Joe's Ancient Orange Mead

akthor said:

Can this stuff be carbonated?

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Yes it can. I believe many have done it. Its just surprising to end up with it carbonated when you didn't plan on it

better make sure you like mead before you brew this. i aged it 1,5 years, and it was harsh. people told me i tried it young... it'll tie up a secondary for at least 2 years

I don't get it. My mead tastes great, even during fermentation. Yesterday I pulled a sample and tried it 20 days after pitching the yeast, and it was delicious. I can't wait for couple of months more.....It's gonna be a bomb!

Many people mention harsh flavor, but it certainly is not the case with my mead.

I used acacia honey to make it.....

Mine turned out OK, not great. I've tasted a couple other's. And not so great.

I used red wine yeast though.....

I just bottled mine after 9 weeks. I did a DIY wax top on my bottles and plan on cracking them during summer time. I did get a taste of mine of course and its still a little young with that almost hot liquor taste. But I can't wait to try it after it ages even more.

I'm making this tonight - attempting a 5 gal batch and seeing what happens. Can't wait!

Hello all! I'm a newbie homebrewer, who has always wanted to taste Mead (or hidromiel as we call it here). I chose this method of brewing because of its simplicity and easy to get ingredients. I purchased some airlocks and proper yeast online to start brewing some decent drinks, but they are still on their way here... So in the meanwhile I tried this method following all the instructions except for the airlocks and recipients. Since I did not have any airlock I used latex balloons, using also a needle to prick a hole on them, to cover the fermenting bottles. I have quite an amount of "experiments" going on! All of them follow this recipe, scaled down to 2 liter and 1.5 liter recipients, because those were the only ones I had available.

My question is, does a smaller recipient imply a shorter fermenting time? And what do you think of ballons for airlocks? I know using them is not very professional, but I wanted to try the method so that maybe I can get some drinkable mead. Always wanted to try mead since I read The Lord Of The Rings more than 20 years ago

Thanks for reading, and keep on brewing! This forum is really really great. Best regards!

I actually made two batches:

A 1-gallon JOAM with agave instead of honey - started bubbling within 12 minutes.

A 3-gallon JOAM with clove honey - used 2 packets of fleishman's yeast. Didn't realize the airlock had evaporated after 10 days.

I zested the oranges and juiced them instead of throwing the whole slices into the mix. Also used ground up cloves too. Been about two weeks now and they're both still going strong. Raisins have lost their color though - can't wait for everything to fall out!

Well, I just made my own version of JAOM, can't wait for it to finish. This is my first mead, and I'm pretty excited. Here's what I did.

I had 12 lbs of honey that a co-worker gave me. It was in a gallon plastic milk jug, and just said "Honey" on the outside, so no clue what kind it is. I'm guessing maybe Orange Blossom, since the honey was from his father's farm, and we're in Florida? Who knows...

Anyway, I dissolved the honey in to enough water to bring the total volume to 5.5 gallons. I wanted a lower alcohol mead, and am hoping it might be drinkable a little quicker because of it. The OG turned out to be 1.080. If it finishes around 1.020, it should end up at ~7.5% ABV.

I used blood oranges instead of regular oranges, mainly because they're in season and I've been wanting to brew something using blood oranges. Hopefully they will add a cool pinkish color to the mead.

I peeled, zested, and split up the blood oranges, and used 4 total. I didn't want to get that pithy taste that has been described in this thread in my mead. I added 3 handfuls of raisins, 2 cinnamon sticks, 2 whole cloves, a dash of allspice, a dash of nutmeg, and mixed it all together. I aerated for a few minutes by shaking my Ale Pail, and pitched my yeast.

I decided to use Safale S-33, since I had it sitting in my fridge. Malkore described using this yeast on a few meads with success, so I figured I'd use it since I already had it. I'm still planning on leaving it in primary for two months, and then bottling. I'm also planning on carbonating the mead, and really hope it will be ready over the summer. It should turn out to be a great, light summer beverage, great for drinking on the beach.

I'll keep you guys posted!

Like so many others, this is my first mead, made yesterday. Only substitutions were that I also juiced the orange, and I used Lavlin EC1112. So far, no movement at all in the airlock, no foaming/bubbling. Is that worrisome???

This is the Joe's recipe thread. Have you seen the original recipe? You've diverged from the original so far that your post would probably be better elsewhere.
For your first mead, I would strongly suggest that you stick to a tested recipe. This is a really good one.

I used the bread yeast, and I had airlock activity within 30 minutes. In fact, two months later, the air lock STILL bubbles about once every 2 minutes...

sharpstick said:

This is the Joe's recipe thread. Have you seen the original recipe? You've diverged from the original so far that your post would probably be better elsewhere.
For your first mead, I would strongly suggest that you stick to a tested recipe. This is a really good one.

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I don't think it is that far off the original. . . let him post jerk.

As for the issue. It isn't really an issue. Let it relax, it will start on it's own time.

sharpstick said:

This is the Joe's recipe thread. Have you seen the original recipe? You've diverged from the original so far that your post would probably be better elsewhere.
For your first mead, I would strongly suggest that you stick to a tested recipe. This is a really good one.

