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wildmazer

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hey y'all,

i've been lurking for a few years and signed up for a couple weeks now and thought that perhaps at some point i should start posting a little.

i've been making mead, specializing in wild yeasts, for about five years now, currently at 42 batches/63 gallons started and 29 batches/38 gallons bottled. not an old-timer but not a novice. everything i've done has been made with a worked-up culture of wild yeast (from various sources). some perennial favorites i keep coming back to are bochets, tea-meads from actual teas (pu-erh, various roast levels of oolong, lapsang souchong, etc) as well as things like chaga, nettles, rooibos, mugwort, and others. and seasonal fruits/cysers and things.

as a wild-mazer, some of my techniques and focuses differ from some of yours, and i'm having an interesting time learning where those differences are. anyway, i thought i should say hello before i start throwing too many of my 2 cents around so you know where i'm coming from and can write off what i say as the ravings of a weirdo. ;)

cheers.
 
I've always wanted to make floral meads. How do you go about using flowers like nettles and mugwort, etc.?
 
actually, for both nettles and mugwort i use leaf, brewed as tea for the initial liquid in primary and any subsequent toppings off, but that's basically the same procedure that i use for actual floral meads like dandelion and redbud - only with flowers i tend to steep much longer - more like a day - in comparison to five or ten minutes for other herbs. and unless you've got some very strong-smelling/tasting flowers (maybe lilac?) it takes a lot more flowers per gallon than herbs. when i did 1 gallon of dandelion mead i started with a whole gallon of cleaned flowers for the tea - turned out awesome.
 
That sounds pretty interesting. What kind of abv can your strain of wild yeast achieve because my worries on that front have been that the yeast would die of alcohol poisoning before it got to the desired final gravity.

I would like to make a wild fermented mead and have considered using raw honey for that purpose because I'm guessing there's wild yeast in raw honey. Just haven't got around to it yet.

My only experiences of using wild yeast in fermentation are with cider, with the yeast coming from the apple skins I'm guessing, and I was pretty happy with the results... bar one. I made two batches of around 25 litres each and they turned out good but a one gallon batch with no sugar or nutrients added turned out on the sulphuric side and had a not too pleasant aftertaste.
 
the trick i've learned is working up a yeast bug that can handle decent amounts of sugar and alcohol. it usually means spending a week or so fiddling with it before it's 'trained' enough. but then, they almost always go dry, which is my preference. 10-12%ABV range, mostly.
 
Have you ever used bark in your mead? I've been very interested to try it, as other people (albeit very few) have made birch, spruce, and maple bark meads.
 
Have you ever used bark in your mead? I've been very interested to try it, as other people (albeit very few) have made birch, spruce, and maple bark meads.
 
not bark exactly. i've done both birch and fir (which should be a lot like spruce), but birch is with twigs and fir is with young spring shoots. the main trick for both of those is that you want some heat to be able to extract much flavor, but you don't want it to be boiling, because that can drive off some of the more volatile flavor compounds, just like can happen with a very-vigorous fermentation. so, like, 195F into jars packed full of twigs (takes less shoots), then cool and proceed as normal.

also, in the same way as people toast hickory bark or nutshells to make hickory syrup (google that one if interested), i'm planning on making a mead made with strong tea of toasted hickory shells - just gotta crack a couple hundred more. there's no good shagbarks giving up bark around here.

i don't expect maple bark to be particularly tasty...but then i do like oak, so maybe...
 
There must be a decent "starters guide" out there for making mead. I make cider and there is a small section about mead in my guide, but what are wild yeast sources is my big question? I am guessing the flowers, bark, or twigs, or other mediums you use, but is there enough in raw, unfiltered wildflower honey? I don't mind buying yeast, but if it occurs wild, especially if in the honey, I would rather nurture and/or harvest and use that. Before I start, I will read many hours of material, so if a wild guy has a recommendation for a good book, I would listen. Great posts. Thank you, and keep them coming.
 
in theory it's everywhere. bark, sticks, honey, everywhere. in my experience, though, you want to aim for yeasts that can handle higher gravity or alcohol concentrations, and 'just any yeast' won't necessarily do it.

i haven't messed with trying to encourage the yeasts in wild honey, but that would be an easy enough experiment. the sources i usually go to are fresh organic ginger or turmeric roots (grated), or any of the fruits that get a 'bloom; on them - blueberries, plums, american persimmons. occasional flowers.

the sandor katz stuff (wild fermentation and the art of fermentation) is probably the best beginning point as far as books go.
 
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