Here's my plan - target practice...

[headinsouth]

My first shot at mead, so shoot some holes in it (or fill in blanks...)

I have about six lbs of honey, so I'm going to use about half and make a gallon.
I want to make this first batch without any fruit/juices.

I'm going to boil a gallon and change of water to get the gasses out, then cool it and aerate it probably with my stand mixer.

In a 2 gal plastic (yes food grade and sanitized) bucket I'll mix 2 3/4 lbs of the honey with say 7 pints of the water. The other pint I plan to mix with about 2 T (couple of ounces) of honey to start my yeast in. I'll adjust the SG of the bucket mix to 1.125 - 1.130, the starter mix to 1.095-1.100. I assume since I'm only making a gallon, I wouldn't need an entire package of yeast, so I plan to pitch 1/2 pkg in the starter solution. I plan to use EC-1118. WAIT before someone freaks... I want to ferment this in my basement which is an eerily constant 53 degrees (12 C for the rest of the world...). The 1118 is supposedly good down to 49 degrees, and I'm speculating that the cooler (and therefor slower) fermentation should minimize to an extent the reputation of this yeast to cause off flavors? If I'm wrong in this thinking I'll get a different yeast and figure a way to keep it warmer. (I happen to also have some Pasteur Champagne yeast in my freezer).

I'm not planning to need any yeast starter, but if you folks twist my arm, I'll happily go get some. I also assume that since there will be no fruit involved I don't need to use any of my pectin enzyme.

Once the yeast gets happy, I'll begin adding some of the bucket mix into the starter gradually sneaking the SG up to near the level of the bucket so the yeast doesn't even know what hit it.... All of this will take place in my kitchen which will be as close to 70 degrees (21 C) as possible - realistically about 68. Then, once the must gets happy, I'll sneak it down into the basement 4-5 steps per day acclimating those yeasties to their new home.

Check the SG regularly (every what, 2-3 days?) waiting, waiting, waiting for that magic number.

Now if I really need to, I'll add some yeast nutrient to the mix, but I'm just trying to keep this as simple and 'natural' as possible. If there's a good option other than a manufactured yeast nutrient product, I'd probably prefer to use it, keeping in mind that I'm not a freak about chems or products of convenience, just that in a year or so the term product of convenience will be defined differently based on what's available to me in Central America....

Also, I haven't mentioned pH - I'm not really sure how it plays into making mead...

OK - enough for now
Get the artillery out...

 

[FishNiX]

Your yeast choice will probably be fine, but I Lalvin D'47 is a strain that many use to make mead and also prefers cooler temperatures.

disclamer: I haven't made a mead yet, but it's on my short list.

 

[pkeeler]

I'm sure what you plan will work (with one caveat), but it seems like a lot of time and energy. For instance, why boil out the gases then aerate? If pasteurization is not an issue for you (and heating the honey is not in your post), then just add the honey to your water and mix and aerate the heck out of it. If you have chlorine in your water, then you have to deal with that or get cheap bottled water. Plus, no reason to really do all the trouble with the starter, just rehydrate a whole packet and toss it in. Your saving maybe $0.50 with a quantum jump in effort.

I've used K1 at 55-60 with no problems. 53 should be doable.

You do need nutrients and energizer. They are not expensive and keep a long time.

 

[fatbloke]

Me ? I wouldn't bother with the boiling bit either. Just mix the honey and water, then use a liquidiser to aerate some of the must. That usually works fine.

Oh and I wouldn't use EC-1118 either. If you check out the Lalvin Yeast chart, you'll see examples of plenty of yeasts that will ferment down low. For general usage, I'd suggest K1V-1116. It's a fine yeast for this and ages very well (and is easily available).

For traditionals, nutrient is almost mandatory. Show meads don't use it and can take a very, very long time to ferment.

pH is weird with meads, it can swing quite wildly, but keeping it above about 3 is good as a ferment can stick below that.

