I rehydrate as recommended by the manufacturer Lallemand. 1.25g of GoFerm per gram of yeast used, with about 50-100ml water at 38 degrees. See this PDF for lots of info about yeast nutrients with Lalleman yeasts.

I've thought about getting a refractometer, but whether or not you think its worth it is up to personal preference. If you're doing small batches its probably a good idea as you don't lose as much must to samples. However a refractometer becomes harder to use once fermentation begins (you need to use it in conjunction with correction software), and tasting hydro samples as you go can be a really good thing (and educational).

Whether you go technical, or basic, I think doing lots of batches and practising different recipes is most important to designing/making great mead.

 

[pdilley]

Shramm in an interview also recommends rehydrating in a large surface area dish like a cake tin. I don't have his book so I am not sure if he mentions anything about it in there.

Reiterating, you only need 2 drops on average to do a reading with the refractometer with only 3mL of wort/must removed to do a reading so good for small batches or for someone constantly reading throughout a fermentation. The con counter balance point is you need to learn a bit more about how to use it than the hydrometer.

Reposting here from above link regarding refractometer:

Refractometer off-calibration causes (check with distilled water)
1) Moisture on prism
2) Prism residue (insufficiently cleaned)
3) Entrained moisture in refractometer sample
4) Entrained gas in hydrometer sample
5) Bad, or damaged, refractometer
6) Refractometer stored in a moisture laden environment
7) Uncorrected sample reading containing EtOH
8) Using a refractometer designed to measure something other than sucrose (there are several types of refractometers, salinity, urine, aquarium, etc.)

A good refractometer sampling process:
1) Sanitize a 12cc syringe & the sample extension tubing (3/16"dia. rigid plastic x 8)
2) Remove as much moisture as possible - operate the syringe plunger to blow-out any excess moisture
3) Draw a 3 ml sample
4) Discharge the sample into a filter paper lined funnel
5) Allow the sample to filter through to a collection jar
6) Using the 0.2 ml pipette, draw a small sample - use pipette once and then discard.
7) Deposit 2 drops on the prism and read the result.
8) Read & record the result from the scale
9) Clean & dry-off the prism



All the calculations are done for you and simplified in hightests mead spreadsheet file. It is a Excel file but if you use Mac it should open just fine in Apple's Numbers spreadsheet program (or at least it does for me!).

 

[davewaldo]

Good info, thanks Pete!

 

[Airgead]

Shramm in an interview also recommends rehydrating in a large surface area dish like a cake tin. I don't have his book so I am not sure if he mentions anything about it in there.

Any idea why? I wouldn't have thought that surface area would have much impact on rehydrating yeast. Is he looking for extra oxygen uptake? I would have thought that shaking or using a stir plate would do more for that than a large surface area.

Cheers
Dave

 

[pdilley]

Any idea why? I wouldn't have thought that surface area would have much impact on rehydrating yeast. Is he looking for extra oxygen uptake? I would have thought that shaking or using a stir plate would do more for that than a large surface area.

The reason is 100% recapture of the yeasts left alive in the mix of dry dead/living yeasts. He would not like to hear about stirring of any sort involved. Dry yeast have shrivelled and stressed cellular walls that no longer function properly at filtering. They will take in toxins as readily as food and kill themselves until they are in a fully rehydrated state and additionally there membranes have healed and strengthened. That means absolutely no nutrients during rehydration. It's GoFerm in non-distilled water and absolutely nothing else. No stirring means you need large surface area to get h2o contact with no stiring. Temp must be 104F at dry pitch and 20 minutes before pitching to must with up to 30 minutes allowed before the sub optimum happens - yeasties run out of stored energy and switch state. Just pitching into a 25C must from that temp will kill off 40% of the survivors of rehydration!

The goal is not to pitch few yeast or yeast in the incorrect metabolic states that would lead to off flavoura an a non clean ferment. Throws the common ideas about pitching dry yeasts on it's head.

The other misnomer around yeasts is the cambdrn tablets kill yeasts and stop fermentation. Tho is incorrect, yeast have a generic switch to go from metabolic state to another in their life cycle. This only glues the switch into the off state for switching to fermentation but won't affect the ones already getting down and funky into reproduction so you won't get 100% effect I you do it at the wrong point in the fermentation cycle.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete