First Meads!

[ckassotis]

So I have finally ventured out into the wonderful world of mead-making. Decided to start with 2 1-gallon batches of Joe's Ancient Orange Mead.

First one I made according to the recipe and the second I did with a Fuji apple and an Asian Pear. Made with some local pure wildflower honey I found at a nearby farm. Simply amazing stuff, very much looking forward to the outcome!

Bubbling away happily!

 

[fatbloke]

Nice pic's for what should be a good start.

Once the main part of the fermentation has calmed down, I'd gently fill the carboys up to within an inch of the bung/air lock.

It's usually done like that, because, as with any brew made with fruit, it seems that it can trap more CO2, and creates a bottle neck for any build up of gas, so you can get a foam eruption.

As I say, when the main part of the ferment has finished - how do you tell ? I don't I just wait until it's been going 2 or 3 weeks, then gently swirl the fermenter for a couple of minutes, then pour the water in slowly from a sanitised jug.

If it starts to foam up, then I stop and let it settle some, then swirl it again, before adding more water for the top up.

Presuming that you did a bit of research to work out which recipe to try first ?

Because you will probably find that the hardest thing about making JAO type recipes, is that if you followed the guidance and used bread yeast, while it works well, it doesn't flocculate (settle) very well. Even just moving the fermenter can bring some of the sediment back into solution, once it's settled into a nice layer with the used up fruit debris.

I usually wait until the fruit has sunk, then move the fermenter to where I'm gonna conduct the racking, a couple of days before the event. Then I carefully rack down to the bottom of the clear part. The rest of the liquid can be racked into a 2 litre pop/soda bottle thats had the top cut off. Once the last of the actual liquid (not the muddy looking part - that just gets binned) into the plastic bottle, I cover the top with cling wrap and put it in the fridge for a day or so. Once the sediment has dropped out, it can be racked away leaving just the sediment. It minimises racking losses.

Well done, and good luck with your batches

 

[cindy]

I'm starting a one gallon experiment batch today except instead of filling it up with
plain water I am brewing some herbal tea that has clove orange and spices with some cinnamon sticks
and oranges. yours looks good how did you put it together?
I'll post pics later when its all together..

 

[fatbloke]

I'm starting a one gallon experiment batch today except instead of filling it up with
plain water I am brewing some herbal tea that has clove orange and spices with some cinnamon sticks
and oranges. yours looks good how did you put it together?
I'll post pics later when its all together..

Experimentation is good. Here's the link for the original JAO recipe, just remember, if you go looking round for ideas, guidance etc, when it comes to the original version. That the recipe is for 1 US gallon (if you don't happen to be in the US), but it works just as well if you made it up to 1 imp gallon (4.55 litres) or even to 5 litres. The bread yeast is used as it will poop out earlier than a wine yeast will, which is the whole point i.e. when made with bread yeast, it will finish sweet, which has a 2 fold purpose - it makes it easy to drink earlier and the sweetness counteracts/balanaces any bitterness that comes from the orange pith. Which is why, in it's original form, the recipe doesn't make for a good dry brew.

There's an alternative version to be found here, but Malkore suggests using the Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast, which I'd suggest that any new mead maker avoids like the plague. I'm sure that if successful, it makes a good mead, but it's finicky as hell to use and is known to either not ferment or get stuck for no apparent reason. If you wanted to use it, I'd suggest to research about making a starter with it first. I don't like these yeasts advertised as "mead yeasts". The makers have no way in hell, to know what the yeast strains that were used historically, so IMO it's just marketing hype.

It would be better to use a "normal" dry yeast of some sort. A good one for traditionals and similar meads, is Lalvin K1V-1116.

Make the batch, let it ferment dry, then back sweeten it to your desired level, which is what you'd have to do if you wanted to make a JAO with a wine yeast, to balanace out the pithy bitterness.