Your point on lower temps producing less "off flavours" has a lot of merit. There's a fair amount of info about that suggests exactly that i.e. lower temps = slower fermentation speed, but also lower off flavours/fusels/etc etc....

 

[CB750]

I question why you are going through all the trouble to produce one gallon of mead. Mead is nectar from God and once you open your first bottle you are going to wish you made more. It does take a long time to complete and five gallons is no harder than one gallon. I would go for a five gallon batch. Figure a month in the primary and another month in the secondary, rack again and when it is clear, you can bottle and let it sit for 6 months or more. I have never degassed mead it doesn't seem to be an issue or have I used any clarifying agents. You just wait and wait and one day it will be clear.

One thing you can do when you bottle is to split the batch and make one a still mead and the other a sparkling mead by adding back some more honey and yeast. Done right it will put champagne to shame. If making a sparkling mead you don't have to mess around with special corks or bottles. Just bottle it in 12oz or 24oz beer bottles, but you will have to decant the bottle or treat it as a bottle conditioned beer.

If your honey is wild and not store brought it is important that you get rid of any unwanted bacteria as it might compete with your yeast. You have two choices. I pasteurize my honey in water at 170 degrees for 20 minutes. The same goes when making a cyser or melomel. You can also use sulphite as you would in wine making. If you use sulphate put a rag over the top of the carboy to let the gas escape and make sure you wait 24 hours before you pitch the yeast.

The use of a yeast nutrient is essential and don't skimp on the yeast use 2 packs of anything you buy.

I agree with you and Fatblok about fermenting mead at lower temperatures. I like to pitch the yeast at about 70 degrees and once I start to get C02 I lower the temperature into the low 60's, It makes for a slow ferment and it seems to go on forever. In the past I have not used Sulphates to stop fermentation or oxidation as I am a beer brewer who started making mead, and is now trying may hand with wine.

 

[fatbloke]

I question why you are going through all the trouble to produce one gallon of mead. Mead is nectar from God and once you open your first bottle you are going to wish you made more. It does take a long time to complete and five gallons is no harder than one gallon. I would go for a five gallon batch. Figure a month in the primary and another month in the secondary, rack again and when it is clear, you can bottle and let it sit for 6 months or more. I have never degassed mead it doesn't seem to be an issue or have I used any clarifying agents. You just wait and wait and one day it will be clear.

The point of making smaller batches i.e. 1 gallon or so, is often lost on US mead makers. For me, it's about cost of materials and also about available space. I can get the honey for a 1 gallon batch for just over £10 (on average, sometimes more sometimes less). So multiplying by 5 makes it a questionable purchase if you're not sure what you're gonna get - keep in mind that while there are a lot of commonalities of what we tend to do, there is no real standards. After all, in terms relative to the "grape wine market", meads are "niche".

Plus, it's relatively easy to obtain smaller buckets/carboys etc, whereas not all places/area's/countries have the same availability for larger ones, which are mainly restricted to home brewing type activities. Most commercial makers use stainless steel fermenters - which are easily scaled up, not so with glass and it's inherent handling issues.....

While I might have to space to keep a few 1 gallon batches "ticking over" in different locations, I don't have enough room to have more than a single 5 gallon batch on the go....

One thing you can do when you bottle is to split the batch and make one a still mead and the other a sparkling mead by adding back some more honey and yeast. Done right it will put champagne to shame. If making a sparkling mead you don't have to mess around with special corks or bottles. Just bottle it in 12oz or 24oz beer bottles, but you will have to decant the bottle or treat it as a bottle conditioned beer.

Yes, that's entirely feasible. It won't put champagne to shame though. They're entirely different products.

You don't necessarily have to mess around when making a sparkling batch though. Yes, getting new champagne/sparkling wine bottles is more of a nuisance, but you can just use plastic stoppers and wire cages. So it's really down to you whether you want to make it with "proper" technique (methode champenoise) or bottle condition. The former is much more hassle.

The difference between using those methods and the actual containers used is more about convenience than anything else. Beer bottles and caps are much easier to source for most of us, so......

