Wife Pleaser Sweet Vanilla-orange Blossom Honey Mead

[pdilley]

Sweeter Sack Style Mead
SG 1140-1150
FG 1024
ABV ~14%

Posting the Original recipe from the 2008 Interview. Has the most up to date Ken Schramm method, so newer than the 2003 published Compleat Meadmaker book. Will have to adjust to metric and take into account your secondary/bulk aging vessel(s) size so you can age with little headspace (filled to the neck) in the racking vessel(s).

BASE:

Start with a sanitised 7 1/2 US Gallon plastic fermenter
In the bottom place 20# of Orange Blossom Honey
Add a little less than 1 gallon water
Mix this up with a sanitised electric mixer until uniformly mixed ("Beat the snot out of it" for about 5 minutes)

PREPARE THE YEAST STARTER:

Lalvin 71B-1122 Dry Yeast, 15 grams
Go Ferm, 20 grams mixed with water in a cake pan (follow instructions of 50ml of water at 104F per packet)
Pour the dry yeast over the surface of the mixed up water and Go Ferm, but do not stir the yeast into the Go Ferm mixture, just let it sit and absorb a little of the water and soon it will go slightly foamy

"If you follow the home brewer section of the yeast manufacturer web sites they will tell you just to pitch the dry yeast directly into your must. But if you go to the professional section of the yeast manufacturer web sites they will tell you to rehydrate properly into a starter and then pitch" - KAMIL, TBN

If you dry pitch yeast you are pitching up to 50% dead yeast cells from the shock of the sugar, gravity, etc. of your must you are pitching into. These dead yeast cells will settle out and break down affecting the flavour of your mead and the fermentation. You get 6-8 Billion viable yeast cells if you dry pitch, but you get up to 20 Billion viable yeast cells if you rehydrate properly and then pitch.

The focus with mead is on the yeast rehydration effort more so than making the must. The exact opposite focus as when brewing beer.

If you wish to further reduce the shock the yeast will encounter when first pitched into a high sugar must environment. You can add a ladle of must to the starter after 10 minutes and every 10 thereafter up to the 30 minute pitching time mark.


CONTINUE ON WITH YOUR FERMENTER PREPARATION:

Add water, chlorine free, to bring total volume of the must up to 5 US Gallons.
Your SG should be 1140 to 1150
Add your Yeast Starter to your Fermentation Vessel

Wait 6-8 hours for the yeast to go through their lag phase.
Then your yeast will require additional nitrogen + nutrients:
Add the following:
1/2 tsp DAP
1/4 tsp Fermaid K (Bintani Yeast Nutrient is a good alternative to Fermaid K in Australia)

You will continue to add the above additions every 24 hours for the next 3 days whereby at the end you have made 4 additions to your mead.
When you add your additions, stir the mead must with a stainless steel paddle or spoon with holes or slots in it. (The plastic one in most LHBSs will bend under vigorous stirring conditions)

You are degassing the CO2 and removing it from your must. Opposite to beer brewing you wish to remove the CO2 and thereby remove the ester suppressing factor that CO2 is contributing. Meads want some fruity esters to bring out and enhance the honey flavour unlike beers where you strive to get a cleaner fermentation and follow stricter procedures. If you do not degass the CO2 you will have a more reductive beverage that will require a lot more decanting with O2 before drinking to bring out the qualities in the Mead.

After the 3 days are up and you have added your 4th DAP + Nutrients addition, now is the time that you will lock up the fermenter and attach the fermentation lock.

You will not do anything with the fermenter until fermentation is complete. Most fermentations will be complete in 14-21 days although with high starting gravities up to 28 days will not be unheard of.


POST FERMENTATION RACKING:

Rack to vessel(s) so that very little headspace exists. (so fill to the neck of the vessel)
Add a muslin tea bag into the mead that contains a 6" long vanilla bean chopped up into smaller pieces (each piece 1" or smaller)
Using a wine thief, take small samples of the mead after 5 days, and every 2 days after that until you find the level of vanilla flavour is to your liking at which point your remove the muslin tea bag from the vessel.


This Mead will be drinkable by 4-5 months at which time it should clear and have a final gravity around 1025.