I like the idea about using the herbal infusion "tea" for the main portion of the liquid, just remember that the primary ferment can reduce the flavour and/or colour quite a lot. Down to not much more than a trace of flavour. It's often thought better, to add fruit and/or spices to a secondary stage, as it often makes for an "earlier drinking" brew, that doesn't need ageing so long. Hence I'd suggest that you could keep a couple of the "tea bags" for afterward and once your batch is brewed/fermented, chuck a couple or so in and let the flavour infuse - keep having a little taste every other day and then once it's reached the level of flavour you like, take them out/rack it off......

With spices, if you read the original JAO recipe, you'll see a comment that Joe included about being careful with the cloves - people forget how strong flavoured they can be. It's much easier to add a little more, but it's virtually impossible to remove if you use too much.

Dunno if any of that helps any.

 

[cindy]

great! thanks for the info! I have (2) one gallon glass jugs I plan to use and also EC1118 yeast, the tea is constant comments the flavor is really nice clove,orange and spice. I plan to add sliced oranges and cinnamon sticks to the brew I'm using local wild flower honey and plan to do (1) gallon similar to JAO except with wine yeast and the other (1) gallon with the tea. I think playing around with recipes is a lot of fun of course it comes in second to drinking it

 

[fatbloke]

great! thanks for the info! I have (2) one gallon glass jugs I plan to use and also EC1118 yeast, the tea is constant comments the flavor is really nice clove,orange and spice. I plan to add sliced oranges and cinnamon sticks to the brew I'm using local wild flower honey and plan to do (1) gallon similar to JAO except with wine yeast and the other (1) gallon with the tea. I think playing around with recipes is a lot of fun of course it comes in second to drinking it

As a bit of a caveat, especially if you have EC-1118. Champagne yeast(s) are usually what is recommended by home brew shops who don't know what they're talking about.

The suggest them, presumably because of the reasonably high alcohol tolerance (usually about 18%) and the sweeping generalisations they presume about the sugar load of the original must.

I do have a pack or two, but only for emergencies. I'm not keen of the flavours of the dry meads I've made and champagne yeasts seem to exacerbate the issue. They seem to blow too much of the aromatics and some of the more subtle flavouring elements straight out the airlock. Which is fine, if you aiming for a dry, lightly flavoured (bland IMO) mead, that you're hoping to carbonate - in other words, like a champagne/sparkling white, but made with honey and water instead of grape juice.

For my still meads (I make mostly still traditionals), I stick to yeasts that have a better provenance i.e. K1V and D21. Though if I intend using any fruit, I'll often use 71B, or if it's red/black fruit, then RC-212.

As I said earlier, if you do make a batch, the same as, or like a JAO and you use wine yeast, it's likely that it will ferment dry, so if it's like JAO with the whole orange, the pith is a bittering agent that will come to the forefront with batches made with wine yeast.

If you're unfamiliar with making meads, the link with the JAO recipe from my earlier post, came from the Gotmead NewBee Guide - just read the whole thing. It's full of info and guidance in the current recommended methods and technique.....

 

[cindy]

hmm... the EC-1118 is what others have reccomended I use on this forum so I have been using it every since so far everything I've made has turned out very good. I will let you know how this turns out.
again thanks for the info!

 

[Julie]

Cindy,

The 1118 is usually recommend for wines that have a stuck fermentation or wines you are making out of something unusual, such as skittles or anthing that would possibly be difficult to start.

 

[cindy]

Thanks Guys, I have fresh bread yeast here as well so you suggest I use that instead?
I dont want this to turn out dry.

 

[cindy]

well its done I'm waiting for it to come down to room temp then pitch the "bread yeast" it will be good I have faith!

 

[fatbloke]

Thanks Guys, I have fresh bread yeast here as well so you suggest I use that instead?
I dont want this to turn out dry.

One of the chaps on the Winesathome forums used "fresh" yeast last month to make a batch (but as it's still gonna be very young and fermenting, I can't ask him for any info about it).

I can see no reason why there could be a problem with it.

