Strawberry Mead

[watchUburn]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking about putting down another mead while I wait for the JOA to finish.
I found this recipe online:

Recipe copyright ©1995 Forrest Cook and Jonathan Corbet
Brewed 6/19/1995, Bottled 8/1/1995, Size 5 Gallons (18.9L)

Ingredients:

* 6 lbs Madhava wildlower honey (2.72Kg)
* 4 lbs Madhava clover honey (1.81Kg)
* ~12 lbs fresh strawberries (5.4Kg)
* 1 pack Lalvin EC-1118 Wine Yeast, prestarted in warm honey water
* 1 cup corn sugar (bottling)

Specific Gravity Reading, 1 carboy:

* OG 1.04 @ 79 deg F (probably a mis-read due to layering) (26 degC)
* FG 1.00 @ 72 deg F (22 degC)

Comments: Must was heated to just below boiling and kept there for ~ 1/2 hour, berries were added after fire was turned off and sat in cooling must for 1/2 hour. This batch cleared nicely and had a very tasty strawberry flavor.

I'm thinking that I'll just use one type of honey from a local producer. I won't boil the honey, I'll just warm it enough to mix nicely, add the fruit, then allow to cool before adding the yeast.
It looks like they fermented it at a fairly high temperature, so maybe I'll set the fridgemate to 19 degrees.

What do you guys think?

 

[Tyred]

EC1118 has a very tolerant of temperatures (optimal 15 - 25 degrees celsius) so I can't see many problems there.

I'd probably add some yeast nutrients to the mix to help the yeasts along a little more.

Also, rehydrate in water only. After the normal rehydration process then you could mix with some honey water but I don't know if that would be necessary.

One strange thing about the recipe is that it is heated to just below boiling. To my knowledge that would drive most of the oxygen out of the water and might stress the yeast at the beginning. I would aerate the must before adding the yeast.

 

[watchUburn]

Ah yes, thanks Tyred. I was also going to ignore the honey water starter.
After reading another post in the website somewhere I was going to do a starter in warm mineral water to maximise the yeasties.
I'm not familiar with yeast nutrients (see the number of my posts), so is there a preferred nutrient? Or are they all fairly on par?

 

[JonnyAnchovy]

I'm not familiar with yeast nutrients (see the number of my posts), so is there a preferred nutrient? Or are they all fairly on par?

Check out BrewerPete's long rants on this subject. next mead I lay down I'm going to give his nutrient schedule a shot. I've been making meads for several years, and have had many sub-par batches because of my lack of attention to yeast nutrition, particularly in ultra high OG sack meads.

 

[pdilley]

Depending the source you can end up with mostly DAP or mostly boiled yeast hulls or anything inbetween with additional nutrients blended in. So unless you have a breakdown of the recipe of ingredients its very difficult to say what result you are going to get. The only one, so far, that I had the LHBS ring up the manufacturer and explain why we needed a breakdown (and then sent the breakdown overseas for comparison to the original,) and got an answer that it was s close enough match in the major nutrients was the Bintani Yeast Nutrient mix. Bintani is a large importer of brewing supplies to Australia. My LHBS sells the nutrient in baggies with a sticker on it saying Bintani Yeast Nutrient and those are stored in the Yeast Fridge of the shop. I keep mine in my fridge, although the sparate bag of DAP I keep outside of refrigeration as DAP does not have quite as limited a shelf life.

If you have trouble finding any I can send you the LHBS details.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[crundle]

You should have a listen to the Jamil Show episode on meads, probably one of the most informative episodes he has done, with Ken Schramm as guest speaker who wrote books on the subject. They pay special attention to the rehydrating schedule which is definitely worth a listen.

Never tried one myself, but after listening to the episode they have demystified mead making to a large extent.

Crundle

 

[watchUburn]

Just called up the local honey producers and they've got River Redgum honey which is apparently a dark honey. BUT I have to wait till Monday!!!
I was hoping to do this today but it looks like I'm being forced to do more brooding about it

 

[watchUburn]

Well, as you can see I've decided to try the local honey. Bloody stuff is almost black. I know the lighter the honey the better the mead is supposed to turn out, but you have to try these things.

 

[Airgead]

know the lighter the honey the better the mead is supposed to turn out, but you have to try these things.

