Hot answers tagged mead
5
It depends somewhat on what flavors you are looking for and how long you want to wait, post-fermentation, to drink it.
Warmer fermentation is going to produce more fruity esters from the yeast, but they also produce more complex (hot) alcohols. Primary fermentation will finish relatively quickly, but the mead is going to have to sit in secondary for ...
4
It could be from bacterial contamination, old yeast, or from stale ingredients.
BJCP page, Mead Faults, lists some typical causes:
Vegetal Smell or taste of plants or green vegetables. Cooked, canned or rotten vegetable (cabbage, celery, onion, asparagus, parsnip) aroma and flavor:
Encourage a fast, vigorous fermentation (use a healthy, active ...
4
Not sure if this an answer, but why not make a ginger extract and add post-fermentation to taste? You essentially have two possible methods, the first being preferable:
1.) Make a tincture with the ginger. Chop it or puree it finely, then add vodka or grain alcohol, cover and rest for one week, put through a strainer, and add the homemade extract in ...
3
Starsan is safe to consume once diluted to the recommended concentration (1 fl.oz/30ml to 5 gallons/20 liters.)
A quart of starsan in 5 gallons would not kill the yeast - made up starsan has a pH around 2.6-3.0 depending upon your water hardness. Once diluted in 5 gallons of beer, the starsan is diluted a further 20 times. (1 quart in 5 gallons.) That ...
3
you can boil half a sachet of yeast and add that to the must. It provides many of the trace elements needed by the yeast, but I'm not sure how much nitrogen it provides, which is the key nutrient required in mead.
If the mead is not very strong, you can in fact successfully ferment without nutrient, just pitch 50% extra yeast.
3
It sounds like you severely under-pitched. That OG sounds a little low too--it's about what I would expect from 10-12 lbs of honey in 5 gallons, but maybe that brand of honey is a little more watery than most.
I've never used that strain of yeast (I'm a Lalvin guy) but if it is a wine yeast (as is likely) you are probably stuck with it. I would order ...
3
I think Tallie has it right. It's likely a trade-off between stressing the yeast with CO2 and having oxidized beer. I would add that degassing or adding O2 after fermentation has started also introduces a mostly unnecessary step, creating more work for the brewer and increasing the risk of contamination.
Depending on how early in fermentation we're ...
3
In a recent BeerSmith podcast Michael Fairbrother from Moonlight Meadery talks about degassing mead during fermentation (at about 17:45 in the YouTube video), and alludes that unlike beer, mead and wine can handle additional oxygen after fermentation begins.
As we know, depending on the stage of fermentation, oxygen in beer can be detrimental. So I guess ...
2
Also keep in mind that mead long predates yeast nutrients. The old Greek formula went something like:
Put three parts water and one part honey in an amphora in the sun for a few days. Enjoy.
That must have been some sweet, syrupy mead. However, the point is that if you can't get the yeast nutrients, you can always try brewing mead without them.
FWIW I ...
2
To a large degree it depends upon the yeast. On one extreme is something like EC-1118 which can handle warmer temps without much of a problem (producing a very dry mead), on the other is something like D-47 (creating a more semi-sweet traditional mead) which (from what I've heard) will start kicking out a lot of fusel alcohols at those temps. Those fusels ...
2
I first saw this method in The Compleat MeadMaker by Ken Schramm. It seems northern-brewer-chris also uses a method that's similar. Ever since I read this, I've been practicing it and I've never looked back. I can finish a clean (not hot) mead fermentation in 6-8 weeks now instead of the accepted, ambiguous "months". I still spend a good bit of time aging ...
2
I have not experienced this before, but I would try to err on the safe side and siphon off everything above it, and try to leave the bubble undisturbed.
If it is gas, it will probably pop since the pressure around it decreases, but if it is liquid you might be able to leave it in peace.
I guess that it is liquid though which could have formed because the ...
2
Man,.. don't boil your honey, what are you doing?
You cook all the good enzymes and nutrients right out of it and alot of the
flavor also. Basically wasting all that nice farmers market honey, you might as
well go get the cheap corn syrup honey from superstore if you're
boiling your honey.
Honey is naturally antiseptic, Simply steep your honey into the must ...
2
I don't believe that the scum will affect the flavor of the mead. I never boil my musts because boiling removes the precious aromatics from the honey. I bring water to a boil, turn off the heat, stir in the honey, then allow it to cool to about 80F, and then drain the kettle into the carboy. Any scum gets left behind in the kettle.
Boiling will give you ...
2
The oxidation in wine you get from vigorous degassing is minimal compared to beer, and those flavors are actually beneficial.
