Mead Lover's Digest #1126 2 September 2004
Forum for Discussion of Mead Making and Consuming
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Mind those disk quotas, folks! (Mead Lovers Digest)
Re: Did I screw up? (Avraham haRofeh)
Yeast Nutrient - - off flavor ()
Re: Did I screw up? ("Ken Taborek")
cyser problem (Sharon Labchuk)
Re: First Melomel (hillsofg)
Re: Did I screw up? (Dave Polaschek)
Re: sodium bicarbonate (Jim Johnston)
Cyser and Oxidation ("David Craft")
Moldy Melomel, My Story (Kevin May)
Bicarbonate additions ? ("Jim Mincey")
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Subject: Mind those disk quotas, folks!
From: mead-request@talisman.com (Mead Lovers Digest)
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 21:27:40 -0600 (MDT)
Folks,
Please pay attention to your email disk quotas (if you/your-ISP have quotas),
and try not to let your mail start bouncing. The number of over-quota
bounces is going up with each digest, and it's starting to be a pain for
your lazy ol' janitor here.
I allow one "grace" over-quota bounce. If I see a second one within a
relatively short period, I unsubscribe you. (On those occasions where we
have back-to-back digests, within a day or so, I'm lenient there...if
both bounce, I treat it as just one bounce for purposes of prosecution.)
No, I don't tell you that I'm unsubscribing you for bounced mail! (Think
about it.)
Yeah, I know the problem: spam. It fills up your mailbox and makes your
legit mail start bouncing. But you should have enough storage to get by
a week or so...disk space doesn't cost that much!
If you've got a "free" email account, and the limitations on it make your
mail start bouncing so that you lose your precious Digest...well, think a
sec about the real cost of that free mail.
- ---
Mead-Lover's Digest mead-request@talisman.com
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor Boulder County, Colorado USA
Subject: Re: Did I screw up?
From: Avraham haRofeh <avrahamharofeh@herald.sca.org>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 21:28:19 -0400
> After reading the digests for awhile, I decided to start my batch before
> adding the fruit in the secondary. I is a 3 gallon batch, and the recipe
> said 6 lbs of honey. When I made my batch, it wasn't quite 6 lbs, so, I
> racked into secondary, added about 1/2 lb of more honey, added a 1.3 lb
> can of cherry puree from the homebrew store, and a 4 oz. bottle of
> organic almond extract.
>
> Here's the question - I forgot to add pectic enzyme and tannin. I racked
> and added the ingredients on Tuesday of last week, 8/24/04. Do I need to
> add these ingredients, should I add these ingredients? Have I screwed up
> royally or just a little bit or at all?
A matter of taste, basically. I never add tannin to my meads at all. As to
pectic enzyme, it helps fruit-based meads to clear by breaking down the
pectin haze. It works better in low-alcohol environments, but it will work
(albeit slowly) in high-alcohol environments - so go ahead and add it now.
****************
Reb Avraham haRofeh
(mka Randy Goldberg MD)
Quarterly azure and argent, four mascles counterchanged
Random Tag: The fact that we're a volunteer-based organization means that if
you're a taskmaster, you're just going to get marginalized to the point of
irrelevance.
"Silverwing's Laws"
Subject: Yeast Nutrient - - off flavor
From: <jmattioli@fuse.net>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:29:16 -0400
Steve Wrote:
>Subject: Yeast nutrient -- off flavor
>From: Steve Thompson <srthompson@gmail.com>
>Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 10:19:29 -0400
>Making a "show mead", fairly basic recipe.
>2.5# sourwood honey
>4oz Buckwheat honey
>1/8 tsp. yeast nutrient
>1/8 tsp. yeast energizer
>H20 to 1 gallon
>Lalvin D47
>OG ~1.110, racked from primary to secondary SG 1.000 >(~30 days),
>tried a little taste. Fermintation temp was between 65-75F. The mead
>had a slight metallic taste, I'm thinking this must have been the nutrient.
>Will this metallic taste fade with aging, or is this something to be
>concerned about? Are there any tricks to make this off flavor disappear?
With 1/8t of yeast nutrient and energizer the likelihood that it is causing
the off flavor is next to zero. It is more likely a flavor picked up from
the honey or in handling. Aging does wonders for such small nuisances. Age
and enjoy. The buckwheat will add a nice tounch.
Regards Joe
Subject: Re: Did I screw up?
From: "Ken Taborek" <Ken.Taborek@verizon.net>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:45:05 -0400
> From: Agatha <kalliope10@swbell.net>
> Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 17:31:18 -0500
[snipped]
>
> I am wondering if I screwed up my Cherry Almond Melomel.
