Mead Lover's Digest #1534 Wed 20 July 2011

Mead Discussion Forum

Contents:

re: sweet wines (hroth521@comcast.net)
Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1533, 15 July 2011 (Steve Piatz)
Mead from washed combs. (jerry berry)
Responses about my syrup finish ("Mark Banschbach, SFO")

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Subject: re: sweet wines
 From: hroth521@comcast.net
 Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2011 19:52:39 +0000 (UTC)


Your comment that "it is all about balance" is very true.

My wife loves sweet wines. There is little that can compare with a top
notch sauternes or tokaj. Or even a well made ice wine or ice cider or
Riesling, or, or.. I like them too. It sounds like I need an objective
measure of total acidity, but I plan to make a sour cherry melomel this
season and will seriously consider a sauternes yeast – great idea. Need
to investigate how to measure total acidity, which, I understand does not
correlate completely with pH.

One question: There is a distortion in the way the email shows so that
you have a line in your post that says "I'll start *something* (looks like
b?tonnage) shortly, once a week or so…" what is the thing you are going
to start doing once a week or so?

Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1533, 15 July 2011
 From: Steve Piatz <sjpiatz@gmail.com>
 Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:04:27 -0500


> Subject: Re: Mead Lover's Digest #1532, 11 July 2011
> From: David Vachon <vachon.david@comcast.net>
> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:07:56 -0400
>
>> Hello Everyone,
>> This month's Zymurgy (AmHomebrewersAssoc Periodical) has recipe for a
>> ginger mead that uses 3.25 POUNDS in 5 gallons. Do any of you have any
>> experience with a ginger mead that has this much ginger? The gingers is
>> added to fermentation in a sack.
>
> Hmmm… I have experience with ginger, not only in mead but in
> cooking and in juicing. If you were to add this much ginger to a
> mead, it would be undrinkable, not to mention the expense of all that
> ginger. An amount about the size of your thumb, grated, added in a
> bag for about 2 mos is (for me who likes the ginger "burn" plenty)
> Are you sure they weren't talking about the honey instead of the
> ginger? If not, must be a typo. I have never measured the ginger but
> I bet they meant ounces…
> David

It was my article and my recipe and no, I meant pounds of ginger. This
recipe is very popular with those that have tried the resultant mead.
The ginger is thinly sliced and added to the primary. An earlier
version was the AHA Mead Maker of the Year winner in 2008. I have
used even higher amounts with good results.

  • —

Steve Piatz sjpiatz@gmail.com

Subject: Mead from washed combs.
 From: jerry berry <memnosine@hotmail.com>
 Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2011 09:58:40 -0600


Hi, group.

Re washed comb honey; I made a mead in 2003 from honey obtained from washed
combs. Not a bee keeper myself, but attended a class at the Delaney Organic
Farm in Aurora (Colo) to see how it was done. (Seemed easy, but not for
me.) For demonstration purposes, after the combs were extract ed from the
tap-line hives, they were drained by gravity, then as the cells were to be
reused, they were hand washed in a bucket to remove old honey, bee bits,
etc, before being returned to the bees. After I asked what became of the
hive wash honey water, I asked if I could have it for mead instead of being
discarded. Took home about there gallons; the SG was about 1040, so I added
honey -from the same source, until I got up to 1085, added raspberries -aging
organic- from my own back yard- and bananas for mouth feel, and fermented
from there. Final SG stopped at 1009, after almost eighteen months, tasted
and bottled. Light, a delicate taste of both raspberries and honey.

Jerry L. Berry, Aurora, Colorado

Subject: Responses about my syrup finish
 From: "Mark Banschbach, SFO" <mrbear37@yahoo.com>
 Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2011 10:19:16 -0700 (PDT)


Greetings fellow Mead makers..

First, I want to say THANK YOU !!! for all the responses about my last
mead and my question posed. Now I will try to answer your many questions..

First, There was about a pound of honey to the gallon finish.. the recipe I
used was very rustic.. just the honey.. the water, and ( please dont flame
me for this part I know from my wine making that thsi is not a standard
practice or the reasons why yeasts effect taste etc. ) plain feishmans
bread yeast.. and about half a cup of OJ to add acid balance..

Now.. that all being said.. my previous mead when I first started making
wines those many years ago.. you might roll on the floor laughing about
all the silly things I did like adding ground cloves because I didnt have
whole cloves etc.. So My meadmaking has beena bit of trial and error
and this test batch was much the same.. something I read and decided to test.

I have some ideas to tweak the recipe which will include either a dry
mead or champagne yeast from red star I imagine.. I would like to get
my meads to the dryer side .. my poor wife is a diabetic and so getting
her to be my taste tester with higher sugar/honey content is not feasible.

I believe one of you mentioned adding acid balance to help remove some
of the syrupy finish by adding citrus post-fermentation ? Did I read
that correctly or was I sleaping through that part ? LOL sorry if I was
sleeping through that .. more coffee 🙂

Again .. Thanks for all the responses and Oh yea.. one final note from
the responses.. I did not take specific readings on beginning or FG ecause
my hydrometer got lost in my last move and I never bothered to replace it.

So its been more or less by the seat of the pants so to speak..

OK.. I will quit babbling.. and listen a bit more..

Peace !
Mark

End of Mead Lover's Digest #1534

J
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