If one were to not use Orange in JAOM....

Hi folks. Sorry to bother you with a question you've probably received a lot. I'm at work or Id go through all the stickies etc.

SWMBO, who is incredibly supportive btw, asked me the other day "the next batch you make, can it be with a fruit other than oranges?" Apparently the orange isnt to her taste.

So, if you were like me, broke, and hoping to use the cheap honey you have available, bread yeast and raisins in a JAOM-like mead, but use a different fruit, could such a thing be done? If so, what would you use?

Are the oranges there to provide acid? If thats the case, could one get freaky and use, say... limes?

Again, apologies for the annoyance

James

I've not tried it, but I have seen people swapping out the fruit and some of the spices to make similar meads to a JOAM, but obviously results are not garenteed!
I've spotted people on here doing it with berries, apples and pineapples I think. Most seemed happy with the outcome though I can't point you at any exact examples (also at work!)

James,

Check out the Recipes | Mead link at the top of the page...lots of good recipes in there. FYI, my last batch was a blackberry mead. Basically, blackberries, honey, and yeast, though not bread yeast. It tasted pretty good last month when I bottled it...aging should only make it better.

Thanks guys, I actually got a chance to read and found, as per insomniac, someone who used pineapple and was pleased. I think we have a winner. Now if I can just get myself to stop bottling with micro-lees still in the bottle Ill be all set.

CreamyGoodness said:

Thanks guys, I actually got a chance to read and found, as per insomniac, someone who used pineapple and was pleased. I think we have a winner. Now if I can just get myself to stop bottling with micro-lees still in the bottle Ill be all set.

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As has already been pointed out, there's a million and one recipes/methods out there for types of fruit meads.

Now if you were thinking of a JAO type recipe, but with different fruit ? Well the only one of mine that came out tasting good, was one with Lemon instead of orange. All the others, including one with Lime weren't that good at all.

Likewise, making JAO type recipes with wine yeast. It's not (IMO) a recipe that lends itself to being dry.

Joe also produced a quick pyment recipe (made with grape juice) that apparently comes out really good.

Any recipes are only "a google" away - I believe there's a recipe section hereabouts, plus you could always have a dig through Gotmead as there's lots of recipes there to try (both the forums and their main site).....

Thanks again bloke. I wound up trying out pineapple last night, and will tell you how that goes. I also put together a "what the heck lets see what happens" Cyser that is bubbling away. You will all doubtlessly disapprove mightily of that recipe, so I wont post here, but I'm really interested in seeing what happened. If it comes out well I plan on calling it "Day Job Orchestra APPLEJUICE Mead" in honor of our Canadian brewers. SWMBO put the absolute kibosh on my original idea, "Big Dickens Cyser"

the first mead/melomel I threw together was pomegranate/blueberry/pineapple/orange.

it came out tasting DELICIOUS. Like alcoholic grape juice, which was odd considering that it had no grapes in it. I only let it ferment for a month or two, and was using bread yeast, but it was good. The sweetness of all the fruit juice allowed me to serve it faster than any other mead I've made. The "hotness" of the alcohol was masked very well, and it made a great apertif. We chilled it, poured it into some small juice glasses about halfway full (about 5 oz) and SWMBO, her family, and myself got kinda pretty drunk off one bottle.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/pomegranate-orange-pineapple-mead-also-known-oh-i-might-well-mead-172133/


not exactly a recipe, but that was my process at the time.

Go to the store and buy a bag of frozen mixed berries. Adding this instead of the orange will give you a tasty mead.

fatbloke said:

Joe also produced a quick pyment recipe (made with grape juice) that apparently comes out really good.

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I can attest to this. If your SWMBO likes a medium bodied semi-dry to sweet red wine (depending on how much you backsweeten), then you should give Joe's quick grape a shot. It's drinkable when it's ready to bottle (4-6 weeks). Although I just bottled mine, I understand like most wines and meads it is superb after it's aged for a bit, so I'm going to hold of on imbibing until early next year.

As far as the cost of it, you would need to get some specialized ingredients not readily available at your local grocery store, but not at all expensive (the wine yeast, 1 oz bottle of potassium sorbate, and 100 Campden tablets will set you back $5, and you'll get many uses from the sorbate and Campden). If your SWMBO is okay with these purchases, you should definitely give this recipe a shot!

You guys are gents. Now, at the risk of having bloke fly to new york with the express purpose of slapping me silly, can/should I use knox gelatin to get the micro-lees down once Ive had good clarity and taste?

On previous batches I have had gloriously clear mead with nice flavor, only to have the whole bottle jostle and cloud (and make nasty yeasty byproduct flavors come up)

Despite the jaom recipe saying not too I racked mine away from the lees a couple times as I could not work out how to bottle without getting a load of crap in with it, even pushing the racking cane through the oranges that hadn't sunk causes all sorts of issues. Id say go for it, rack it off and hit with some finings if you like.

Thanks, Erm.. Mr. Geiger ;-).

Well it's one of the issues with using bread yeast. It doesn't flocculate well and you can even disturb some of the lees by just moving the fermenter to where you want it to start racking.

Yes it is a bit of a pain at times.

So, last time I made some (JAO that is), I moved the fermenter the day before, then was VVV careful about how far in I placed the bottom of the racking cane, making sure it was still in the clear part (about an inch or so above the fruit - which incidently did still have a thin layer of sediment on).

