Mead Lover's Digest #25 Fri 23 October 1992

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

Contents:

Re: Suggestions on good b (Roy Rudebusch)
Cranberry Mead (SLK6P)
wyeast belgian and mead (eurquhar)
Re: Racking Agents (Mr. Tom Denny)" <dennyt@ATS.ORST.EDU>
Traditional Mead Recipe Correction (John Gorman)

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Date: Wed, 21 Oct 92 18:02:00 -0500
From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com (Roy Rudebusch)
Subject: Re: Suggestions on good b 

From: roy.rudebusch@travel.com 

Dear Friends;

I am treatning to brew this mead:

Robin Hood Ginger Ale

Close your eyes and imagine that you are in Sherwood Forest. You have
been battling Democrats all day and are plumb wore out. Friar Tuck
brings out a special ale usually brewed only for the Royalty.

5 gal OG 1126 TG 1.012 (attempt)

Boil in 4 gal water for 45 min:
6 oz crushed ginger root
2 tsp acid blend

After 45 min add:
18# honey boil 5 min.

Force chill, top up to 5.25 gal. Rack onto the yeast sediment from an
ordinary ale beer.

I am hoping it will ferment until 12% alcohol/wt is reached.

Wassail!

OLX 2.2 Beauty is in the eye of the mead holder

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Date: 22 Oct 1992 14:06:02 -0600 (MDT)
From: SLK6P@CC.USU.EDU 
Subject: Cranberry Mead 

I started a 2 gallon batch of cranberry mead a few days back.
Here was the plan( kinda modified from the cat's meow, and personal
input)

1 gallon ocean spray cranberry juice (included a nice
1 gal glass ferementer!)
5 lbs clover honey
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp acid blend
a handful of raising
Red star champagne yeast

(I think that was all. I'll check at home and update if needed)

It hasn't started up yet. I didn't do the proper acid test ( I have the
kit, I was just lazy!). I hope I haven't over honied it!
I added a campden tablet to the juice (24 hrs) then pasteurized the honey
with water to make 1 gallon. I have two 1 gallon jugs for fermenting.
I'm still waiting for the lag to end and ferement to begin.
It has gotten cool in the basement, so I brought one upstairs, and pitched
another sachet of yeast into the two jugs. Hmmmm. I think I'll relax and…

John (the Coyote) Wyllie SLK6P@cc.usu.edu

I know someone asked for this on the hbd, butit belongs here more!
It's been a while since I've made a mead. My mead carboy has been full
of wine aging! Onward ho….

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Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 13:24:47 PDT
From: eurquhar@sfu.ca
Subject: wyeast belgian and mead 

Hi Scott,

First, a response to your message about wyeast belgian. When I used

this yeast it was for a total of only about 2 gallons of mead including the pear
pulp and it was simply pitched in directly out of the very turgid and apparently
active pouch of yeast. It went off like a bomb with significant fermentation
starting in 24 hours. Likely the pears were somewhat responsible for this
response. A few messages on the HBD indicated that this yeast continues to
ferment slowly for a very long time after a initial flurry of activity. Take it
for what it's worth.

Now for the results of this pear/ginger mead. After 1 wk. the taste at

the first racking at 1 wk.was wonderful. VERY FRUITY with rich caramel/banana
overtones and very smooth with a noticeable ginger tang to balance the extreme
fruitiness. This should be exceptional by the time it's finished with bags of
flavour.

I urge anyone who is going to make a fruit mead using apples/ pears/

white grapes or other complementary fruits/spices to try using Wyeast Belgian as
it seems to be very well suited to this job.

Eric Urquhart (eurquhar@sfu.ca)
Centre for Pest Management, Dept. Biological Sciences,
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby B.C. CANADA

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Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 14:24:07 PDT
From: "(Mr. Tom Denny)" <dennyt@ATS.ORST.EDU>
Subject: Re: Racking Agents 

John Gorman writes in Mead Lover's Digest #24

|Recently, someone mentioned that sparkeloid added during bottling
|clarified the mead nicely – leaving the sediment in the bottles.
|Does anyone have any experience in using clarifying agents during
|racking, so that the mead clarifies in the second carboy?

I use sparkeloid many time in my secondary carboy. It works great, and I
dont get the layer of junk on the bottom of my glasses (it stays in the
secondary). One thing to remember when using sparkeloid: Boil it first
with a LITTLE bit of water before adding to the mead.

I also use Irish Moss on all my batches of mead. I've been doing this ever
since I started brewing meads, so I cant tell you how well it works.

Someone mentioned oxidized mead. Something I do with my meads, is add
an acid (which mead needs anyway) that contains vit. C which oxidizes before
the mead does. This helps a lot. I forget the name of this acid – I have it
at home, but if there is much interest, I can post the name of it. It sells
at local homebrew supply stores.

Hope this helps – Tom Denny

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Date: Thu, 22 Oct 92 15:43:17 EDT
From: john@rsi.com (John Gorman)
Subject: Traditional Mead Recipe Correction 

Subject:  Traditional Mead Recipe Correction 

My thanks to Dick Dunn.

According to Dick, honey weighs 12 lb/gal and water weights 8.3 lb/gal.
(This amazed me: I believed that "A pint's a pound the world 'round.")
Therefore the specific gravity of honey is:

1.445 = 12 lb / 8.3 lb

This agrees with Mike Linder's figure of 1.44. Therefore the number of
quarts of honey necessary to hit the O.G. range of 1.120 – 1.130 is:

Using Dicks formula:

Gs = starting gravity you want

V = total volume you want

Gh = SG of honey

h = volume of honey needed

then

h = V*(Gs – 1) / (Gh – 1)

5.40 qt = 20 qt * (1.120 – 1) / (1.445 – 1)

5.85 qt = 20 qt * (1.130 – 1) / (1.445 – 1)

So the quantity of honey in my "Maple Wine and Traditional Mead"
recipe should have been "about 5 1/2 qts" rather than "6-7 qts".

It's interesting to see how much difference using a S.G of 1.445
rather than 1.500 makes. Here is the calculation using 1.500:

4.80 qt = 20 qt * (1.120 – 1) / (1.500 – 1)

5.20 qt = 20 qt * (1.130 – 1) / (1.500 – 1)

This is a difference of more than a pint!

Does anyone know the specific gravity of maple syrup? I have always
relied on a hygrometer to hit my target specific gravity. My (not
very precise) volume measurements while watching the gravity rise
imply a specific gravity for maple syrup of somewhere around 1.3.

Thanks, John

John Gorman john@rsi.com
Relational Semantics, Inc. 617-926-0979
17 Mount Auburn Street Watertown MA 02172 USA

Nothing happens.

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End of Mead Lover's Digest

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