Sep 20 2009, 07:27 PM
Looks like JAO will be on call for PeteOz77's Birthday in Canberra.
It also looks like the JAO is running out FAST!!!
Time to start thinking about designing a
25 Litre JAO Recipe!
Ok one minor change to the original recipe, when I say large orange, some people are thinking the incredibly large sized oranges smile.gif Or luck out and get oranges that have not been watered very well by farmers and are all thick pith and very little juicy fruit inside.
I took a look at oranges at the local supermarket and the imported blood orange or pre-bagged stock standard oranges seemed the size I would use. I looked at the individual pick your own oranges for sale like the Aussie Navels and they were huge!
From now on it is Medium Orange! Thin Pith/Skin section in the JAO recipes.
For a 30 Litre Demijohn (or fermenter you have handy)
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10.56 kilograms honey (never boiled or lose the taste and aromas) (should be close to 7.4 Litres of the liquid gold)
6 1/2 medium sized oranges, pick the ones without thick skin/pith (at most cut them into fifty-two pieces and no more! -- rind and all)
6 1/2 small handfuls of raisins (162 of the little buggars if you feel like counting)
6 1/2 sticks of cinnamon (its brown, its wood, its good)
6 whole cloves (or less if you have fresh high potency cloves in your packet)
optional (6 finger pinches of nutmeg and allspice )( very small mind you )
2 Tablespoons of bread yeast (now don't get holy on me about bread yeast -- if you change the yeast we can add your batch to the failed JAO listing)
Balance water to bring batch out to 25 Litres (You should be very close to 17.6 Litres of water added)
Process:
Use a clean 30 litre fermenter.
Dissolve honey in some warm water and put in fermenter.
Wash oranges very well to remove any pesticides and slice each orange into eights until you have 52 slices of orange. Since we are using a large fermenter this time, all the oranges should easily toss right in.
Put in raisins, clove, cinnamon stick (I crush mine first with a rolling pin or by putting them in a plastic baggie then a hammer), any optional ingredients and fill demijohn with water until it reaches the 25 litres mark with cold water (need some room for some foam -- you can top off with more water after the first few days foaming frenzy). (You did remember to pour in a measured 25 litres and mark off the level on the outside of the glass demijohn if your fermenter does not already have liquid levels marked on it?)
Oxygenate before pitching in the yeast using your favourite method.
When liquid is at room temperature, put in 2 Tablespoons of bread yeast (no you don't have to rehydrate it first -- the ancients did not even have that word in their vocabulary -- just put it in and give it a gentle swirl or not)(The yeast can fight for their own territory)
Install your airlock or cling film method of choice. Remember this is a multi-month fermentation so choose your method accordingly.
Brew between 18C to 22C. Now that we have a decent amount of honey money on the line its time to get serious with this sized batch and get it fermenting perfectly "in the Zone".
If you do not have a dedicated brew fridge you can allocate for a few months then do what I do and run them indoors with an immersed fish tank heater that is either properly calibrated with an external thermometer until it constantly holds a temperature of a test batch of water between 18C to 22C and just let it sit in a nice dark spot out of the way for a few months. Best do this before summer hits. If temperatures inside the house go over 25C and are climbing higher each day then you need to buckle down and put the 30 Litre fermenter of JAO in the brew fridge for the last portion of the fermentation.
EDIT: Brewer Pete's Mead Recipe Creator Program's calculated figures:
Honey Needed: 10.56 kilograms
Honey Needed: 7.41 litres
Water Needed: 17.59 litres
Total Volume: 25.00 litres
Fermenter Size: 30 litres
Starting Gravity: 1.126
Cheers,
Brewer Pete
I'll repost... 
How good's your measuring cylinder? 
