first attempt at mead making

[strife440]

I found a recipe for a 1 gallon batch of mead using an orange and some raisins. it has stopped fermenting now and so i filtered it to get rid of any sediment and so my mead is rather clear and it tastes rather dry with small hints of honey, the orange in my opinion gave it an unusual flavour it needs more time to age but gets better tasting each week as it was really sour after fermentation stopped now it is mellowing out and is really hard to describe the flavour other than watered down alcoholic orange juice.

here is the recipe i used
1 gallon spring water
3 pounds honey
1 orange (sliced into 8 pieces)
25 raisins
1 packet of yeast

im curious to make a pomegranate melomel should i just add the pomegranate to that recipe or replace the orange with pomegranate as the orange is the yeast nutrient or something.

any advice on how i can alter my recipe to make a melomel if it is needed would be most helpful

 

[Arpolis]

The firsrt recipe you described was a JAOM type recipe which can be good & I plan on doing it again but IMO really needs the spices mentioned in the original JOAM recipe to be good. 2 whole clove, 1 cinnamon stick, 1tsp ginger & 1tsp nutmeg. Also if you used any wine yeast I can tell you that you are tasting the pith from the orange. That white part puts on a bitter odd flavor that needs two things to balance it out. The spices and keeping the mead sweet not dry. What you may do is hit that batch with a camden tablet & 1/2tsp of potassium sorbate to stabilize it and then add the above spices and 1/2 lb of honey and let that sit about 3 months. Then rack off of what has settled at the bottom and I am sure it will taste much better.

If you want to edit the recipe for pomegranate then here is what I would do:

Take 15 pomegranates, peel and remove all the little seed saks to be thrown in a 2 gallon primary bucket which will eventually be racked into a gallon jar. Make sure this does not go in whole. You think the pitch from ann orange added funky flavors. The pith on a pom is EPIC and super bitter so not to be used in any mead/wine recipe. Buying the poms individually may be expensive. If you can get Pom juice then use 64fl oz.

So the full recipe may look like:

3 pounds honey
64 fl oz Pom Juice
25 raisins
1 lemon juiced
1 packet of earl grey black tea
1 packet of yeast

Here is the process:

Boil 1/2 gallon of water with your packet of tea for 15 minuts on a high boil. Let that cool to room temp. Meanwhile add the Honey, Pom Juice and juiced lemon to the gallon container. Split all the raisins in half and add those as well. Shake the container a lot for 2 - 3 minutes to introduce oxygen into the must. Now rehydrateyour yeast with 1 tbs of your must and 10 tbs of water for 15 minutes. Pitch the rehydrated yeast. Once the tea is cooled top off the container with the tea and shake some more.

For yeast I would suggest Red Star Pasteur Champagne yeast. The sugar content is pretty high in this recipe and you will need a yeast that will hit 15% - 16% alcohol by volume which will take this recipe down to a sweet mead.

Hope this all helps and I really hope you stick with meads. They can be very rewarding. Also If a mead does not taste right. It just needs to age. Most meads need 6 months minimum to 1 year befor they start tasting good. Good luck and have fun.

 

[strife440]

i dont think i can do much more for my mead as it has settled, clarified and is bottled. the taste is rather curious indeed but drinkable in small amounts at this time but i agree with you that it need time to age i will try it again at christmas and see how its doing. it lost that horribly vinegary taste it had a week ago so mabe aging is best for it now.

and as for adding pomegranate would it be better to add the juice. i see lots of brewers adding apple, blueberry and cranberry juices. and i was hopping for a simple recipe as i have made wine before starting on mead and did it old school with just fermented grape juice and it was great.

oh and i have never boiled my must before just added the ingredients and then prepared the yeast as instructed by the packet then added the yeast and let to ferment.

i would like to start with the simplest methods that produce sound results so i can still experiment without it being to complicated at this stage as im still learning.

 

[strife440]

i was also told that upon tasting my mead that it tasted like beer or similar. is mead supposed to taste similar to beer?? i have never tryed it before so dont know.

