Mead Lover’s Digest #161 Sun 27 June 1993

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

Contents:

re: Wildflower Mead (Dick Dunn)
Re: Mead Lover’s Digest #160 (June 26, 1993) (Jacob Galley)

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Date: 26 Jun 93 10:34:46 MDT (Sat)
From: rcd@raven.eklektix.com (Dick Dunn)
Subject: re: Wildflower Mead  

Bob McDonald (remcdona@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu) wrote:

> Rat asks if he should use sulfites to control fermentation in the bottle.
> Aside from the already posted information regarding the alcohol level being
> high enough to kill all remaining yeast cells…[use sorbate]

I think in that particular case he might have enough alcohol to stop the
yeast for good…but this is not as certain as one might think. I’ve had
fermentation seemingly stopped for weeks and the mead quite clear, yet
bottling somehow woke up the yeast and it carbonated the mead.

In one case, it produced enough carbonation that I noticed some bulging
caps; I ended up opening all the bottles, adding sorbate, and re-bottling.
(It turns out that bottling is actually not my favorite part of the whole
mead-making process; I’d like to avoid this if at all possible.:-) FWIW,
this mead had an effective starting gravity of 1.115, and was bottled the
first time at 1.014.
—
Dick Dunn rcd@eklektix.com -or- raven!rcd Boulder, Colorado USA

…Simpler is better.

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Date: Sat, 26 Jun 93 17:43:36 CDT
From: Jacob Galley <gal2@midway.uchicago.edu>
Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #160 (June 26, 1993) 

> Date: Fri, 25 Jun 93 16:52:47 PDT
> From: zoetrope@netcom.com (Devan DzM MacFarlane)
> Subject: Clarifying honey
>
> I’ve recently purchased 24 pounds of honey to produce a five gallon batch
> of mead. The problem is that the honey is crystallized (not badly, but enough
> that there is a grainy texture to the honey). Is there a way to clarify
> the honey, or is it not a problem for me to use this honey as is?

When I have a small jar of crystalized honey, I simply warm it up in a
pan of boiling water. You should be able to use the honey as it is.
This reminds me of another tip which I don’t remember seeing mentioned
here: If you microwave your honey for a minute (or more?) before
adding it to the boil, it is extremely easy to pour (and of course
extremely hot).

But I wonder, if the honey you just bought is crystalized, doesn’t
that mean it’s already rather old?

Jake.

* What’s so interdisciplinary about studying lower levels of thought process?

<– Jacob Galley * gal2@midway.uchicago.edu

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End of Mead Lover’s Digest

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