The cardboard or paper flavors that brewers fear from post fermentation oxidation are a result melanoidin based molecules. Melanoidins are very low in wine.
They sell those wine whips that attach to a drill for a reason. Whip away ...
2
No, there will be no negative affects from the yeast fermenting the malt. On the positive side, malt provides more nutrients than honey, aiding yeast growth. Just be sure to wait for the yeast to fully sediment so you can decant all of the malt before pitching the yeast, unless of course you're making a braggot.
2
Yes, you can make mead without campden tablets. I only use them for stabilizing the mead at the end. 1 campden tablet per gallon to ensure fermentation does not kick back up. I have never added them to the beginning.
Some people will pasteurize/boil their meads, claiming that pasteurization will kill all impurities. That is an old school mentality, as ...
2
You can carbonate or not, depending on your preference. You do so by adding priming sugar to the bottling bucket, just like with beer.
If you choose to carbonate, you will need a bottle that can handle the pressure:
Capped Beer bottles
Belgian/Champagne bottles with a cork and a wire cage
Flip top bottles
If bottling still (uncarbonated), you can use ...
2
A while ago I visited a local meadery and chatted with the brewer (meader?). He was planning on making use of a local micro-distiller's equipment to produce a spirit from his mead. I asked him the name of the resulting product, and his answer was "distilled mead".
Not the answer I was hoping for.
I've never tasted such a thing and suspect that the subtle ...
1
Probably there's no infection. Even though the airlock was mostly dry, there shouldn't have been a way for rhe flies to get into the carboy.
The liquid in the airlock evaporates over time, and vodka will evaporate faster that water. You should check the airlock every few weeks and top up (without removing from the carboy) when required.
Fruit flies carry ...
1
It ultimately depends on which ingredient you substitute for it, if you do sub and not just add. Cloves for example are pretty strong, so if you left them out it would take less ginger to have an effect. It also depends on the source of the ginger (from the actual root? liquid extract? powdered?) but if you're just going with easy-to-find-and-manage ...
1
This sounds like a common issue, If I were to guess your fermenting in a gallon or half gallon jugs? and where your fermenting your mead is in an area where the temperature fluctuates (by a door or window?). If this is close my suggestion would be to find a place where you think the temperature is Ideal and wont fluctuate put a thermometer there for at least ...
1
You should be agitating the wine or mead without sloshing it. The agitation happens under the surface, which causes the co2 to be released. There should be little or no motion on the surface, and certainly no splashing.
This next point is a bit controversial - for mead, don't worry about oxidization - the oxidization of honey is apparently actually ...
1
Which do you prefer, tart apples like Granny Smiths, or sweeter, mellower apples like Galas? Because of how 71B "rounds and smooths" wines by cutting down on the malic acid in the final product, you'll end up with more of a "Gala" cyser. Keeping more of the malic acid would produce a cyser with a bit more bite to it, more like a Granny Smith. So, it depends ...
1
I pulled out my copy of Ken Schramm's The Compleat Meadmaker's book and referenced his prefered yeast for Cysers... it's D47. Like you, I've used it in Cysers before and have been quite pleased with the result. A variation of this cyser recipe actually won first place in the mazer's cup this year using D47.
I typically reserve 71B for my melomels, or ...
1
I think that mdma has a good point in that step additions will stress the yeast less than pitching them into an extremely high gravity environment.
As for adding nutrients, I would only add nutrients if the yeast appeared to need them. I used no nutrients, acid, or buffers in my mead that won the AHA Gold Medal for Traditional Mead and Braggot in 1997, but ...
1
In the podcast Moonlight Meadery, Michael Fairbrother talks about stepped nutrient additions (around the 15:00 mark). He adds all the honey all at once, but staggers the addition of yeast nutrients and degasses as well.
I'm sure it's also fine to add the honey in several additions. The advantage there is that you're not stressing the yeast with such high ...
1
I remember reading about a similar technique in Ken Shcramm's The Compleat Meadmaker. Sounds like a good start to me. Be sure to add the remaining nutrients when you add the rest of the honey as well (I'm sure you intend to, but you didn't mention it in your post).
If this doesn't get you the ABV you want, then I'd try breaking it up into more than three ...
1
Those off flavors are almost certainly fusel alcohols. They tend to come out more with show meads because there aren't any additional flavorings or ingredients to mask the off flavors.
I would suggest controlling your fermentation temps and make sure you have adequate nutrition available for the yeast. Other than that, the best thing to do is age your mead ...
1
Most likely, depending on your fermentation, you might have weak yeast cultures or poor nutrient which would develop much more esters, which are probably the taste you're describing. Having a fermentation that is too warm or too cold can also contribute to this.
here's a good mead book
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