Black Tea Mead a.k.a. Turkish Tea Mead

[MrCyphyr]

Folks,

I am about to start a tea mead.. and thought I would run the recipe I found by you all first.

Yield 1 Gallon

• 3 Lbs Honey
• 16 bags of Black Tea
• Grated Rind of one orange
• Grated Rind of on lemon
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 quart of water (for the tea)
• 2 cup of water for the raisins and rinds (boil the rinds and raisins for 5 mins and let cool
• additional Water to 1 Gallon
• 5 gram of Lavlin 71B-1122 Narbonne White Wine Yeast. (One packet)
• 1 tsp of Yeast Hydrator – mix of Fermaid-K/GoFerm. Divide in half (1/2 tsp) and add it at hydration and 12 hours later to the must, mix well.
• 2 Tsp. Yeast Nutrient (Divided into 1/2 tsp lots) - a mix of Fermaid-K, Di-Ammonium phosphate. Add ½ tsp to the primary fermentation: at 24 (End of day 1), 48 (End of Day 2), 72 (End of Day 3) hrs., and end of Day 4 (96 hrs.) into fermentation.

 

[darigoni]

"Do not use nutrients containing ammonia salts, such as DAP, during yeast rehydration - they are toxic to the yeast at high levels."

http://www.scottlab.com/product-102.aspx

 

[Farmboyc]

I would also wash your fruit well in Hot water before boiling the rind. I had a mead with a soapy taste after adding lemon zest I believe due to wax on the rind.

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[MrCyphyr]

"Do not use nutrients containing ammonia salts, such as DAP, during yeast rehydration - they are toxic to the yeast at high levels."

http://www.scottlab.com/product-102.aspx

Hmmm... Thanks Darigoni. I had been using a mix between GO-Ferm and Fermaid-K (2:1) as my hydrating nutrient. Given that Fermaid-K has DAP in it, I guess I will stop and use straight GO-Ferm during the hydration period. Appreciate the guidance.

 

[MrCyphyr]

I would also wash your fruit well in Hot water before boiling the rind. I had a mead with a soapy taste after adding lemon zest I believe due to wax on the rind.

Sent from my SM-A520W using Tapatalk

Thanks Farmboy... I would not thought of that .. Appreciate the guidance and voice of experience.

 

[bernardsmith]

A question: What are you hoping to get from the fruit? What is the raisins going to add? What the orange and lemon?

 

[MrCyphyr]

Raisin, more for natural nutrients.. I don't think a half cup is going to add any real flavor or "mouth feel".. I be honest - Habit.

 

[bernardsmith]

So, I don't know that raisins can in fact provide any nutrients. I think that adding raisins was a lovely myth that mead makers adopted for some reason after they stopped spreading the yeast on slices of bread and pitching this to provide nutrition for the yeast. Wine makers who make grape wine may not need to add nutrients but they are adding - what? about 10 lbs or more of grapes for each gallon. A half cup is bobkes. Bottom line - your honey has essentially no nutrients and no required minerals.
But what about the other fruit - the lemon and orange rind? What is that doing in the primary? Might it not be more effective to add those to the secondary so that if you are interested in extracting flavor the alcohol in the secondary (rather than the yeast and sugar in the primary) might extract more of the flavor as opposed to blow that flavor out the fermenter?

 

[Squatchy]

Bernard is correct. I'm not sure why you won't take the time to learn to do this correctly. You didn't seem to listen to advice on your other batch. And you're still screwing up. I would strongly suggest listening to the podcast her e and if you start on 9/5 I walked through the entire process going over each piece in depth. My advice would be to slow down and learn a little bit before you keep going off half cocked and keep making mediocre mead.

 

[MrCyphyr]

Bernard is correct. I'm not sure why you won't take the time to learn to do this correctly. You didn't seem to listen to advice on your other batch. And you're still screwing up. I would strongly suggest listening to the podcast her e and if you start on 9/5 I walked through the entire process going over each piece in depth. My advice would be to slow down and learn a little bit before you keep going off half cocked and keep making mediocre mead.

I will respond directly by private message. I don't feel that comments like "screwing up", "half cocked", etc. are pleasant approaches to working with new mead makers..

 

[MrCyphyr]

So, I don't know that raisins can in fact provide any nutrients. I think that adding raisins was a lovely myth that mead makers adopted for some reason after they stopped spreading the yeast on slices of bread and pitching this to provide nutrition for the yeast. Wine makers who make grape wine may not need to add nutrients but they are adding - what? about 10 lbs or more of grapes for each gallon. A half cup is bobkes. Bottom line - your honey has essentially no nutrients and no required minerals.
But what about the other fruit - the lemon and orange rind? What is that doing in the primary? Might it not be more effective to add those to the secondary so that if you are interested in extracting flavor the alcohol in the secondary (rather than the yeast and sugar in the primary) might extract more of the flavor as opposed to blow that flavor out the fermenter?

Benard.okay, scratch the raisins {smiles} one less thing to clear. As to primary and secondary. {sigh} that is the most confusing for me. I have heard/read three strategies, primary only, secondary only and 1/2 in primary and 1/2 in secondary. I have not have enough experience to judge any of the approaches..
1) My local guru, with mel-o-mels advised both..
2) Some on this forum advise primary with the caveat that the primary flavors will be very muted and you have have to add some to the secondary to "strengthen" the flavor.
3) Some purport to just do teh honey in the primary, get through fermentation, and then add flavor/fruits.

So, not having any idea - on the impact, since its a new recipe, I went by the original authors view. That said, being the internet and that everything on the internet is coccrect {cough}bull{cough}.. your views are stronger. Given all that, I am looking for a hint of lemon, almost like a Texas sweet tea for those hot summer days - that is the goal. Given the description of the intended outcome,, what would you suggest?

Thanks and much appreciated.

 

[bernardsmith]

Ok - I am not sure that you are going to get a great deal of noticeable flavor from one lemon peel. What I might do is add the lemon peel to the secondary. The alcohol will help extract more flavor from the peel (think lemon extract or limoncello) but rather than a single lemon I might add a few more lemons. Now, I have no idea how lemony you want this mead but if you want to use only the peel you might experiment by adding say a half dozen or 10 peels (10 lemons) and taste the mead every week until it hits the flavor profile you are looking for. Then rack the mead from the peel (or the peel from the mead).
Alternatively, you might use a bottle of lemon juice (eg Realemon)- say , 20 oz - which you must add to the secondary that, because such lemon juice is full of sorbates and the sorbates can halt the fermentation. A different flavor profile will result than the profile if you used peel. There is a popular wine recipe known as Skeeter Pee (mosquito pee) that is based on lemon juice. I recently made a mead version of this and it is quite delicious - although it really needs to be back sweetened.

 

[Squatchy]

I will respond directly by private message. I don't feel that comments like "screwing up", "half cocked", etc. are pleasant approaches to working with new mead makers..

I wanted to make a public apology. You are absolutely correct, and I am sorry I spoke to you the way I did. I was way out of line and am embarrassed frankly. I am truly sorry.