Bottle and age if you wish or keg and carbonate, but enjoy and share your "liquid panty remover" liberally with the wife.

 

[notung]

It sounds absolutely lovely! These are the sorts of recipes making me want to buy a glass carboy for aging. Thank you for posting this.

 

[notung]

In the bottom place 20# of Orange Blossom Honey

20lbs?

 

[pdilley]

yes # is the pound symbol used in recipes

7 1/2 gallons is almost spot on a 30 litre fermenter
20# is 9.07kg
5 gallons is 19.2 litres

When converting you are looking at the ratios that ingredient is against all the other ingredients that make up a recipe and scaling accordingly rather than a straight number conversion. Honey is easy as you dial in your final SG with your refractometer (or hydrometer) as you are blending the final honey/water mix.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[flattop]

I like the recipe but i only bought 3k of honey

 

[pdilley]

Should be about 2.6 kg to brew out a 5 litre carboy/demijohn batch

Or just buy more honey


I've still got 30kg of honey to run through before I have to go back to the farm for more.

I'm going to go small batch on a lot of my brews just because 6 to 7 bottles per batch is plenty enough to me when I get to put lots of recipes together all at once I'll still end up with 50-60+ bottles by the end of a brew season to age out and try.

Ask the LHBS that gets lots of glassware if they can do bulk deals and just buy 2-3 pallets of 5-litre demijohns, so that will be 12-18 demijohns. I have 4 of the 5 litres myself so would look at adding at least 12 more to my collection. At this size you can do AG brews on the stove top with small grain bags and you can do lots of meads and wines all at once fermenting out in your collection. I'm even going to try just shutting the grolsch style lid tight and giving the whole demijohn a good shake (thumb loop prevents flying bottle!) then just pop the grolsch to degass provided no foam fountain otherwise pop the lid back down tight quick

I tried looking at Bunnings at the tiny paint stirrer drill attachments but the plastic is hard and breaks if you try and flex the blades and insert it into a demijohn. So a flip top grolsch lid and a good shake seems a decent alternative to me.

 

[brettprevans]

ive got 6kg of orange blossum so I might have to give this a go.
still got to buy some of the lalvin yeasts though. I recon wyeast dry mead would do the trick though wouldnt it? Ive got that.

 

[moovet]

Pete,

I put down one of these tonight and just had a couple of questions based on the instructions.

Do you oxygenate the must before pitching?

Re: "now is the time that you will lock up the fermenter and attach the fermentation lock". Do you have the lid on without the airlock for those nutrient additions? If so, how do you prevent contamination through the airlock grommit?

Cheers,


Moovet

 

[Tyred]

Pete,

I put down one of these tonight and just had a couple of questions based on the instructions.

Do you oxygenate the must before pitching?

Re: "now is the time that you will lock up the fermenter and attach the fermentation lock". Do you have the lid on without the airlock for those nutrient additions? If so, how do you prevent contamination through the airlock grommit?

Cheers,


Moovet

The must should be oxygenated before pitching. The mixing process should introduce oxygen into it.

From the instructions, I would assume that the lid is removed for the nutrient additions as you need to stir the must to remove the CO2 from it.

 

[moovet]

The must should be oxygenated before pitching. The mixing process should introduce oxygen into it.

From the instructions, I would assume that the lid is removed for the nutrient additions as you need to stir the must to remove the CO2 from it.

Good. I assumed you still had to oxygenate it so I got the paint stirrer into it for a few minutes.

With regards to the airlock thing, I was meaning between the additions as there is a specific mention of adding the airlock after the last addition. I was wondering if it wasn't used before that for the first few days. Anyway, I have put it on and tightened the lid and will just remove it for the additions and stirring.

Cheers,


M

 

[pdilley]

When using my 60 litre fermenter I just remove the lid+airlock when adding and stirring. When stirred (rechargeable electric drill GMC + large paint stirrer both from Bunnings although GMC is no more) I put the lid back on. As mentioned this is from the radio show and my use/affixation of lid+airlock is in the first statement above. It is mentioned by Ken that beer brewers find the time without lid unnerving.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[moovet]

When using my 60 litre fermenter I just remove the lid+airlock when adding and stirring. When stirred (rechargeable electric drill GMC + large paint stirrer both from Bunnings although GMC is no more) I put the lid back on. As mentioned this is from the radio show and my use/affixation of lid+airlock is in the first statement above. It is mentioned by Ken that beer brewers find the time without lid unnerving.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

Cheers Pete. Do you have a preferred temperature for this yeast to bring out the esters?