Not true at all. I find the darker honeys make much better meads but take longer to age. The best mead I have made used honey from hives that were neglected for a few years. It was more like treacle than honey and took two years before it tasted good but now that it has aged it is fantastic.

Cheers
Dave

 

[watchUburn]

2 years! OMG I can't wait that long...

 

[Airgead]

2 years! OMG I can't wait that long...

Patience young grasshopper.. with mead you must learn patience...

I drank an 15 year old bottle a few weeks ago. That was pretty amazing.

 

[watchUburn]

Well, 2 weeks along and the mead is coming along nicely. I will be racking it onto some fresh strawberries later today.
I didn't want to lose all the aroma and flavour during fermentation, so I put maybe 1/3 of the total strawberries in during primary and now that it's mostly done, I'll let it absorb some more flavour.
If I'd read airgeads thread about his boysenberry melomel first I might have left the strawberries out at the primary, but....

 

[Airgead]

Well, 2 weeks along and the mead is coming along nicely. I will be racking it onto some fresh strawberries later today.
I didn't want to lose all the aroma and flavour during fermentation, so I put maybe 1/3 of the total strawberries in during primary and now that it's mostly done, I'll let it absorb some more flavour.
If I'd read airgeads thread about his boysenberry melomel first I might have left the strawberries out at the primary, but....

You'll also notice in that thread that I rack off the fruit after 7 days. I figure that after that time there is no more flavour or aroma left to extract and any longer I have had some off flavours left behind as the fruit starts to go off a bit.

I have found that if the fruit is sitting on the bottom its usually OK but if it floats it will go brown and nasty then sink through the liquid and make everything taste of off fruit.

If I were you I'd rack off the first batch of fruit when adding the second then rack again after 7 days to get it off the second batch of fruit. Its a few rackings so you need to be careful of oxidisation (use campden if you can) but better than off fruit.

Cheers
Dave

 

[watchUburn]

Only let it sit on the fruit for 7 days? Ok, it was on the first set of fruit for 2 weeks. I racked it today onto the remainder of the fruit. The floating strawberries were kinda brown and odd looking. But I figured that the alcomohol would stop them from actually rotting...
I tried to find some pectic acid to add for the secondary fruit stage, but none of the shops here seem to know what it is, let alone where I can get it from.

Since I had so much trouble syphoning off the clearish mead, I will look into getting some campden tablets for the next stage. Really don't want this one to go off. 2 bad meads in a row would be a bummer.

 

[Airgead]

Only let it sit on the fruit for 7 days? Ok, it was on the first set of fruit for 2 weeks. I racked it today onto the remainder of the fruit. The floating strawberries were kinda brown and odd looking. But I figured that the alcomohol would stop them from actually rotting...
I tried to find some pectic acid to add for the secondary fruit stage, but none of the shops here seem to know what it is, let alone where I can get it from.

Since I had so much trouble syphoning off the clearish mead, I will look into getting some campden tablets for the next stage. Really don't want this one to go off. 2 bad meads in a row would be a bummer.

7 days is kind of a rule of thumb. I figure that after that there is not much flavour or colour left to be extracted. I want to get the fruit out as soon as I can to lessen the chance of off fruit flavours but I don't want to take it off too soon as I wouldn't get the same colour/flavour. 7 days seems to work OK. I do blend up the fruit to help speed up the extraction. Pulp also tends to sink to the bottom which means its not in contact with any oxygen so it won't go off as soon. I find its the floating stuff that causes the problems. I've been wondering whether i should try something like a large hop bag to force the fruit to the bottom of the fermenter but I suspect that will be difficult to fit in the neck of a 5l carboy...

Cheers
Dave

 

[watchUburn]

Just a quick update. After 4 weeks it coming along nicely...

 

[pdilley]

Looking good, keep up the good work and we'll turn you into a master mead maker in no time

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[watchUburn]

Hoping this one turns out ok... You were right though. It's invading my dreams.
I never thought I'd dream about making mead

 

[pdilley]

As long as it has buxom Viking blondes and Mead Halls I'm all for them! Mead is so nice, beer becomes what you brew between waiting for Meads to age




Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[watchUburn]

Strawberry mead at 8 weeks. Continues to clear, I can see the windows from the other side of the room, but I think it's got a while to go yet...