 

[Arpolis]

i was also told that upon tasting my mead that it tasted like beer or similar. is mead supposed to taste similar to beer?? i have never tryed it before so dont know.

not in my opinion. but beers have more bittering agents and they may again be just noticing the pith.

The recipe I provided is a sound no hassle recipe that only requires you to boil some tea and add the ingrediants. I included rehydrating the yeast because that is always recommended but that can be skiped for a 1 gallon batch & just added dry.

 

[strife440]

yes i rehydrated my last yeast as it said so on the packet. few questions about your recipe though. 1) why did you say to use lemon juice instead of the whole orange i used before and to what does the tea bag do to the mead i have never seen this used before and am really curious.

and when it was first racked as i said it was incredibly sour and made your face screw up and now that it has had time to clarify and be filtered it has lost all that sour ness and you can taste hints of the honey and fermented orange. does that mean that after a few months it will sweeten with age?

thanks for your help so far its more than i have had in the past and i am keen to try your recipe.

 

[Arpolis]

Warning if I misspell a lot here or sound like jiberish I just bottles somw white grape peach wine and am enjoying now.

First the sour you were tasting was proabably just the yeast taste. Some yeasts have a sour yogurt kind of taste when in high consentration suspended in the must.

Mead does seem to taste sweeter over time. The gravity does not change but the perceived sweetnes increases slightly over time. So for instance if you love a grape wine at a gravity of 1.02 then a grape mead (Pyment) will probably be good at 1.014 - 1.016 and after a year will taste about like a 1.02.

The Lemon and tea do a couple things for you. The lemon is only to add citric acid & a few nutrients/amino acids. The tea adds Tannin, bittering & a little more nutrient/amino acids. The citric acid and tannin/bittering will balance out the sweet you get from the leftover honey in the recipe. Basically balancing it out and making the whole bit less cloying. Also this recipe does not include commercial yeast nutrient or yeast energizer just like the JAOM type recipe. If not using those nutrient substitutes then it is good to have as many different amino acids & nutrients as possible in a mead to keep the yeast happy.

This should be another decent recipe that is simple and will provide good results by just mixing together, let it sit for 3 months, rack, let sit another 3 or less & bottle. Every mead you do will get better and better as you learn. You will learn the finer points of propper nutrients additions, SNA (Staggard nutrient additions), degassing at particular intervals, matching yeast to flavors..... so on and so forth. and will be making masterful drinks in the future. But learn here, see how it tastes and tweek from there.

Most important have fun...... lol in my wine having state I think I rambled a bit.....sorry..... lol Have fun!

 

[strife440]

Dont worry mate it wasn't jiberish it was rather helpful becuase i understood tht raisins were the nutrient for yeast but was wondering with my previous recipe of adding orange what would have happened if i didnt add the orange. is the orange/lemon for flavour or another nutrient like the raisins? if it is just for flavour and added nutrient like all fruits then using your basic recipe of honey water yeast and raisins i can experiment all different types of fruits.

i like fruits and love to experiment with them. i plan on making another batch this friday while my other mead ages in bottles and would like as much info on flavour attained by different fruits. any successful fruit/fruit combinations you have heard of mate?

 

[Arpolis]

The only fruit meads (Melomel) I have done has been JAOM. Most of my fruity stuff has been wines. I seem to like spiced meads better. However I have heard Apple meads (Cysers) do really well. I am planning on doing a Clone recipe of a fairly famous commercial mead from B. Nektar "Zombie killer" which is a Cherry Cyser that is only about 5.5% ABV & is said to be super good. You can do a more traditional mead with just honey, water, yeast & then take 1 tbs of bakers yeast per gallon and boil that for 15min and add it as nutrients so you dont get any flavor bleed over from the raisins. Even better get some actual Yeast nutrients & energizer from the brew store or online. Then take the traditional mead after it has cleared and rack that onto different fruits of your choice. So make like a 5 gallon batch and just split into 5 different batches. you can try oranges "Peeled with no pith", apples, strawberries, peaches, bannanas........ you let those sit a couple months, rack again and try it out. That gives you a quick way to see what you like.

