Joe's Ancient Orange Mead

Just a little under two months, can't wait to taste it.

I'm sipping my latest batch, right now.

Man, this stuff is great. I used rapid rise yeast this time, because it was the only bread yeast available to me, and it still worked like a charm!

Next time I go to the store, I'm getting the parts to make another batch. Now that I know I can use widely-available rapid rise, yeast, I don't even have to go to a fancy farmer's market.

badducky said:

I'm sipping my latest batch, right now.

Man, this stuff is great. I used rapid rise yeast this time, because it was the only bread yeast available to me, and it still worked like a charm!

Next time I go to the store, I'm getting the parts to make another batch. Now that I know I can use widely-available rapid rise, yeast, I don't even have to go to a fancy farmer's market.

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Good to hear, I used rapid rise not even thinking about it. I always have a bunch of that on hand for my homemade pizza crust.

Good

Recipe

Here's a picture of my JOAM after two months.



It doesn't seem as clear as the other photos I've seen. I followed the recipe to the T.

MacrosNZ said:

Here's a picture of my JOAM after two months.

It doesn't seem as clear as the other photos I've seen. I followed the recipe to the T.

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Just wait, you'll wake up one morning and it will be clear. Also try not to move it to much, the bread yeast does not form compact lees so it will kick up if you slightly move the carboy.

MacrosNZ said:

Here's a picture of my JOAM after two months.

It doesn't seem as clear as the other photos I've seen. I followed the recipe to the T.

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if the 15/3 on there is your start date you have a few days before hitting the full 2 months, things will clear up.

For the record, even the mixed berry version I made cleared enough to see my hand through after 3 months. Just give it some time.

It all depends on what type of honey you use I bet. I used raw orange blossom and it still has a ways to go after 2 months. There are lots of variables so we need to just focus on other brews and let this one finish on its own. I still can't stop checking on it everyday tho LMAO

Bigbeavk said:

I still can't stop checking on it everyday tho LMAO

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I'm the same haha. My flatmates think I'm weird.

Sweet I'll just let it be then

So this being my first post on here.. Thought I'd go ahead and post in the JAOM thread. I've got 2 JAOMs sitting. First batch (11Apr2012) I followed the recipe more or less to the T minus the cloves. I used tangelos and clover honey. Second batch (22Apr2012) I used blood oranges and orange blossom honey. They're just sitting there doing their thing. Love reading the thread and seeing pics. So here's my interpretation of JAOM in state.

~verbs

With the balloon airlocks. Nice. There's a million discussions on every aspect of those - I hope we don't start to go too in-depth in the JAOM thread on that one. Lookin' good though - and welcome to the site!

yeah I have other airlocks from other brewing, but my goal in this was just to do an intro mead. If this works awesome. I've introduced several people into making a mead with simple ingredients and a balloon airlock (since you can get everything at a local grocery store). My goal is to expand this and use a regular airlock and a glass carboy instead of the water jug. Anyway goal was simplicity, convenience, and recruiting a bunch of my friends and co-workers to make some JAOM. So far I've got close to 10 making several batches, so this should be fun.

My Version. Zested a Large Naval Orange and Juiced it. warmed some water to boiling, then removed heat and added Zest, couple cloves, and a couple sticks of cinamon. let that set for 20 min or so, then mixed in the honey into the warm water and poured it into the jug, added the orange juice, topped it up with water. was still a bit warmer to the touch so let it chill for a bit then added the yeast, its bubbling away after a few hours.

Made 2 gallons yesterday (my third batch). Discovered someone ate all my raisins. I hate raisins anyway. Do they add mostly to the sugar, or are they on board for their flavor? I'm leaning towards just leaving it be and seeing how it compares to the standard recipe. If the raisins are a must, i guess i could get more. Leave it?

Raisins are yeast food... make our yeasties happy ... I would suggest getting some more raisins, but I think it can wait for a day.

Could one use grapes instead, and if not, what do raisins provide that grapes don't?

huesmann said:

Could one use grapes instead, and if not, what do raisins provide that grapes don't?

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I THINK it has to do with the concentration of the sugars/nutrients in the raisins, vs. the grapes which would be mostly water. I am not an expert so I wouldnt swear to that. Plus I think you run the risk of getting some tanin taste into the mead if you use grapes.

For the most part, with me its been a "well since it aint broke I'm not gonna futz with it."

I added a pinch of yeast nutrients, and will pick up some raisins when I can get to a store. Thanks for the responses.

I made this about a month ago but I never topped up with any water is it too late to do it now?

And those of you who have waited to try this up to 6 months did you leave it on the yeast cake that whole time or rack into bottles or a secondary?

Chuckabrewski said:

I made this about a month ago but I never topped up with any water is it too late to do it now?

And those of you who have waited to try this up to 6 months did you leave it on the yeast cake that whole time or rack into bottles or a secondary?

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You should be good to top up. The law of diffusion is in your favor.

Rack to secondary. You don't want to leave your concoctions on the primary yeast bed for any longer than 3 months. And that's still kinda pushing it.

