Joe's Ancient Orange Mead

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bottlebomber said:
It's going to be totally screwed. Dump it immediately, because mead that has been that overpitched can actually catch on fire and explode!!!

Not really. It will be fine. ;) I used a pack of yeast for a gallon and it behaved perfectly normally. Not even one flame.

That literally made my whole night I laughed. :)
 
So joam has been bubbling away in my ale pail for about a week when should I rack to my 3 gallon carboy. (Just purchased otherwise would have used that as primary)
Also is it cool to take a gravity reading or should I wait till it pretty much stops bubbling?

Thanks
 
JAOM doesn't require racking until the fruit drops out which will take two months or so. Throw it in the closet and let it ferment away. I racked my first batch at two months and will probably bottle it at 3. Gravity is not necessary unless you are really curious. Mine was 1.030 at two months.
 
rideincircles said:
JAOM doesn't require racking until the fruit drops out which will take two months or so. Throw it in the closet and let it ferment away. I racked my first batch at two months and will probably bottle it at 3. Gravity is not necessary unless you are really curious. Mine was 1.030 at two months.

The reason I wondered is because the guys at my lhbs said that after ferments done air will slip in the plastic. But your saying it's cool in the pail the full two months?
 
jcam91 said:
The reason I wondered is because the guys at my lhbs said that after ferments done air will slip in the plastic. But your saying it's cool in the pail the full two months?

It's probably ok for two years. The whole oxygen getting in the pail thing it not really totally accurate. Two months for absolute sure. A good year easily if you don't open the pail to get a taste every other day.
 
Its been going steady for a week and a half. Now no bubbles coming out blow off tube. Normal?
EDIT nvm still bubbling a little. I'm a worry wort.
 
So I pulled a gravity sample from my 3 gallons I was at 1.01 I followed recipe with honey exactly so how I am wondering what your guys Sg is when u finish : drunk: think
 
Got a 6.5g batch of joam going. Well it was started when I had enjoyed some homebrew already that evening ... and for whatever reason I didn't feel like slicing up the eight oranges ... so I ran them through the blender and poured the slurry into the fermenter. It seems to bubbling away pretty good, but there is some stratification in the carboy that comes back even after stirring. Like the bottom looks thick, then about halfway up there is a layer of orange material floating, then at the top there a few inches of ground orange.
 
they day I started JAM
IMG_1520_zps7f49a60f.jpg

3 months later
IMG_1720_zps6015d6fb.jpg
 
Wow nice. That is about the cleanest brew setup I've ever seen. So I take it you like it haha!
 
To answer the above post, layers of stuff can be completely normal. The oranges should always be on top, followed by layer of water and then the honey mixture below. Time will sort this issue out as long as the yeast is added correctly. My one gallon batches were mixed with no layers and fruit floating on top, but my batch that I added 4 ounces of raspberry had layers along with my friends 3 gallon batch. The 3 gallon batch is now super clear.

I am not sure how blending the oranges will affect taste, but it might have more issues with the pith flavor than normal. I still haven't drank any aged, this is just based off of reading lots of posts.
 
Thanks. Yes I didn't blend the oranges in any later batches. For some reason I wasn't at all thinking about the seeds when I blended them. Chopping up the seeds I'm sure is going to add a bit of bitterness. But that's fine, I've yet to dump any batches of anything even though some have turned out rough.
 
Hi,

this is my first post.

I tried JOAM three times but dumped it down the toilet after a few days each time because it was very smelly. Is it supposed to smell so bad?

I live in Korea and so bought the only thing on the shop shelf. It says Instant Dry yeast on the packet. Is this normal - will the smell disappear or should I try another shop-brand yeast?
 
nhush said:
Hi,

this is my first post.

I tried JOAM three times but dumped it down the toilet after a few days each time because it was very smelly. Is it supposed to smell so bad?

I live in Korea and so bought the only thing on the shop shelf. It says Instant Dry yeast on the packet. Is this normal - will the smell disappear or should I try another shop-brand yeast?

What did you expect it to smell or taste like after 3 days? It takes MONTHS for this to come out.
 