 

[strife440]

i was hopping of trying pomegranate as it has a strong slightly tarty flavour similar to cranberry juice. but no matter which fruit i use should i use whole fruit or juice?? and is it alright to add it all to the primary fermentation? because i have patients but remembering when to add different ingredients is not my strong suit.

 

[Arpolis]

For pom I would say juice because trying to remove all the tiny little fruit saks from the pom will be crazy IMO. Most other fruits I would go for whole fruits. The norm for non citrous fruits would be to freeze the fruit, thaw it, freeze again & then thaw one last time to add to the must. Citrous fruits are better juiced & possibly zested to get there flavor. From experience with my peach wine DON't freeze peaches lol. They turn into mush and it makes it harder for the brew to clear due to pectic haze.

You know how grape wines from the store don't taste like grapes. If you add fruit to the primary then you get that effect. The taste changes a lot from the original fruit taste. If you add the fruit after fermentation is complete then you get a more fruity flavor. It is up to you and your tastes as to when you add the fruit.

 

[huntingohio]

If you want to improve your original recipie you need to zest the orange and dropp all of the zest in. Then peel the orange and add the acutual orange flesh with as litth of the white pith as possible.

I tried using pom but I felt the mead came out very very sour. It may have improve with age but I gave it all to a buddy.


As far as using whole fruit or juice you can do either and I switch back and forth

For example atm I have a strawberry banna mead that I used fruit and pectic enzyme on going, and a cyser that I used apple cider and berries in.
It is more dependant on the recipie your going from and the end result you want. Things like pomegranite [sp?] would be hard to do as a whole fruit so I highly suggest the juice.

1. major tip NEVER use anything but clover honey when adding fruit. The other honeys are more expensive an adding fruit genrally masks the subtle tastes of the honey, a big wast of good honey. Other honeys can also be damaging to your fruit flavors, for example on my first cyser I used buckwheat honey. That honey covered the fruit flavor and it just didnt taste as good as it could have.

 

[strife440]

what are your experiences in adding fruits to both primary and secondary fermentation?

 

[huntingohio]

I add fruit in the primary constantly, infact my most often brewed drink is cyser [mead with apple]. I usally add a bit of pectic enzyme [sold a lhbs usally around $3] to keep the mead clear.
I have added fruit in the secondary only once. I racked the must onto some crushed cherries. It just restarted fermentation, so it was near useless, I really sohuld have just added them to the primary. Cherry flavor did come through though.
If you want to add spices though I would suggest adding them in the secondary, They seem to infuse better once fermentastion has calmed down.

Soory for gramtical errors and misspellings usaual by the time I get on HBT im a few bottles past beer thirty

 

[strife440]

so for experiementing i should add everything in primary fermentation. this makes things really simple. and how does the apple come out in the mead. what does it taste like when fermented?

 

[huntingohio]

I use a local pressed cider that I love the taste of, It comes out with a great mix of floral and apple flavors and smells, and a good hardcider and honey taste [mixed a touch of good cider with your mead and sample, thats about how it tastes].

I have heard that racking on to whole fruit in the secondary actually gives it more of the fruits character but I am not 100% in agreement with that. That being said I havent experemented enough for a real scientific test. {i can tell you however to leave the pits in your cherries, it imparts a woody taste.

As far as a guide for you, I say just wing it. Maybe make side by side batches of one in the primary and one in the secondary using the same honey yeast or what have you

 

[strife440]

i have been searching the net and tacking in what you guys have said and have come up with a recipe i wish to try and would like to know what you guys think of it and if you think it will be successful. this recipe is for 5L

1.6kg of honey
710g of frozen blueberries
1 packet wine yeast
1 packet yeast nutrient
3.8L rain water (i have a rain water tank at home)
then top up to make about 4.5L (enough room at top for fermenting)

how do you guys think this recipe will fair. i intend to cut/crush the blueberries so to allow the yeast full access to the blueberries.

 

[huntingohio]

Sound heavey on the honey for my tastes but I like mine dry.