>
> Here's the question - I forgot to add pectic enzyme and tannin.
> I racked and added the ingredients on Tuesday of last week, 8/24/04.
> Do I need to add these ingredients, should I add these ingredients?
> Have I screwed up royally or just a little bit or at all?
Agatha,
The good news is, it's pretty hard to screw up a mead. :)
The really good news is, pectic enzyme and tannin can be added at any time.
Pectic enzyme is said to work better in the must, before alcohol is present,
but I've used it a great many times after fermentation has completed and
it's always done the job admirably for me.
The tannin you can also add at any time, but I would allow for a few months
aging time to integrate the flavors if you add it late. Given that you've
just begun your mead, you may add it now without worries.
As to your questions "Do I need to add these ingredients, should I add these
ingredients?", that has to be ultimately up to you.
Tannin is used to balance sweetness and to add a dry finish to a wine. It
is naturally present in grape wines, especially reds (being present in the
seeds, pips, and stems, which are left in red wines during the ferment), and
can be added by oak aging. If this sounds like something you want in your
mead, then go ahead and add it. Just a little bit can add a nice dimension
to a mead, but shouldn't be necessary if the fruit already has a high amount
of tannins, such as blackberries do.
Pectic enzyme is used to reduce pectins which cause haze, and this will give
you a more sparklingly clear wine (aging is also important for clarity). It
has no impact on the flavor and I would add it to any melomel (fruit mead).
Best of luck to you!
- --
Cheers,
Ken
Subject: cyser problem
From: Sharon Labchuk <slabchuk@isn.net>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 04:06:28 -0300
I've just bottled 4 batches of mead that I'm very happy with but the 5th
batch - a cyser - is not clearing. This is my first cyser. I made it
in May using about 12.5 pounds of honey and 5 gallons of unfiltered apple
juice and K1-V1116.
I can't find my notes re the starting SG but it is now at 1.020 and hasn't
been bubbling for more 6 weeks. I racked it once off a huge amount of
sediment then and nothing has accumulated since.
What would cause the cyser to remain cloudy? Does this mean fermentation
is incomplete? And what should I do?
Sharon Labchuk
Subject: Re: First Melomel
From: hillsofg <hillsofg@netvision.net.il>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 12:57:55 +0300
Thank you, Randy, Ken, and Kevin, for your advice on handlng the
cherries for my first melomel.
I think my problem is that here in Israel homebrewing suppliers are few
and far between. Something like a fermentation bucket with an airlock is
hard to find. I found one in a chemical supply place in Haifa, about
halfway across the country; it will have to be delivered by taxi.
Carboys I can buy closer to home, but a full glass carboy larger than 10
liter capacity is too heavy for me to lift. In addition, if I want to
deal with fruit in a secondary, those narrow-necked carboys would be a
*pain* to get clean. So it's a question of attempting to brew according
to American/European instructions, while wrestling with a different set
of conditions - or simply adapting.
But there is hope. I have heard of an American beekeeper who makes mead,
not too far from me. Maybe someone to talk shop with, eh? And make a
family trip out to his orchards and beehives to beguile my DH into
buying *much* more honey than he had planned on ;).
Miriam Kresh
www.hillsofgalilee.com
Subject: Re: Did I screw up?
From: Dave Polaschek <davep@davespicks.com>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 06:22:15 -0500
Agatha wrote:
> Here's the question - I forgot to add pectic enzyme and tannin.
> I racked and added the ingredients on Tuesday of last week, 8/24/04.
> Do I need to add these ingredients, should I add these ingredients?
> Have I screwed up royally or just a little bit or at all?
Personally, I think you did just fine. I've never added Pectic enzyme. I
don't boil my fruit, and therefore don't set the pectin, and it eventually
clears. As for tannin, you may or may not need it, but there's some amount
in the cherry skins anyhow. When it gets closer to bottling time, taste
your melomel and see if you think it needs more tannin. Add it at that
point to taste, and you should be fine.
- -DaveP
- --
Dave Polaschek - http://betternerds.com/ http://davespicks.com/
"My dad once gave me a few words of wisdom which I've always
tried to live by. He said, 'Son, never throw a punch at a
redwood.'" - Thomas Magnum (P.I.)