Seriously, for the record, I think your post was a troll post. On the off chance it isnt a troll post my advice is to follow the directions on the first page to the letter. I promise that unless you add something that doesnt belong in there that has an odor that it will not spell badly AFTER SEVERAL MONTHS OF FERMENTING AND AGING. What you claim to have done is akin to bringing your 3 year old to Sylvan Learning Center or Kumon because he failed the bar on the first try.

But seriously, my money is on trolling.
 
So, after 2 days I topped my 1 gal batch up a bit, and some foam/bubbles got in the air lock and the water is orange/brownish. (I pitched on 10/09, topped up on 10/11). Should I just swap out the bung/air lock or take a little must out also? My thought was that I should replace the air lock/bung when the fermentation slowed a bit, but idk what is best as I am a noob to this and I don't want to mess it up anymore than I may have already, which hopefully isn't too bad.
 
DanU said:
So, after 2 days I topped my 1 gal batch up a bit, and some foam/bubbles got in the air lock and the water is orange/brownish. (I pitched on 10/09, topped up on 10/11). Should I just swap out the bung/air lock or take a little must out also? My thought was that I should replace the air lock/bung when the fermentation slowed a bit, but idk what is best as I am a noob to this and I don't want to mess it up anymore than I may have already, which hopefully isn't too bad.

Relax, rinse out the airlock and fill with fresh water/sanitizer/vodka or whatever makes you feel safest. And then just leave it alone! For a couple months. Just literally forget that you're even making it.
 
I am disappointed about the indifference and rudeness shown by the majority of the responses.

No, I am not "trolling" - whatever that means.

My question was a serious one about the type of bread yeast.

Unless you have lived in Korea you have no clue about the difficulties trying to get home-brewing equipment or ingredients.

So - back to my initial question - does it matter the type of bread yeast used. It seems that a lot of people have mentioned a certain brand "Fleishmanns' or something like that.

Am i right to understand from the absence of a direct answer that the type of tread yeast does not matter: Instant, active etc?

Hopefully, my next post won't make me look so dumb!
 
i believe they thought you were trolling for a fight because you have made this three times and dumped it all three times after only 3 days. as the directions state stick it in a closet and forget it for two months, now that being said it shouldn't matter which yeast you use as long as its fresh. you will also want to leave this alittle lower than the neck of a one gallon glass jug, i've experienced a mess when the orange peel blocked the neck and filled the airlock. don't get too disappointed, everyone that i've met on here has been extremely helpful with everything i've tried to make and had questions with.

Cheers!

I am disappointed about the indifference and rudeness shown by the majority of the responses.

No, I am not "trolling" - whatever that means.

My question was a serious one about the type of bread yeast.

Unless you have lived in Korea you have no clue about the difficulties trying to get home-brewing equipment or ingredients.

So - back to my initial question - does it matter the type of bread yeast used. It seems that a lot of people have mentioned a certain brand "Fleishmanns' or something like that.

Am i right to understand from the absence of a direct answer that the type of tread yeast does not matter: Instant, active etc?

Hopefully, my next post won't make me look so dumb!
 
If this was a serious question I do indeed apologize. Sometimes people here post fake questions with the intention of getting the regular posters annoyed, and many of us thought your post was one of these.

The advice I gave you, however, I stand by. Whatever you are smelling you should ignore for now, particularly in the first 3 days before its even halfway through fermentation! Next batch you make, make sure your equiptment is sterilized (a tablespoon of bleach to a gallon of hot water will work if you have nothing else) and then make the batch exactly as before, using the same yeast you used before. The brand name on the yeast is of very little importance (personally, I use Di-Go yeast from Croatia, only because I have a lot of it)

If you get a bad odor early on, try your best to ignore it. I promise you it will be worth it 2-4 months down the line.
 
Thanks to LoneTreeFarms and Creamygoodness.

I'll stick with the yeast I've got and give it one more go.

Honey is the killer though - its big bucks over here in Korea.
 