If your honey is wild and not store brought it is important that you get rid of any unwanted bacteria as it might compete with your yeast. You have two choices. I pasteurize my honey in water at 170 degrees for 20 minutes. The same goes when making a cyser or melomel. You can also use sulphite as you would in wine making. If you use sulphate put a rag over the top of the carboy to let the gas escape and make sure you wait 24 hours before you pitch the yeast.

Honey is naturally one of the most anti-bacterial substances on the planet. It's anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties have shown that it will last millenia.

Pasteurisation just removes some of the more subtle and volatile flavour and aroma elements. If your honey is too viscous, then just warm it gently in a sink full of warm water, just long enough to make it runny and easily used. Making meads with fruit ingredients is rather different. You would often sulphite it to reduce the chance of problems of bacteria/fungus contamination on the fruit, not the honey, but CB750's method is good for that.

Hell, even if you get raw honey from a beekeeper that's not been filtered, it's usually still fine to use "as is". Any hive debris will settle out with the lee's, or is removed during racking.

The use of a yeast nutrient is essential and don't skimp on the yeast use 2 packs of anything you buy.

Yes and no. Nutrient is necessary, not essential. It depends on the product being made. 2 packs is also not necessary, more of a waste of money (though yeast packs aren't expensive so.....) A normal home brew sized yeast pack is enough for 5 gallons. If you're someone who likes to prepare things in advance, you can use it for more, just make a larger yeast starter instead.

I agree with you and Fatbloke about fermenting mead at lower temperatures. I like to pitch the yeast at about 70 degrees and once I start to get C02 I lower the temperature into the low 60's, It makes for a slow ferment and it seems to go on forever. In the past I have not used Sulphates to stop fermentation or oxidation as I am a beer brewer who started making mead, and is now trying may hand with wine.

The fermentation temperature depends more on the strain of yeast. One of the reasons I like the Montpellier strain K1V-1116, is because it has a wide temperature range (10 to 35 C from memory, but the Lalvin yeast chart details it better than my memory). Plus it has that "killer" factor and will become the dominant yeast quickly, which helps a lot if any of the ingredients are prone to fungal infection/contamination.

With the temperature thing, there are certain, popular yeasts that happen to do their thing at lower temperatures, better than the higher possible levels. One that comes to mind is D47. It's a good yeast that does well in meads, but it can make "paint thinner" if it's fermented much above 70 F (20 C). So care should be taken during the fermentation stage if you want something that's not going to take forever to mellow out any fusels produced during ferment.

This isn't, in any way, meant to be critical of CB750's post. Just that it raised some points in my mind that I thought needed a bit of clarification. There are certain things that are common to beer, wine and meads, but there's also a number of things that the 3 different branches of brewing/winemaking, that are just done differently (usually for specific reasons) and sometimes that are contrary to how you'd do the same thing for a different product.

Hope that is of some use.

regards

fatbloke

 

[CB750]

This isn't, in any way, meant to be critical of CB750's post. Just that it raised some points in my mind that I thought needed a bit of clarification. There are certain things that are common to beer, wine and meads, but there's also a number of things that the 3 different branches of brewing/winemaking, that are just done differently (usually for specific reasons) and sometimes that are contrary to how you'd do the same thing for a different product.

Hope that is of some use.

regards

fatbloke

No offence taken. I started brewing beer back in the mid 1990's, before the Internet was a popular source of information. Back then most of our information came from the guy who owned the home brew shop and books. Among the books I read were a number of home brewing books written by Charlie Papazian. In those books Mr. Papazian makes reference and instruction to Mead making. The process of fermenting honey intrigued me and since I live in Michigan I had a great source of natural honey, apple cider, and other fruits I decided to give it a try.

In no way do I represent myself as a skilled brewer or mead maker. Rather I have taken what others have written on the subject and used them to my advantage to produce some satisfying beer and mead. When procedures worked for me I felt little need to change them.