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I posted here because I was following Malkore's version of the original JAOM (page 1, post #10), and because so many others made the same/similar substitutions.
Anyway, I'll give it time like WIP said, and see how it goes.

Just threw together some of this tonight,

Haha, someone gave me this recipe a few months ago. Just made it last month and cant wait to try it in about 1 more month.

I made mine a couple of nights ago. Had to sub ground cinnamon and cloves though. Other than that, exact recipe. The yeast was slower to start the mead I made last week using champagne yeast but after a day it was going pretty good.

Hope it turns out well. Not as sweet and citrus as I thought it would be coming out of the airlock but I'm not sure that even accounts for anything.

Mine will be ready to bottle tomorrow!

I have this stuff fermenting from mid January, and it's still rockin'

so two months fermenting....

wow

I bottled yesterday

It's been more than 6 months now, what should I put it in? Wine bottles with wooden cork or?

Thanks!!!

I don't think it really matters if it's Wine bottles or beer bottles or even mason jars...
I bought some flying dog in pony bottles & i'm planning on using them myslf. I thought it would be nice to have it in a small amount at a time.

von_lidl said:

It's been more than 6 months now, what should I put it in? Wine bottles with wooden cork or?

Thanks!!!

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is it really necessary to wait for six months before bottling? what is the earliest time it could be drank?

I don't think you have to wait 6 months to bottle. The instructions say you can bottle after 2. I bottled the day before yesterday but it's still way too hot to drink. Maybe bottle and wait another 6 months to drink.

How good is it after more than 6 months?

probably better at 6 months, right?!!

I mean how good is it when 6 months. Forget ''after six months''

I'm sure it's better after 6 months, but I used D47 so it's bound to be different than if you used bread yeast, I think.

ok thanks. I'm gonna bottle it today though

I apologize in advance if this question has already been asked in this thread, but I didn’t have time to go back and read through 30+ pages. I’m curious about scaling up the recipe. The recipe calls for 3 1/2 lbs of honey for a gallon batch. If I want to make 5 gallons, it’s not hard to figure out that I’m going to need 17 1/2 lbs of honey (give or take). What I’m not sure about is the spices, fruit, and yeast. Surely I don’t want to put 5 -10 whole cloves in there, or 5 sticks of cinnamon – that seems excessive. What about the oranges and raisins? Do I use five cut up oranges and 125 raisins? Again, that seems like an awful lot. Yeast – do I use 5 teaspoons?

scale up as indicated in the thread is all ingredients EXCEPT YEAST times what ever your batch size is. 1 teaspoon of yeast should be enough.

funkadelicturkey said:

scale up as indicated in the thread is all ingredients EXCEPT YEAST times what ever your batch size is. 1 teaspoon of yeast should be enough.

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You may also consider using using a mead or wine yeast like D-47 or EC-1118 instead of the bread yeast.

I agree, if you are going to do 5 gallons of this make sure you have tried it with 1 gallon and know you like it. It was too sweet for me and I have been trying to push it off on people, also the spices are a bit much for my tastes I would scale them back a bit.

Thanks for the replies guys. As for having tried it before, I have. I have made one 1-gallon batch. It was a touch sweet, but then I like sweet meads. The only issue I had with it was the pithiness that some people mention that is caused by the white part of the orange rind. The reason I want to scale it up is that by the time it's all said and done, I only got about 10 12-oz bottles out of the gallon batch. The bread yeast is a ***** as some have mentioned and that make it difficult to do a clean siphon out of the gallon carboy. I figure that with a larger batch, it will be easier to rack to a secondary, let it settle out again, and then bottle. I just want to get more than 10 bottles for my efforts.

I just made my first batch tonight. It had been fermenting for 45 minutes when I took this picture:

KatoBaggins said:

Got my batch going tonight. It looks good to me. I've only had mead once, and I can't really remember what it tasted like. I'm looking forward to this one. It's got some of my favorite things in it.

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I. Can't. Help. Myself...

Here's a recipie with a few of my favorite things...

1ea Whiskers on kittens;
1ea Warm woolen mittens;
1ea Brown paper packages tied up with strings

1ea Crisp apple strudels;
1ea Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles;
1ea Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings;

Somebody, please help meeee!

michael88n said:

I. Can't. Help. Myself...

Here's a recipie with a few of my favorite things...

1ea Whiskers on kittens;
1ea Warm woolen mittens;
1ea Brown paper packages tied up with strings

1ea Crisp apple strudels;
1ea Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles;
1ea Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings;

Somebody, please help meeee!

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What no Strippers on a pole? I know that's in the song somewhere?

Brewmiser said:

What no Strippers on a pole? I know that's in the song somewhere?

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YES! Thanks! I just found my man-card.

JAOM is 1 month in and still bubbling away. only 8-11 months away from the first tasting. Mead seems to be a lot like fishing... times a thousand, it requires lots of patience.

About time to start another batch! Maybe something like Commonsenseman's strawberry mead, looks delicious!