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1/3 break question.

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PainInUrHead

NewBee
Registered Member
Aug 31, 2010
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Hello, I chose to go with the Joe's ancient orange. Followed the recipe exactly(multiplied by 6 due to my carboy) aside from a change in yeast and adding a starter(pasteurized red (red star) and the started was from Midwest brewing supply). I had a gravity of 1.100 and was wondering about how long for the 1/3 and 1/2 break. I pitched the yeast at 6:30pm today. I also am curious about the oxygen topic. I did what the recipe said and if I do not aerate aside from the initial shake it should be fine as per the recipe. My last one(a show mead) I did not aerate either due to ignorance of the subject than me ignoring the step. Would if be fine to rack to a secondary even though the recipe says not to.
Thanks again for all your help. hear from you soon.
 
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PainInUrHead said:
Hello, I chose to go with the Joe's ancient orange. Followed the recipe exactly(multiplied by 6 due to my carboy) aside from a change in yeast and adding a starter(pasteurized red (red star) and the started was from midwest brewing supply). I had a gravity of 1.100 and was wondering about how long for the 1/3 and 1/2 break. I pitched the yeast at 6:30 today. Also, when do I check gravity again?
Click to expand...

I don't think you're supposed to mess with JAO, but to find the 1/3 break you just divide that 100 by 3...so the 1/3 is around 33, the 2/3 is around 66, etc.
 
This isn't JAO. It sounds like you left that recipe behind long ago. Your stating gravity is quite a bit lower that I expect to see with 3.5 pounds of honey per gallon, and if you picked a different yeast, you are making PainInUrHead's modern orange. Aeration is okay, but may help this go completely dry (and you may need to sweeten it later). Racking it will be fine.

Which Red Star yeast are you using?
 
Haha I did not mess with the recipe just multiplied the ingredients by six. the yeast was just was I had ordered because I was uncertain what I was going to try. I do apologize to Joe.
 
Medsen Fey said:
This isn't JAO. It sounds like you left that recipe behind long ago. Your stating gravity is quite a bit lower that I expect to see with 3.5 pounds of honey per gallon, and if you picked a different yeast, you are making PainInUrHead's modern orange. Aeration is okay, but may help this go completely dry (and you may need to sweeten it later). Racking it will be fine.

Which Red Star yeast are you using?
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Its not Jao just based on the change in yeast? Yes I did use 21 lbs of honey (clove). And I used Pastuer Red(http://www.midwestsupplies.com/red-star-wine-yeasts-5-grams-pasteur-red.html). I mixed by shaking the carboy.
 
Some of them can get stinky, and the raisins may not be enough nutrient for them.

Pasteur red - I'm not sure how that strain does with nutrients - I have not used it much. I'd just watch (smell) it carefully, and be ready to add some nutrient if needed. And yes, when you change yeast, that is enough to radically change the results. In your case, you also started with a gravity that is lower than usual (unless some of it was not dissolved) so it is probably going to go bone dry. JAO usually ends up around 1.020 or so.

Did you really shake a 6 gallon carboy to dissolve the honey? That would make me nervous.
 
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JAO is a recipe very much influenced by it's yeast. Between using a wine yeast instead, and starting with a lower gravity, this will probably end up fairly tart and bitter, because this is likely to go totally dry. That said, if you let it age for a bit, chemically stabilize and backsweeten to taste later, it could still be good for sure.

JAO is also not supposed to be stirred, aerated, or given nutrients. It's a totally weird backwards recipe, but if you do those things you change the recipe drastically. (This recipe gets lots of bitterness from the pith of the orange. To compensate it needs to be very sweet, which means a lower ABV yeast like bread yeast, and not giving the yeast any help like aeration, stirring, nutrients, which can help raise it's ABV tolerance)

A recipe is as much the process as it is the ingredients (and changing the yeast is one of the biggest changes you can make to a recipe, when the yeasts have different ABV tolerances).
 
PainInUrHead said:
Is there any suggestions for back sweetening it without it turning bad?
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Why would it turn bad with backsweetening? You'll just add sulphite & sorbate in whatever the right amounts are for your volume (I have no clue) then mix in honey until you think it tastes good, then let it age for a while and make sure the SG doesn't move at all, then you can bottle.

You'll want to wait at least a month or two before backsweetening to taste, because otherwise harsh yeast flavours and such might cause you to over do it.
 
JAO is for Joe's Anient Orange, contributed by Joe Mattioli back in the earlier days of this forum/web site. Joe posted it in response to a request for a simple mead recipe.

It's basically an old country wine recipe for mead, which is why Joe first named it "Ancient Orange." Other forum members added the J for Joe, after the recipe took on legendary status.

There's a lot of things we do better now in meadmaking, compared to way back when fermentations up to a year were not unusual. On the other hand, there were recipes that worked well and gave good results. This seems to be one of those recipes.

"Don't mess with it!" got to be a joke when folk on the forums found that changing the recipe often got results not quite as good as the original Ancient Orange. I've tried a few variations on JOA and failed each time, others have tried new kinds of JOA and done well. YMMV.

For me, that's the charm of making a JAO -- doing something that old time meadmakers would have been doing decades and more ago, using simple ingredients and procedures, keeping it in a dark cool place until finished. Maybe not even an airlock, but instead a plate put across the top of the crock holding the fermenting must, weighted down with dry beans just enough to let escaping CO2 out.

--
 
Dan,

That is a great explanation of the early years and a view that is very interesting.
Being so new sometimes we forget that the simpler can sometimes be better.
Appreciate your views and experiences of the early years of meadmaking and will
look forward to hearing of more when you feel like posting up.

Regards,

Carl
 
Thanks for posting that insight into JAO.
Searching for the origial recipe is how I found Got Mead?

Thanks Joe!

:occasion14:
 
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