M

 

[pdilley]

No need to worry about modifying the temps yet moovet, the degassing during oxygenation will take care of this for you. Even when fermenting ambiently I make sure it's sitting between 18-22.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[moovet]

No need to worry about modifying the temps yet moovet, the degassing during oxygenation will take care of this for you. Even when fermenting ambiently I make sure it's sitting between 18-22.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

Bit of a disaster today with the last addition. Added the DAP and nutrient and got into it with the paint stirrer again to be immediately welcomed with Mt Vesuvius and a foamover losing about 1 L of wort. Managed to switch off the lightbulb/terracotta pot underneath before it was swallowed but a bloody mess all the same. Wasn't expecting such a reaction as the last addition was no big drama.

Anyway, cleaned it up as best I could without contaminating anything more but wonder if I should have poured boiling water over the underside of the lid in case bugs will grow there now.

Obviously should have just used the spoon to degas the must this time. Hope all is not ruined. What do you guys do when/if this happens? Competely resterilise the lid and airlock or just clean it best you can and leave it be?

Cheers,


M

 

[pdilley]

This is why I use a 60 litre fermenter. With nutrients bringing the honey must closer to what yeast need you can get massive krausen and degassing foaming activity with some of the yeasts. I wipe up spills with a new/dedicated brew cloth (i.e. Not used for doing kitchen dishes -- covered in bacteria) and then give a wipe down with sanitiser. The yeast are growing and takin over at such a rate that any competing bugs will have a run for their money so it's not a loss. If worried about getting the lid clean just switch to clear cling film plastic over the top lip of the fermenter method. Your fermenting time will be only a few weeks, similar to beer if you factor in the additional time for the yeast to chew through the higher gravity of fermentables.

Is your heating device on a temperature controller? I only ask as a reminder that the temperatures in the fermenter will rise on it's own during this large amount of bio activity of the yeast and you could end up 5+ degrees over your target if you have a manual set temperature. This also would lead to more rapid buildup of yeast and CO2 and more degassng gushers.

EDIT: For a better picture of my process I use the large plastic wide-mouth fermenters for the first few weeks then I rack into narrow necks glass demijohns for the long term. A foam volcano in a narrow necked demijohn would be a firehose force event

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[moovet]

Is your heating device on a temperature controller? I only ask as a reminder that the temperatures in the fermenter will rise on it's own during this large amount of bio activity of the yeast and you could end up 5+ degrees over your target if you have a manual set temperature. This also would lead to more rapid buildup of yeast and CO2 and more degassng gushers.

EDIT: For a better picture of my process I use the large plastic wide-mouth fermenters for the first few weeks then I rack into narrow necks glass demijohns for the long term. A foam volcano in a narrow necked demijohn would be a firehose force event

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

Thanks for that Pete. I always thought you were just brewing bigger batches in the 60L fermenter. Makes good sense though. Will be brewing a hefeweizen and weizenbock after this mead. If they have as big a krausen, I probably will have to get a bigger fermenter.

I have one of the Ebay thermostats set at 21 degrees at the moment and it seems to be working well.

Will be racking to a 23L carboy and with the loss of 1L of must, (now 24L totaL) hopefully there will not be too much headspace in the carboy. How much must do you lose with the lees when racking?

Cheers,


Moovet

 

[pdilley]

Loss amounts are not an exact figure but depend upon your vessels you are racking from/into. If you think about it if you have a wide and flat bottomed vessel you can potentially lose more volume of liquid if you stop siphoning at a preset limit above lees than if you had a more narrow vessel. Also if you siphon into a thin necked demi it will make a small loss look bigger than it is. I keep extra mead in tall beer bottles to wine bottles up to 5 liter fermeters to use in topping up any loss after racking. I have not taken to measuring each addition though.

You can also top up with sterile water if over gravity or if the volumetric addition is small enough not to effect final gravity substantially.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete