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Filtering spices in metheglin

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Ghost99

NewBee
Registered Member
Oct 5, 2015
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Hi Folks,

planning on starting my first metheglin today. When using ground spices (nutmeg, allspice etc) is it better to place in a muslin bag or is it ok to stir directly into the must? Just wondering about filtering it out later.
Any thoughts would be great!

Thanks
 
Two recommendations:

Ferment your mead completely all by itself before you add any spices. Add your spices in secondary. This let's you ensure your primary goes swimmingly without any complications, and you don't lose as many aromatics to the gas production in the primary.

Second, use whole or crushed spices, not ground (powder). Much easier to remove from the mead when you want to stop flavor extraction. With ground/powder spices you're at the mercy of gravity, waiting for the spice to settle out so you can rack. With whole spices you just remove the bag to stop the flavor extraction.

And yes I definitely recommend a regular old steeping bag such as you might get from a home brew supply store.

By the way what's your recipe?

Hope this helps! Good luck!
 
On a side topic, where can I get a steeping bag that would fit in a 1-gallon jug? My local store only has big ones for primary pails/large carboys. I'm going to split my current batch of show mead into smaller jugs pretty soon so I can treat each one differently/experiment.

Worst case scenario: could I drop a cinnamon stick in there loose and hope for the best? My only concern would be getting it out when there's enough flavor but I suppose I could rack the mead out to another 1 gallon jug if need be.
 
Great tips folks, thanks very much.

As for my recipe, this is going to be a complete experiment/mish mash based on a lot of good sounding metheglin recipes I've read around the web. What I know so far:

-We've got 3 kgs of awesome unpasturized Tasmanian Leatherwood honey which is very aromatic and quite distinct.
-I'll be using Lalvin 71B-1122
-I'm going to add one vanilla bean (slit down the length) and some almond extract with primary.

When I rack to secondary we'll add a cinnamon stick, some quantity of allspice, nutmeg, cloves and maybe a small quantity of acid blend.


Since we're just doing a small 1 gallon experimental batch I haven't really determined my spice measurements yet, but if anyone sees any major red flags at this point, please let me know!

Thanks
 
One red flag would be the acid addition. Why would you just add it unless you really need it once the batch is drinkable. Cloves are very powerful, go slow with them. It's always esier to add more than to take any away
 
With whole spices, I always use a bucket rather than a jug for infusing. Getting stuff out of the 1 gallon jug was a PITA. The only exception is JAOM, where I do it all the jug since it's going to be there too long to risk bucket levels of headspace.
 
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