End-of-the-World Mead??

I just spent a couple hours reading every post about the Leap Year Mead that several of you have going. I really like the idea of being part of such an endeavor, so I was wondering if anyone had plans for doing an “End-of-the-World” mead? You know, the end of the world being 12/21/12 and all that! :rockin:

Having a special brew to toast on 12/20/12 as the last day of the world seems appropriate – and in the off chance that the world survives, having a nice Holiday Season mead sounds pretty good too.

Any interest?

Lately I've been on a kick to create semi-sweet, bottle-conditioned, sparkling mead (following a procedure similar to what's tacked in the cider forum). My first attempt at this was spectacularly successful, so I'd like to do something special.

Thanks.

You have a specific recipe in mind?

I have some empty jugs.

The date is Mayan right? Maybe something Mayan inspired. Something they used a lot that might taste good in Mead.

maybe human sacrifice bloooood(just kiding)
so are there realy a lot of people who belive this 2012 bullsh-it?
cuz I thought it was just a trend like fortune telling or nostradamus,c'mon guys lets not be so naive and believe everythig the greedy networks put on TV just to get good ratings.

Corn, hot peppers, alien intelligence?

"Most of the Mayan people were farmers. The main staple of their diet was corn also known as maize. Other things that they grew were beans, squash, avocado pear, avocado, sweet potato, guava, chili peppers, cocoa beans, vanilla beans, papaya and tomatoes. They would also eat fruits from trees."

-thinkquest.org

Thanks for the post! It got me thinking about a 2012 brew. I think I'll do a cyser based on the "Drop Them Panties Again" or Johnny Jumpup" recipies. Add some extra honey and dried smoked chiles or ginger then carb it up and age till then.....hell ya. I may even call all the boy's over on the 21th of Dec 2012 and drink all 25 bottles.

I'd like to brew what you'alls brew'n to. so post a recipe and let face it together....lol.

Jug

I bottled my Mayan Chocolate mead a couple of months back. The recipe needs tweaking, but basically I used home toasted cacao nibs, Bourbon vanilla beans, and home-grown habanero peppers. It's pretty dang tasty, and not (despite the habaneros) that spicy. Just a pleasant tingle as it leaves your mouth and heads down the throat.

Is this what you had in mind?

I'm not sure what I want to do, so that's why I made the post...

I'll probably make a strawberry melomel as soon as strawberry season comes around, but although this might be my favorite brew, it doesn't have any connection to the Mayas.

The thought of a papaya (or squash) mead just doesn't sound very interesting to me.

The Leap Year Mead was a vanilla mead that does sound very interesting to me... maybe we could do that... but it's been done. (I'll probably make a batch of that sometime anyhow.)

I kind of like the idea of a chocolate / hot pepper mead (though the peppers worry me), because these are things the Mayas used and I think this would be a fairly unusual brew – plus I'm a sucker for chocolate.

Instead of having everyone do the exact same recipe, I like the idea of picking a theme, like “vanilla bean” or “chocolate / hot pepper” and have everyone play around with it as they see fit.

Right now I like the idea of using chocolate... and maybe I can be talked into using some hot peppers... but I'm open to ideas.

I know the idea of habaneros is a bit scary, but prepared properly (ie de-veined and de-seeded) and used in moderation, can create the effect of eating spicy chocolate. Plus, habaneros have a pleasant fruity quality that comes through if used lightly.

With that said, I'll cast my vote for the theme of "chocolate/spice". Maybe the spice can be whatever you want, not necessarily peppers, but other spices that pair well with chocolate. I'd also be keen to see different approaches for getting the chocolate flavor. Count me in! Where should we post recipes to?

This sounds interesting. I have a jalapeno-peach in secondary right now and the jalapenos just didn't do their stuff. I tasted one of them pulling it after 4 weeks in and it is not spicy at all. I have some Texas Gunpowder - powdered jalapeno, I wonder if this would help. I use to grow habneros and scotch bonnets (got the seeds in Jamiaca on honeymoon) and to tell you the truth, I am just damn scared of them. Just too hot for me. I have a huge amount of chile pequenes, I could at to the mead to spice it up. I wonder...............