I have just started a batch of JAOM. This is my first attempt at any type of home brewing. I just pitched my the yeast today, unfortunately I misread the packets of yeast and pitched roughly twice as much as the recipe calls for. Did I just ruin my mead? It is my understanding the yeast can only tolerate about 10% alcohol. Hopefully someone can give me some advise, should I trash this batch and start over or is there hope?

Thanks in Advance
 
RJ15092 said:
I have just started a batch of JAOM. This is my first attempt at any type of home brewing. I just pitched my the yeast today, unfortunately I misread the packets of yeast and pitched roughly twice as much as the recipe calls for. Did I just ruin my mead? It is my understanding the yeast can only tolerate about 10% alcohol. Hopefully someone can give me some advise, should I trash this batch and start over or is there hope?

Thanks in Advance

Don't trash the batch, it's fine. Absolutely nothing bad will happen.
 
I managed to find these two types of fermenter online and so I am wondering if anyone can foresee any problems if I use them for JOAM? They seem rather wide at the top. Do you think they are worth buying. The red/green one is 25 litres and costs about $23. The blue one is 10 litres and costs about $40. How about the screw-on lid?

Should I save more money and go for glass carboys instead?

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I've brewed JAOM into 5 liter plastic water bottles and it's perfectly fine. In fact I forgot one bottle for more than 1 year (without racking! lol...) and after racking it was perfectly fine and tasty. The solid residue in the bottom was not pretty to the eyes though! It looked like cheese with lots of holes...

BTW the most important thing about yeast is that it's alive yeast, not a gassificant (chemical yeast) because that will not produce any alcohol at all!

Best of luck!
 
Two weeks ago I made a variation of this recipe. This is my first attempt at mead. I used 2.5 lbs of honey and an orange. I used bread yeast and a little cider yeast (I made a cider one week ago and pitched some of wyeast cider yeast into this mead). I foolishly didn't take an OG reading. I took a reading earlier and the gravity has dropped to 1.00. It is very dry and the orange flavor is unbelievably good. But it is still very cloudy. I'm just going to let it sit for another month and a half and see what it looks like then. Since it is so dry, I'm thinking about adding a little priming sugar at bottling time to carbonate it a bit. I'm wishing I had made more than a gallon. I don't think I'll have the patience to age this for long after it is bottled.
 
How do I scale this recipe to 5 gallons?

I tried searching this thread and couldn't find a 5 gallon recipe. Forgive me if I missed it.

I bottled a gallon of this recently and it tasted great going into the bottle. I have an old 5 gallon carboy that is going unused right now that I would like to use for more of this.

Thanks in advance for help and suggestions!

Mpjay
 
Scale up proportionally for everything but cloves and yeast. Yeast stays the same, and cloves add one or two at most.
 
I agree but MUCH less important than the cloves... lol... you might even like the added cinnamon, but few people like a clove explosion.
 
+1 to not more cloves... I didn't add any for mine. I'll leave the cloves for pumpkin pie or something.
 
Sorry to change the subject but I think I should know how many liters you all are talking about when you say 1 gallon.

Where I am in South Korea we don't use gallons - so how many liters are we talking about for a 1 gallon batch - 4 or 5.

I don't want to end up messing the batch with not enough or too much of something.

Thanks for being patient with me.
 
nhush said:
Sorry to change the subject but I think I should know how many liters you all are talking about when you say 1 gallon.

Where I am in South Korea we don't use gallons - so how many liters are we talking about for a 1 gallon batch - 4 or 5.

I don't want to end up messing the batch with not enough or too much of something.

Thanks for being patient with me.

An American gallon, which is what we are using, is just under 4 liters.
 
3.79 litres I think is what it equals. If you were to do 4 litres it would be not much different. You wouldnt even need to add extra of anything, your mead would just be a minuscule amount drier
 
I apologize if I already said this, but JAOM is more an art than a science. Honey, water, and breadyeast together seem to really really want to make mead. Can you screw it up? Sure, but its not easy.

As far as fermenters go, I personally use a gallon (4 liter) glass jug that used to have cheap wine in it. I made sangria from the wine, consumed, and then made mead in the jug. If you go by my logic, I got the fermenter for free ;)
 
I just threw this together I used three pounds of honey though. How much difference will that make.

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