I have to say, I forgot two 5 liter carboys full of JAOM for almost 1 year (short of a couple of weeks!). They were sitting on a dark place with the airlocks and were never racked. A week ago I found them and they were totally clear, and a big cake had formed below. I directly racked the liquid into glass bottles, disregarding the last half liter or so which contained the yeast cake. Let me tell you, this tastes great! Really smooth, it's on the sweet side but it's not overwhelmingly sweet. I would say this is on the 14ºAVB range, but I have no way to know since I did not take any hygro readings.

My point is, I don't really like to leave a primary for soooo long, but it is not always necessarily a bad thing. At least my 2 carboys were fine after 12 months of primary!

Best of luck to all of you!

I was planning on letting mine sit for at six months before trying. I guess i never that you were supposed to rack off the cake.

sielm said:

They were sitting on a dark place with the airlocks and were never racked

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Were they on the original, primary yeast cake - never having been racked to secondary?

Oh My! I think my JOAM is ready to rack! OG was 1.13 tested today after 9 weeks FG was 1.005 Does that calculate out to around 13%? And do you all think it's racking time?

You're not supposed to rack, and to bottle when it's clear.

Assuming you don't have a wine corker, is the best method for bottling this just like you would beer, minus the priming sugar? So siphon the mead to a bucket and bottle using a bottling wand?

Yes you can bottle it just like beer minus the priming sugar. Just make sure it is finished or you will have issues.

cincybrewer said:

Assuming you don't have a wine corker, is the best method for bottling this just like you would beer, minus the priming sugar? So siphon the mead to a bucket and bottle using a bottling wand?

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You can pick up a double lever corker for like 20 or so bucks if you so choose. Amazingly simple to use, never had an issue.

Thanks. I'll probably just plan on bottling it like a regular beer....I may look into a corker but then I guess I'd have to buy cork, and I hear that's pretty expensive.

Hey the worst price Ive seen is $0.69 a cork, and that was for the high-grade super amazing natural corks.

well that's definitely not too bad.

I use the synthetic corks and they are around $40 for 100

This is my first post on the forum. This is my second mead, and my second batch of homebrew. My first mead was plain, using champagne yeast, turned out fairly dry but it's had good reviews from those around me.

Anyway, started this on May 28th, a 5 gallon batch, and I scaled everything except yeast up x5. Since then, I've read the entire thread, and I have a couple of questions from stuff that wasn't really answered, or at least not answered adequately.

First off, for a 5 gallon batch with everything scaled up, I'm mostly just concerned about the cloves. Is there anything to worry about if everything else was scaled up x5 as well?

The only deviation from the recipe was that I used currants instead of raisins because that's what I had on hand at the time. I used about 30 per gallon as opposed to 25 to compensate for size. Does that strike anyone as a problem?

Finally, why the strict "no racking" policy? I know, I know, it's all in the first post, follow the recipe and all that. But why? I'm planning to rack once everything's cleared, mostly to bulk age for another 2 months before bottling. For the record, I'm using a 5 gallon pail as my primary, and I'm planning to transfer to my carboy at 2 months. That's what I did with my first batch as per a recipe for straight mead as well as general advice I was given. Anyway, with that in mind, why the whole no racking policy, and should I worry about it if I just rack to the carboy at 2 months?

Thanks

1. Cloves are given as a 1 per gallon standard in this recipe. I believe this issue was briefly touched on a while back - some people do 3 or 4 to play it safe, but I've never heard reports from a 5 in a 5 gallon batch.

2. Raisins vs. currants? I believe currants are a raisin variant, I forsee no problems. But why not just get more raisins if you're going to make a 5-gallon leap?

3. The no-racking policy is to maintain the 'Ancient' aspect - and keep people from expecting a 'fine mead' from this. Personally I do rack to secondary, let it sit for a while - and also do clearing racks after that before I bottle. Everyone can appreciate a clear mead.

Currants are berries, whereas raisins are grapes.

huesmann said:

Currants are berries, whereas raisins are grapes.

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Currants, the ones I used anyway, are from a small seedless grape, not a berry.

NineMilBill said:

1. Cloves are given as a 1 per gallon standard in this recipe. I believe this issue was briefly touched on a while back - some people do 3 or 4 to play it safe, but I've never heard reports from a 5 in a 5 gallon batch.

2. Raisins vs. currants? I believe currants are a raisin variant, I forsee no problems. But why not just get more raisins if you're going to make a 5-gallon leap?

3. The no-racking policy is to maintain the 'Ancient' aspect - and keep people from expecting a 'fine mead' from this. Personally I do rack to secondary, let it sit for a while - and also do clearing racks after that before I bottle. Everyone can appreciate a clear mead.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips here, that's really helpful. I think I will be racking to the secondary with that information. It seems like it would be helpful, regardless of whether it's technically ancient or not. As far as the currants, I don't want to add anything else after the fact, and I had enough on hand to be satisfied with what I had. And for the cloves, I'll just test it out I guess. Thanks again for the help.

I've become more and more intrigued with mead and now I really want to jump in, starting with this recipe!

Luckily the Whole Foods has local honey for an incredibly reasonable price. I think I may leave out the clove, though... or just put it a tiny dash of ground clove.