Mead Lover’s Digest #118 Mon 26 April 1993

Forum for Discussion of Mead Brewing and Consuming
John Dilley, Digest Coordinator

Contents:
re: Mead Yeasts (Dick Dunn)

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Date: 23 Apr 93 23:20:17 MDT (Fri) 
From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn) 
Subject: re: Mead Yeasts  

Steve Dempsey <steved@longs.lance.colostate.edu> wrote, a bit ago,

> I’ve been disappointed by ale yeasts, which don’t tolerate the alcohol.
> They work ok if you like the old style fresh mead of low gravity, which
> is consumed practically out of the fermenter. Also, yeasts which have
> high phenol production like the german wheat beer yeasts don’t work well
> with mead [I have 3 gallons of sparkling Listerine/medicine flavored mead
> if anyone wants to try some].

I’ve been having much greater luck with mead being ready young (after < 1
year aging) lately, but puzzling over what I’ve been doing differently, and
Steve seems to have pointed it out: yeast makes more difference than I’ve
recognized.

I’m also glad to have someone mention "that Listerine taste"! We’ve had
a lot of that in the past, meads that have honestly taken > 5 years to
mature, but have finally come around. Don’t give up on them…but on the
other hand, don’t use the same techniques (or, mainly, yeast!).

We didn’t use wheat-beer yeasts, but we did use various "beer" yeasts along
the way, and they’ve caused more difficulty than I’d expected in bringing
mead to maturity.

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Dick Dunn rcd@eklektix.com -or- raven!rcd Boulder, Colorado USA

…Simpler is better.

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End of Mead Lover’s Digest

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