Yet another nutrition thread (a natural/fruit alternative to DAP)

[eliasmarobin]

TL/DR: we want a to add some fruit as nitrogen source but we DO NOT want a melomel/cyser/pyment. We want as little as needed (if possible) to keep the taste closest to a "show mead"

Ok guys, we did our best but we could not find a good source for DAP in our area and after some reading and discussion we decided to forget about the complete show mead idea.
I mean we still want a "show mead" but now we wanna try other natural source of nitrogen like fruits but just enough to fulfill the nitrogen needs. We do not want a strong fruit flavor/taste. We do not want a cyser/melomel/pyment.

So, can someone give a heads up on that? We are planning to use boiled baker yeast + fruit as nutrient for the mead. Which fruit? How much to add? Should be only juice or can it be blended? Use the fruit in a starter (we will be using ICV D-47 or ICV K1V-1116)?

Thansk in advance.

[Insomniac]

Hmmm, boiled yeast is what you hear a lot of... raisins maybe?

[Arpolis]

I am no mead expert and only just learning, but I want to do something similar and here was my thought. Golden raspberries are approximately the same coloring as most light to medium colored meads and if you boiled them in your water for 30+ min and then cooled down to add honey. That may work and not affect color much. Only thing I don't know is how taste would be affected. A long boil would reduce the flavor "I think" but golden raspberries are hybrid raspberries that have more flavor than the traditional red ones. A better bet may be boiled bakers yeast which is a common one I have read about but if you really want to use fruit, that is my idea. Again take my word with a grain of salt and I would like to see what others say.

[bgeek]

Not sure on the amounts, but a bit of light dried malt extract might work as well.

[blizzard]

+1 to the boiled yeast. Bread yeast, beer yeast, wine yeast, yeast hulls.... whatever ya got.

[tweake]

boiled yeast adds no usable nitrogen. it does have other things which are very good and are handy in certain parts of the ferment.

the problem is fruits are not high in nitrogen. you will need so much it will be a mel. pollen is probably better but even then it not even close to dap.

my neighbor used a large amount of raisins and judging by ferment speed there was very little nitrogen in it.

the other thing is to alter the ferment. make a very small starter. deliberately under feed the yeast at the start and keep the population small. only add the fruit etc AFTER a few days of it fermenting.
the idea here is to have a very small population of yeast so they don't rapidly eat up what little food you have.

[Arpolis]

Here is another Idea to bounce off of everyone. My current mead only has 3(ish) ingredients. Water, Honey and caffeine free Herbal tea (Honey vanilla Chamomile, from Celestial seasonings). On the ingredients from the herbal tea it states: Chamomile, orange peel, natural honey flavor with other natural flavors (Contains soy lecithin), licorice, roasted chicory & lemongrass. I am almost done with day 6 and on to day 7 and the fermentation is very active, has been the whole time. This being my first mead I am not really sure as to time frames on all the life cycles of the yeasty buddies since it seems to differ per the nutrients, ratio of yeast to must and strain of yeast. To make things worse I am not sure on my strain of yeast. It came in a cheapo kit made for juice. But does this mean I have plenty of nitrogen? Seems like I have a good bit of nutrients in general to keep the little buddies happy. But at this point my thoughts are only worth a grain of salt. Just thought I would stir up the conversation a bit.

[tweake]

whats the drop in gravity?

[Arpolis]

Sorry but I am still learning and I did not even know how to measure gravity until about day 3 into this mead. All I have to go on is 8 packets of tea, 1 part clover honey 18oz to 2parts water 36oz. Very small batch in total about 60oz. I will take better measurements next time and get the original gravity and measure the drop.

[huesmann]

What is the reason peeps add tea to their must?