As far as I can recall, Joes comment in the original JAO recipe said about only using "normal" bread yeast, as the fast acting stuff ferments really quickly and can cause eruptions very easily in the early stages of the ferment i.e. it is developed and chosen to produce CO2 very quickly to raise the bread faster.

So normal fresh yeast should be fine.

well its done I'm waiting for it to come down to room temp then pitch the "bread yeast" it will be good I have faith!

Ah, well I don't even use hot water to mix my batches. I use luke warm water and mix the honey/water with a sanitised electric balloon whisk. That way I don't have to worry about shaking the hell out of a heavy(ish) glass container full, to try and aerate it. The whisk does that for me, then if I'm using a carboy to ferment it in, I just use a funnel to pour it in.

Good on yer though. It should work fine.....


Further to my suggestion of not going for EC-1118. Julie pointed out an additional reason that why it might not be as suitable as some would suggest (don't get me wrong, it's not bad, but there's better yeast strains/types to use) and it's possible use.

Now it's not just EC-1118 that people rave about, when (IMO) it's not as good as other types. A lot of people get recommended to use D47, which again, isn't a bad yeast to use, but it has a different problem. I could use it easily here, as we don't get the temps often found, during the summer in continental North America, so it's easy for me to maintain a lower fermentation temp. If you looked up the info in the Lallemand yeast chart, you may notice, that D47 has quite a narrow temperature range.

Which is fine if you can maintain 70F/21C or lower for it's fermentation, but if you can't, it's known to produce a lot of fusels, and the batch can end up tasting very "chemically". A small amount of fusel alcohol can mellow with aging, but often it needs extended aging and even then, there's no guarantee that it will mellow out.

There are a number of yeasts that are known to produce good meads, that are like the other ones commonly used i.e. low nutrient requirements, low H2S producing, wide temperature range, etc etc etc. Personally I like D21 and K1V-1116, as both seem to be good at producing successful, nice tasting batches.

Hell even bread yeast is pretty good and if you made a batch of traditional mead, but with the usual nutrient levels, early stage aeration, etc etc, you can get a batch that will go to 12% ABV without much difficulty.

 

[cindy]

very good.... I was reading about different yeasts I will be experimenting with that as well! the batches started fermenting about a 1/2 hour after pitching the yeast I was wondering if the tea one would take longer to start but it didn't make any difference they both took off around the same time.

 

[ckassotis]

Excellent! Thanks for the tips bloke. All good info. I was wondering about the fruit... so in ~2 months it is supposed to sink, signalling that you're ready to rack and bottle, according to the JOAM recipe. My question is... how wonderful would that fruit taste after fermenting in a honey wine? I would imagine pretty good, but perhaps not.

I followed Joe's recipe spot-on for the first variety and then switched the oranges for a Fuji apple and an asian pear for the second.

Also thanks for the racking tip! They smell delicious already.

 

[ckassotis]

Right, forgot something else I was going to say. JAOM talks about the skin of the fruit that you add. I think bloke mentioned that above also. Having the skin on the oranges works when using the bread yeast, but is not something you should do when using an actual mead or wine yeast. It helps to balance this particular mead, but when doing a normal mead, you want to remove the skin (at least from my understanding).

 

[fatbloke]

Depends on the properties of the fruit/skin. With citrus fruit, a lot of the aromatics are in the zest.

The variant recipe that Malkore posted over at homebrewtalk, uses just the skinned, segmented flesh and the zest. Which is a different way, equally he also suggests using the wyeast sweet mead yeast. Which can be a complete PITA to use. As its finicky as hell and sticks or gives other problems easily.

At the same time, a lot of fruit types, the brews will be made on the fruit or pulp, for colour and/or tannins and aromatics.

The question is usually about processing fruit, so the yeast can get to the fruit sugars quickly. I don't liquidise or process fruit like that, as bitterness can come from pips/seeds that get broken or smashed.

I just freeze and then thaw, as that allows you to break down cells enough and not introduce bitterness unintentionally.