I have to admit that I do side on Pasteurization as most of the Mead's I made were either Cyser or Melomel and used natural fruit and cider. As a beer brewer I had a brew pot, heat source and wort chiller to do it that way as opposed to sulphite or doing nothing.

Actually the most interesting book I have read on Mead is "Wassail in Mazers of Mead" written by Lt. Colonel Robert Gayre. It traces the history of Mead back to ancient mythology. In reading that book it is clear that beer and wine making were a product or outgrowth of mead making. It is also clear that our ancestors paid much less attention to sanitation as we do today. Right or wrong I also buy into the mythology that honey and mead were gifts from God, and place it high in my ranking of fermented beverages.

 

[fatbloke]

That's a very nice comment CB750. I did wonder whether your alluding to pasteurisation was the result of being a beer brewer.....

I've also read Charlie P's "TCJoHB", and while it has great merit, it did strike me as seeming like it was biased toward beer making. Myself, I like Ken Schramm's book and also some now out of print books of UK origin.

I've heard of the other book you mention, but have yet to track a copy down.

It's very weird with meads though. I mean, really, what we're doing, is making honey wine as per some of the wine making techniques, and hopefully producing something that pays more than just lip service to the original technique (and products), most of which, seems went undocumented....

regards

fatbloke

 

[CB750]

You are correct my use of Pasteurization for mead making is an outgrowth of my beer brewing. While I don't use Pasteurization in my brewing per say. Brewers have to be able to make precise temperature adjustments when doing the starch conversion, as well as during the fermentation process especially when lager beers are made.

In fact one of the things I liked about mead making was even with the pasteurization step it was much simpler and less time consuming than brewing beer. For me it is a welcome change. When I make my next mead I might use sulphite as it seems simpler. However, I sometimes wonder if what we are making today is actually close to the mead produced that was produced hundreds and thousands of years ago. Colonel Gayre makes reference to it as a very dry beverage that at times was fermented in large open wooden vats, and sweet mead came much later.

One thing I have found out is mead is a very mysterious drink, as most people have no idea what it is and what it tastes like. However, when given a sample most of my friends and family like it and all comment that they like the warmth is provides as it travels from one's mouth to stomach. I also find it to be a very kind drink when it comes to morning hang overs when compared to wine. In the past year or two I have noticed commercially produced mead appearing for sale in our stores in the USA. These are produced by smaller craft type wineries and tend to be sweet Sack type Mead's.

The copy of Colonel Gayre's book was a reprint that was done as a two part book in conjunction with Charlie Papazian "Brewing Mead Wassail in Masters of Mead" Published by Brewers Publications A Division of the Association of Brewers PO box 1679 Boulder, Colorado 80306-1679 USA. I still see in in local brew shops in my area.

You are right Papazian is biased toward beer making but he does like to use honey in his brewing, I do notice a some inconsistencies in what he writes about mead making in an early book he suggests boiling the honey wort for an hour as you would beer. I tried that onece in my first one gallon batch. The honey broke down and foamed a lot just as beer does but I did not like the results the mead had no character. Since that time I see that Papazian and others who write about mead making have dropped the boil from their instructions.

 

[docanddeb]

I have made several Melomels in the past 3 yrs. I never boil my chlorinated water or my honey. I add them together... I do warm some of the water a bit if it's winter and the honey is real stiff. I've never had a problem.
From what I have read, boiling the honey blows off the subtle aromas that make mead so special.
I did a batch of JAOM for my first attempt. It's now over 2 yrs old and very smooth. It was a 1 gal batch. I buy honey in 60# pails for just over $100. I use honey exclusively in my bread baking, which I do a lot of, so between that and melomel... I use probably 100# of honey a year.

Debbie

 

[CB750]

From what I have read, boiling the honey blows off the subtle aromas that make mead so special.
I did a batch of JAOM for my first attempt. It's now over 2 yrs old and very smooth. It was a 1 gal batch. I buy honey in 60# pails for just over $100. I use honey exclusively in my bread baking, which I do a lot of, so between that and melomel... I use probably 100# of honey a year.

