I have been brewing beer now for over a year and am thoroughly enjoying the hobby. I have recently been interested in trying to make a mead as I have just acquired a couple of extra carboys so could give a try. Since I know nothing about mead, I decided to grab it a bottle of whatever I could find to try. I found Oliver's Camelot Mead out of Bloomington, IN. I am really intrigued now about it. I really hate wine, and was thinking mead might be a lot like it. But this mead at least, is nothing like wine in its sweetness and aroma. I'm sure that many of you make better meads than this and was wondering if any of the recipes on here would produce something remotely like this mead (hopefully better). I guess the best way to describe what I like about this mead is the sweetness (very sweet I'd say) and the vanilla/floral-like aroma. Any suggestions on a recipe that I could use to produce something in this vein? Thank you in advance.
oliver mead
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Tusch
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First, are you a fellow Boiler? Second, I tried oliver's and I was not a fan. From what I have read on here, there are only a few commercial meads available that are well received. But, if you are going for a sweet mead, try JAOM or MAOM, they are both quick and sweet meads. You should be happy trying those out, plus they can be fairly cheap to try out before you really get into it.
It is indeed hard to find 'authentic' commercial meads. you really are better off throwing together a small batch (to keep the costs down) and then seeing for yourself.
Mead and Wine are fairly different beasts, which share a few general traits: they are typically low in FAN and thus you need to provide nitrogen (i.e. yeast energizer) to keep the yeast happy - and these are typically higher ABV brews that need a yeast capable of pulling it off.
beyond that, they are different. Wines always contain tannins due to the grape skins, and many wines are treated with acid blends to balance out the sweetness (if there is any).
mead, on the other hand, is very open to interpretation, and as long as the primary fermentable sugar is honey, it qualifies as mead and nobody can tell you "you did it wrong".
some people add tannin and acid blend to all their meads. others use some brewed tea for their tannins.
others, like myself, never add tannin, and rarely add any acid blend.
mead can be sweet (including super-sweet dessert style mead), semi dry, or very dry (i.e. champagne yeast and a final gravity under 0.990)
back to the topic of commercial meads, Red Stone makes some decent meads, but they can be hard to find, and some are a little pricey ($40 a bottle).
If you come across Chaucer's Mead, I'd avoid it. not very authentic and often has a weird medicinal aroma, which kinda screws with the actual flavor.
Mead and Wine are fairly different beasts, which share a few general traits: they are typically low in FAN and thus you need to provide nitrogen (i.e. yeast energizer) to keep the yeast happy - and these are typically higher ABV brews that need a yeast capable of pulling it off.
beyond that, they are different. Wines always contain tannins due to the grape skins, and many wines are treated with acid blends to balance out the sweetness (if there is any).
mead, on the other hand, is very open to interpretation, and as long as the primary fermentable sugar is honey, it qualifies as mead and nobody can tell you "you did it wrong".
some people add tannin and acid blend to all their meads. others use some brewed tea for their tannins.
others, like myself, never add tannin, and rarely add any acid blend.
mead can be sweet (including super-sweet dessert style mead), semi dry, or very dry (i.e. champagne yeast and a final gravity under 0.990)
back to the topic of commercial meads, Red Stone makes some decent meads, but they can be hard to find, and some are a little pricey ($40 a bottle).
If you come across Chaucer's Mead, I'd avoid it. not very authentic and often has a weird medicinal aroma, which kinda screws with the actual flavor.
The guy at the local brew shop who said he did plenty of meads recommended against yeast energizer, so i didnt buy it. He said only to use it if the fermentation gets stuck. Is this sound advice or should I just buy it and add it regardless?
Tusch said:
Indeed, I am a fellow Boiler! Grad student in Linguistics currently. I wasn't really sure if Oliver's was true to mead or not. But I thought I'd try it to have somewhere to start. I have brewed beer exclusively and interestingly I don't like sweeter beers. I'm not really a huge hop-head either. I guess somewhere in the middle then. However, for some reason when I think of wine or mead I want something very sweet. I've yet to find a wine I like, but I've been interested in trying to do a mead.
We were stuck on oliver before our first mead finished. We really liked it because it was actually a sweet mead... however, once that first batch finished and we tasted them side by side.... pure rubbing alcohol is what the oliver tastes like. So i'd say for the uninformed, it's great, otherwise no.
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