Brewer Pete you have certainly got me interested in having a go at a mead. Will leave it till next summer as it's a bit cold down here in Tassie at the moment. What do you reckon about using Leather wood Honey? Or do you think it would be a bit overpowering in a mead. Have made a few Porters with Leatherwood, very nice.
I have not had a Leatherwood honey yet to be able to comment on it. I will keep an eye out for it. Apply the standard rule, if it tastes good and smells good, its a Mead candidate.
Fermentation temperature control applies to good Meads as it does with good beers. I have not experienced a summer in Tasmania, but I wouldn't want to brew in a Canberra summer unless I have a temperature controlled brewing fridge ready to go.
Brewer Pete , you certainly have posted some and inspiring and good information on meads
I going to have to get some Orange Blossom mead
How do you know it is genuine ?
Pumpy, I always assume you mean honey when you ask about varietals + the word mead
Orange Blossom if you have had some you will know the flavour. But as with all honey its so complex its hard to describe. If you buy small quanties from multiple suppliers and they all taste very agreeable to each other you know you have a good reasonable expectation you are dealing with the varietal listed on the jar. You'll also probably find one you prefer more than the other in taste or aroma than the others. You should be able to detect a slight citrus aroma and slight fruity taste mixed in with the other honey flavours.
I have two Stringy Bark JAOs so don't get hung up on one particular varietal. I missed the orange blossom honey at the Farm, so I got the Stringy Bark to play with and put my name on the list for Iron Bark which was due to be harvested a month after my first visit. 5 weeks later I had my Iron Bark.
I may start two Iron Bark JAOs just to have a comparison base, but my Iron Bark already came in a kilo under order as there was less collection this season and the bigger buyers got preferential treatment.
US-05 is an exceptional Ale yeast to brew out Meads with. Adds a hint of banana and clove taste to your mead to improve the fruity taste and leaves a sparkle hint on the tongue. European ale yeasts are out, along with a lot of other beer yeasts. Good old US-05 seems to take the cake. Outside of the ale yeasts you have the wine yeasts which a lot of people use for Meads. Lalvin D-47 is very popular with Mead brewers. I've seen 71B-1122 yeast used in fruit Braggots.
Other yeasts I see used are Montrachet (CraftBrewer is one of the few I've found with this, also the yeast needed to make German Apfelwein tasting cider from straight apple juice), Champagne , Premier Cuvee, Blanc. I find the BrewCraft stocked stores don't seem to sell anything except house product. I have SN11 from Vintners Harvest but this is basically a champagne yeast. I just have not got around to trying SN11, but I would prefer using CL23 and CY17 first based on what I've read of their data sheets. With honey must amendments you can run all these yeasts with no worries about stuck fermentations issues that would normally mark them down on a fruit wine datasheet as less desirable for Meads.
There is only one piece of equipment left to get if you really want to be a Compleat Meadmaker, that would be a pH meter and to also customise the pH level before pitching in the yeast. pH will drop as fermentation happens but starting near 3.9 to 4 should be a good mark to aim for. Once you are at this level of brewing there isn't anything out there that is fermentable that you wont be able to turn into a perfect yeast environment and get the fermentations time down to beer levels.
I'm not adjust pH on this brew yet as I don't have a pH meter. Thats saved for the next acquisition.
Cheers,
Brewer Pete