While it would be nice to respect the Mayan's for our end-of-times mead; I think we should do something tried and true, something that we'd know we'd all enjoy sipping on during the evening before the world ends.....

I'd hate to open up on 12-21-12 a habnero-chocolate-vanilla-squash-corn-kidneybean-melomel-pyment-whathcamacallit....

I propose something glorious: to be enjoyed should the times end; or to be further relished, when the times don't end....

Orange blossom honey, cherries, vanilla, oak?

I'd just hate to crack something open and say, "wow - I just wasted the last 24-months of the earth on this habnero-chocolate-vanilla-squash-corn-kidneybean-melomel-pyment-whathcamacallit"

The cherry/vanilla sounds nice. Maybe the slight heat (think fresh ground black pepper) isn't something everyone can get excited about, but I still like the idea of doing something "traditional" using ingredients native/available in the Yucatan Peninsula. I found this site which lists the plants cultivated in that region. While it may not be the same list of things available to our ancient mead-making brethren, I think it's a start.

Maybe the theme can just be to make something the Mayan's could've made? We could even "oak" with different types of wood native to there. I've got some acacia wood that is begging to be used.

The Mayas apparently used cocoa, and made drinks from it, so maybe we can have a “chocolate + whatever” theme. We can all do something chocolate, and experiment with it as we see fit (and share our experiences).

I'm thinking about doing a chocolate/vanilla/mint concoction based on a couple chocolate mead recipes I've found on the net. Right now I'm thinking about:

6gal batch

20+ lbs of honey (start with OG~1.13 and top off with honey after each racking until yeast is maxed out – finish with an SG~1.010?).
20oz cocoa powder (16oz in primary and 4oz in secondary)
10 mint tea bags steeped (add tea only)
1cup raisins (yeast food)
4tbsp lemon juice (acid)
1tbsp yeast nutrient
1tbsp yeast energizer
4oz vanilla extract (in secondary. Maybe not enough?)
Maybe some more mint in the secondary...
2pkg Lalvin EC-1118 (hearty champagne yeast that will go to 18% abv)

Apparently strong chocolate meads like this taste like ass for a year, then taste like chocolate rocket fuel for another year. By the end of year two though, I've read some miraculous reports of heavenly results. If I start this by the end of Feb. 2011, that would give me 22 months for this brew.

This would be only my 4th batch of mead, so don't assume I know what I'm doing (I have a couple dozen beer/wine brews under my belt – literally:cross. Any suggestions, comments, or questions are welcome.

As for the cherry / vanilla suggestion... that sounds like a yummy Valentines Day project!:rockin:

Count me in. I like the idea of sharing the results/bottles. All the more fitting for an end of the world experience.

As for suggestions, I'd use chocolate extract or cacao nibs over cocoa powder. The only reason being that unless you're there to stir and aerate every day (twice or more), that cocoa powder forms a cap that gets forced up and out of the airlock/blow-out tube. Also, racking losses will be greater with the powder, but provided you're prepared for these things, it's a great way to get chocolate flavor.

You might also want to increase your nutrient additions, and space out the nutrient additions to ~1tsp of both things daily, until the 1/3 sugar break. You might also want to add some boiled yeast (for additional nitrogen) along with each honey addition. You're essentially step feeding, and while EC-1118 is a beast, it ne'er hurts to help the yeast out as much as possible.

Mint sounds tasty, and you can always add more vanilla if you want more.

Edit: I will say, if you use a brewing bucket and not a carboy for primary, the cap issues are greatly reduced when using cocoa powder. Especially since you have raisins too...both of those could end up getting pushed up and out of a carboy.

I'm in too. But I will likely only commit to 1 gallon (10, 12-oz bottles): or 3 gallons at most....

Just want to hedge my bets in case the world does end - I'd hate to have all that goodness go down in flames

I agree about nutrients - best to follow Schramm and/or hightest's nutrient schedules....

OCS - my advice: finalize the recipe and start a new thread with "The Official end-of-times mead" or something....

You'll get all of us weird mazers to come out of the wood work

Vanilla/Corn mead ?