That was racked slowly (tap on the end of the pipe, too control the flow - the slower, the less the liquid movement in the jar with the fruit/lees in). Then I racked the next part into a bottle which had a big enough neck, so that I could get the base of the racking cane through it, and yes I did pull a little sediment, and then with a similar bottle I racked it right down to where I was pretty sure that it was all lees and fruit.

The two "yeasty" parts were placed in the fridge for 48 hours, then I managed to rack the part with a tiny amount of sediment out, leaving just a hint of fogging from the lees - the last part had about a quarter inch or so, but equally, it was a nice, clear line of separation.

The whole lot was gently mixed and then I ran it through my mini-jet, once with the coarse filter, and then with the medium one. I didn't have to use the finest filter pad and it was all nicely polished and "clear as a bell".

There was no sign of any other sediment dropping out of the liquid in the bottles after 3 months.

The problem can be, that even if you have a mead that's VVV clear and you bottle it, you can still sometimes find that after time, some sediment has dropped out - the same as red wines. With meads it's often more obvious in those that have been made with fruit - I presume it's fruit pigment dropping.

All you can do is be as careful as possible and get a filter - even a gravity/harris type usually works.

So bloke you would NOT suggest filings or gelatin is what you are saying, or do I have you wrong?

Why do I get the feeling that I simply have not tasted remarkably good mead like Insomniac and bloke are used to? I have now used Pineapple, mixed berries, and have played around with apple juice and spices to make cysers and I have enjoyed drinking all of them. I think my ignorance is most likely bliss.

I almost think the concept behind jaom is being overthought. It's a cheap, fast, easy, throw together recipe based off some knowledge and some guessing of interpretations of recipes found some old book(s). It is supposed to be hazy and even a little harsh, that is how the recipe and method is written. I'ts not meant to be refined. It really is meant to be thrown together, a starting point, a stepping stone to the procedures, concepts and ideas behind fermentation and making mead. From there one can begin to bring it to more modern methods of filtering, fining, chemical additions, racking, re-racking, recipe modifications etc etc. At that point we can start calling it a melomel or metheglin or melometeglin whatever you want to call it and most importantly start calling it their own.

CreamyGoodness said:

Why do I get the feeling that I simply have not tasted remarkably good mead like Insomniac and bloke are used to? I have now used Pineapple, mixed berries, and have played around with apple juice and spices to make cysers and I have enjoyed drinking all of them. I think my ignorance is most likely bliss.

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Until a few months ago (three or so now) I was a mead virgin. I had read about it my entire life, I knew what it was, I knew how to make it but yet, I never had.

I made a ginger cherry melomel using Charlie P's book as a guide (I did not boil my honey but did heat it slightly to dissolve it in water) and using EC1118 am generally happy with how it turned out. It's now gently aging in bottles in the bottom of the pantry.

But while that was in the process of clearing I tried a few commercial meads; Redstone, Trybunalski (my favorite actually), Starrlight, Chaucer and B Nektar and a handful of home made cysers and melomels and pyments from other home meadmakers (one in particular) and I have come to the surprising conclusion that I prefer home made mead over commercial. I think the commercial (Trybunalski being the lone exception) are typically over sweet and cloying. None of them would be what I would consider 'exceptional'.

Now I'm in the process of trying different yeasts, fruits and honeys just to find out what happens when.... I actually have a JAOM clearing now, a pina colada mead, an apple pie cyser (dropped the vanilla bean and spices in a t-sac™ yesterday when I racked) and a few others including a mixed berry melomel and a muscadine pyment. I have high hopes for the cyser. I tried it yesterday and while it's a little sweet for my tastes (Wyeast Sweet Mead yeast) it's actually pretty tasty...

JAOM does indeed clear up quite nicely but as fatbloke cautioned, the slightest bump will ruin your day and that crystal clear mead will become cloudy again.



By all means experiment with different fruits. When I first started making this several years ago I tried a number of different variations and none of them turned out bad. Personally, I think oranges of all kinds, tangerines, and pineapple works best but that's just my preference.

Thanks for the post and the pics. I started with JAOM and asside from Apfelwein I havent trudged out of breadyeast territory yet. Too much fun to be had as it is!

Your mead, btw, is so pretty that if it was a woman I would have asked it out to dinner when I was single.

I have a blueberry vanilla mead going right now.

Based off the JOAM recipe. Hope it turns out good.

I must know your cyser recipe. My very first batch of "what the hell am I doing" turned into poetry. No thermometer, no scale or good measuring, didn't know what the floaty thing was for (gravity meter).

Here's the recipe; all numbers are approximate

• 3L apple juice
• 5kg local wild honey (approx)
• 600g grocery special manuka honey
• handful cinnamon sticks
• spoon of DAP
• packet of yeast (lalvin ec1118)
• enough water to fill 5gal carboy

After it stopped bubbling I racked into 2nd carboy and let it sit for almost 3 months. Then I racked again and sweetened it with about 400ml of "wine conditioner" from the grocery store (invert sugar, sucrose, potassium sorbate)

It's amazing. SWMBO says it's a little bitter, which should age out by late August (the wedding). She has a weird super-bitter-sensitive tongue though, most mortals don't notice bitterness like her. Everybody else loves it so far.

So yeah, apples are the bees knees. I love apples. Go apples!

That sounds really nice! Basically my cyser is a JAOM with apple juice swapped out for water, 3lbs honey, raisins for yeast food, bread yeast and a sachet with spices in it. I'm letting the current batch mellow a bit longer only because last one was heart burn city .