Subject: Re: sodium bicarbonate
From: Jim Johnston <jim@tervolk.com>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 13:32:07 -0500
On Aug 30, 2004, at 7:41 PM, mead-request@talisman.com wrote:
>> Recently, I've had some difficulties with my meads where I'd gone on my
>> own and experimented. Well, I asked for some advice and found that my PH
>> was way off! They were below 2.8 and should have been over 4.0... Well,
>> I'd heard some stuff about how you use sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)
>> to correct the PH... Well, this is the story of all about how I became
>> the prince of a town called Bubble Air!
>
>> I pull off the
>> airlock and dump a teaspoon of baking soda in... Pop the airlock back on
>> and sit back. Before the baking soda had fallen half way to the bottom,
>> a sudden fizz starts to form... It fizzes and bubbles soo well that it
>> bubbles through the airlock and sprays alcohol through the holes until
>> the pressure is soo great that the airlock and stopper go flying!
>
>> So, in conclusion, if you get the bright idea, even though you've tried
>> an experiment to see how it would react, when trying to ballance out the
>> PH of a batch, put it in your sink!
Besides the problem of disturbing a carbonated liquid, you also had an
acid-base reaction occur. These can be of pretty significant strength,
even with a fairly mild set of each. It would be better to dissolve
the sodium bicarbonate in water first as this eliminates not only the
effect of adding a powder to the carbonated solution, but also acts as
a buffer to slow the acid-base reaction from occurring. You should
then add the dissolved bicarbonate solution into a small amount of the
overall mead in an open container, then add it all back to the bulk of
the mead. I agree that calcium carbonate would be a better addition,
again add it to a small amount of the mead in an open container before
adding it back into the mead.
Jim
Subject: Cyser and Oxidation
From: "David Craft" <chsyhkr@bellsouth.net>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 05:12:40 -0400
Greetings,
Is an oxidative note normal in cyser due to the fact that apple juice is
oxidized so quickly. Not the completely oxidized flavor that is
unappealing, but they quaint darkened apple juice flavor?
David B. Craft
Club Secretary
Battleground Brewers Guild
Crow Hill Brewery and Meadery
Greensboro, NC
Subject: Moldy Melomel, My Story
From: Kevin May <kcm7873@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 09:11:42 -0700 (PDT)
I have a follow-up to the moldy mead thread?
I made a Melomel roughly based on "Charlie Moody"'s
'TROPICAL AMBROSIA' MELOMEL (Mead Lover's Digest #465,
5 March 1996) I don't have the exact recipe I used in
front of me but it included a pineapple, fresh
strawberries, pluots, half a lemon, and some other
things. I pitched Lavlin K1 yeast and let it go.
I was so excited by it that I may or may not have
washed the fruits well enough? This was of course
pointed out by my wife after the must joined the
fruit. The initial fermentation was fast and furious,
and I thought that I had no problems. Racked it a
week later and put it away.
A month later I peek in on it and see what looks like
mold with a slight skin on the top of the liquid. The
problem is that it also looks like the gunk that
strawberries leave after you rack off of them, you
know, that weird white floaty stuff. I tasted it
quickly and it is SOUR, but checking my ingredients
list, there were things that could give an acidic sour
start. I threw in some more yeast (Lalvin EC-1118) to
try and get a hold on it. I didn't check the gravity,
but there wasn't a sweet note in it.
I too will try to salvage it, too many fruits went
into it to just toss it out, but I will be very
careful with the process. Any suggestions beyond what
was mentioned are of course welcome.
Kevin
Subject: Bicarbonate additions ?
From: "Jim Mincey" <meadbrewer@tds.net>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 17:55:47 -0400
Howdy all,
"They" say that timing is everything. I racked a mead (yesterday) I'm
brewing to celebrate a fiends impending family addition. I pulled a small
sample to test (and taste) to see how it was doing.
Testing:
S.G. .998 ( this is not a type-o). Never had one this low. I
will retest at next racking.
PH 3.3 to 3.2
Tasting:
There is a nice full taste but as many will conclude from the PH
reading above, it has a very harsh bite to it. So,...... With all of us
adding things to our mead to raise the PH to more tolerable levels, how will
this effect the taste of the mead? I don't want to end up with a metal or
medicine taste and a great PH level. What will raise the PH but be neutral
to the taste of a nearly finished mead?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Jim
P.S. the boil over's may be a reaction of adding a small amount of base
material to a large acid solution. Chem class went something like this"
pore the acid into the water never the reverse". If you pore water into an
strong enough acid solution it will explode. Something about the heat
generated by the chemical reaction of the acid trying to disperse the water
evenly through out the acid solution instantaneously.
And we said we'd never use this stuff again!
Later
End of Mead Lover's Digest #1126
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