I've been unable to determine how much chocolate extract would equate to a given amount of cocoa powder. Although some seem to have great success with nibs, they seem to have a bunch of fats/oils that aren't really useful for a product like this. From my searches (google is my friend), it seems that cocoa powder is preferred by most, so I think I'll stick with that. I do use a bucket for primary, so maybe some of the blowout issues will be mitigated. Also, I might use a blender or whisk to mix up the powder as much as possible. (Plus, I like to start fermentation at 65deg, so it doesn't take off too strongly at first.)

As for the stepped nutrient/energizer additions – I've read hightest's doc, but that just made my head hurt. The 1tsp of nutrient/energizer everyday for the first 4 or 5 days (or something similar) is something I can handle...

Yogi – you mention adding boiled yeast when topping off with honey... my understanding was that yeast nutrient was essentially boiled yeast... what about 1/4- 1/2tsp yeast nutrient if adding 2lbs of honey??

My very limited experience with melomels is that fruit gives a distinctly different flavor and aroma if put in the primary vs. the secondary. I've been putting fruit in both to “get the best of both worlds” and create a more interesting and complex final product. It was this thinking that makes me want to put some cocoa, vanilla, and mint both in primary and secondary. Does this make any sense, given that this monster will age close to 2 years?

Does 4tbsp lemon juice seem about right as far as acid is concerned?

All this chocolate would be quite bitter – maybe a higher FG target would be appropriate? Maybe 1.012 – 1.015? I bottled a cyser at 1.012 and it was very sweet to me...

Thanks for all your feedback.

If you've got a bucket, you're fine. Just be sure to aerate daily until the 1/3 sugar break.

As for the boiled yeast vs nutrient, yes the nutrient contains dead yeast, but it also contains (typically anyway) DAP, which yeast can't use later in fermentation (which is when you'd be topping up with honey). Feeding with DAP just provides spoilage organisms with a potential source of nitrogen to get a foothold with. You don't have to feed the yeast any "yeast hulls", but if you want to help the yeast eat some of the sugar you're adding, you might want to.

I'd also hold off on the acid addition for now. Once it's aging, you can add some "to taste". Adding acid before hand could drop the pH below 3.0, and then you just have more work to do trying to get it back up. That's just my opinion, so do what you will. Your amount of lemon juice seems fine, but I can't be sure. I have yet to treat any of my meads with acid...so YMMV.

Adding the flavoring agents into primary and secondary makes sense. Just be aware of leaving the mint leaves in for too long. They may impart a "vegetable" quality. You might want to consider making some intense mint tea with some the water for the batch and adding that to secondary when you top off. They should be fine in primary (assuming primary is under a few weeks). Plus, you can always stick the leaves into a grain bag and just let them soak in the bucket. This is why I love using buckets for primary...it's much easier to pull stuff out than with a carboy.

I've got a recipe to post, so let's get this thread started!

Mayan's eh....
Well... We don't talk too much about most things they do with fermented corn on this board.... although I hear you can buy plenty of it at the liquor store....

Honey + Chocolate + Vanilla might be interesting.... or it might be bitter as all get out...

My fear is that the chocolate flavor is so intense that it would loose all of it's honey character and just taste like spiked swiss miss instant cocoa....

When I read "End of the world mead" - I thought to myself.... Hey - they used to do that in Europe about 500 years ago... The stuff took 40-years to ferment and age out enough to be drinkable..... I am not really sure I could wait that long....

Thanks

John

So...are we getting this group brew going, or what? :cross:

I'm just about ready to start my chocolate+something batch, and I'm not sure whether to post the recipe here or if there was going to be a new thread for that...if we're going to enjoy this mead at it's peak, we need to get going here.

YogiBearMead726 said:

So...are we getting this group brew going, or what? :cross:

I'm just about ready to start my chocolate+something batch, and I'm not sure whether to post the recipe here or if there was going to be a new thread for that...if we're going to enjoy this mead at it's peak, we need to get going here.

Click to expand...

I started another thread for people to post recipes, etc.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/end-world-mead-recipes-mayan-inspired-223008/