Debbie

I agree, as I found out when I made my first cyser by boiling both the honey and cider as a beer brewer would did destroy the aroma as well as flavor of both the honey and cider. I won't do that again.

If you make bread have you ever added any home brewed beer? I have substitute a number of different home brews in place of water. I also include the yeast in the bottom of the bottle and also add the normal amount of bread yeast. It tends to give the bread a sour dough taste.

 

[docanddeb]

We don't drink beer, so I never have any around for bread. I do make many different styles though and adding beer would be a great option.

Debbie

 

[headinsouth]

Just to clarify... I never intended to boil or pasteurize the honey, only the water. I'm quite certain that the chlorine in the water has no beneficial input, and since it's a really simple step - why not?

So, I went ahead and added the balance of my honey (six lbs and change total) to a couple of gallons of water (once it had cooled) and oops - apparently a bit too much H2O.... SG at 1.094 - was hoping to start at 1.105+. But I'm pretty certain that it'll be fine assuming I get a decent rate of conversion. I may call my buddy that keeps bees and see if he has another pound of honey. I assume there's no reason I can't add more mid-primary.?

I did end up using my EC-1118 as it didn't make sense to make a 30 mile round trip for 80 cents worth of yeast.

I pitched the yeast Thursday afternoon and so far it looks pretty good - nice slow, steady ferment and smells REALLY good! Current temp is 64 F and I'll move it down to the basement tonight.

Thanks for the comments! And by the way, I did add nutrient...

Hmmmm beer for water in bread dough - Genius!! Wonder what my sourdough starter would think of that????? Off to the laboratory!

Bill

 

[fatbloke]

Just to clarify... I never intended to boil or pasteurize the honey, only the water. I'm quite certain that the chlorine in the water has no beneficial input, and since it's a really simple step - why not?

So, I went ahead and added the balance of my honey (six lbs and change total) to a couple of gallons of water (once it had cooled) and oops - apparently a bit too much H2O.... SG at 1.094 - was hoping to start at 1.105+. But I'm pretty certain that it'll be fine assuming I get a decent rate of conversion. I may call my buddy that keeps bees and see if he has another pound of honey. I assume there's no reason I can't add more mid-primary.?

Well, it's often a good idea to boil the water if there's a noticable taste/smell of chlorine, though similar can be achieved by just drawing a bucket of water, covering it with a cloth and leaving it somewhere warm and dark for a couple of days (no heating costs).

And no, there's no reason why you can't add a little more honey to a primary that's on it's way, though I'd have just taken a bit of the ferment and blitzed it with the honey in a liquidiser, as that'd make it easier to mix in and it would have aerated the new must mix just nicely.....

I did end up using my EC-1118 as it didn't make sense to make a 30 mile round trip for 80 cents worth of yeast.

I pitched the yeast Thursday afternoon and so far it looks pretty good - nice slow, steady ferment and smells REALLY good! Current temp is 64 F and I'll move it down to the basement tonight.

Thanks for the comments! And by the way, I did add nutrient...

Hmmmm beer for water in bread dough - Genius!! Wonder what my sourdough starter would think of that????? Off to the laboratory!

Bill

Well you didn't need to worry about a 30 mile round trip, just mail order it. A yeast pack for up to 5 gallons is only a couple of grammes in weight, so surely they could have just mailed it in an envelope quickly enough. EC-1118 can easily ferment quite high gravity musts dry, but also while chucking out a lot of the aromatics from the airlock, can also leave you with a brew that tastes "alcohol hot". Not a problem per se, but can take a while to age and mellow.

Have a search and read over at gotmead about nutrient additions and "SNA" (staggered nutrient additions) etc.

As for beer in bread dough, as long as the beer hasn't been made with a yeast that will become dominant in the dough. Otherwise it might take a while to raise/prove the dough as the brewing yeast is battling with the bread yeast.

regards

fatbloke