Rain water dosnt mean clean water, All sorts of nasties can be in it, save it for the plants and buy ditilled water

 

[strife440]

yeah i know i have increased the honey because it wasn't as sweet as i would have liked last time. and as for the rain water i know all about impurities and it is actually not much different from distilled water. you see here in australia distilled water is tap water that has been boiled and cooled to remove nasty chemicals, but this process leaves it in almost the same condition as regular rain water as tap water is rain water that has flouride and chloride added to it and distilling removes these to taking the water back to squar 1 which is rain water.

 

[huntingohio]

The boiling process is what actually kills all of the bacteria, and when the steam is cooled and condensed its gets rid of the impurities like chlorine and flouride

Rain water can have anything in it, If its hooked up to the gutters from your house it will have traces of the adhesives and plastisizers used in shingles, is its just a barrel in the back yard it can have algae and bug larvae in it.

These are all bad things as the chemicals create off tastes [and in some cases can be toxic]. When you brew your trying to create a helthy enviroment for yeast, bacteria and mold also like this same type of enviroment, so making sure the water is distilled or pasturized is a must.

You can used tap water or rain water but they must be filtered and disinfected before hand. The equipment to do that is really not worth id considering most grocery stores charce 50c a gallon for treated water and $1 a gallon for a jug of it

 

[Arpolis]

That sounds pretty good. With those fermentables you will have a starting gravity of about 1.134. Make sure to use a yeast that has an alcohol tolerance of about 14%. Lalvin 71b is what I would use. That will ferment down to anywhere between 1.02 - 1.03 which will make this a sweet/desert mead.

Dont worry about cutting/crushing the blueberries. Just freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw and plop them in whole. That is usually all that is needed. I would add in some pectic enzyme otherwise the end result may be very cloudy. If the blueberries are fresh then the recipie is fine. The longer blueberies are off the vine then they loose acidity so if these are store bought it may be good to use some acid blend from the LHBS store or just add in juice of a lemon.

 

[strife440]

the rain water is off the gutter of my dads shed which is tin roof so that there are no nasties in it like the tiled roof of our house and tastes great by the way. cant believe i have drank tap water all these years.

and i dont think i have any lavin yeast at my local brewing store. but they are rather knowledgeable they told me when i am ready to brew they will find me a good yeast for mead to make it sweet. and should i juice 1 lemon and add it to my recipe?? how will that change the mead?

 

[Arpolis]

If you dont have the Lalvin yeast then that is fine. Just don't let the brew store talk you into the Wyeast "Sweet mead" yeast. That stuff will barley hit 10% ABV in a recipe like this and you will end up with cough syrup lol. Just try for a yeast with a alcohol tolerance of around 14%. Red Star brand is a commonly sold yeast in LHBS shops. "Côte des Blancs" would be the best choice from them. It can hit around 14% and it does preserve fruity notes better than most. "Pasteur Red" can work from Red Star but it may finish a bit dryer if you want a real sweet mead. If you go with a Wyeast brand then "Rudesheimer" or "Chateau Red" are good choices.

I know looking at jack kellers site (A really great expert on home brew) & from talking with friends that the norm is to use about 1tsp of acid blend per gallon with blueberry meads. about 1tbs of lemon juice does the job of 1tsp of acid blend. I thought there was more juice in a lemon but I just looked it up and if you warm a lemon in the microwave for about 15seconds you can hope for as much as 3 TBS of juice per large lemon. I would say 1 1/2 - 2 lemons should be fine or get the "Real Lemon" juice in the green bottle and measure out 5 TBS. basically you are replacing lost acid from the blueberries. The lemon juice/acid blend brings out a fresher tasting blueberry like flavor in the end product.

Edit: I am sorry I think I got my math all wrong. Darn this super tasting wine of mine! You are doing a 5 liter batch. I was thinking 5 gallon for some things and also had 1 gallon calculated in my calculator. Don't know how I got so mixed up. About 1 1/2 TBS of lemon juice or 1 1/2 tsp of acid blend is plenty for this batch. The OG is lower than I originally calculated. A 5 liter batch would have a gravity of 1.101 all together and most yeasts will run that dry. If you do not want to back sweeten by adding stabilizer chemicals to stop the yeast then make sure to use your hydrometer and go to a gravity of about 1.128 without the blueberries. Should be just over 2 kg of honey.

 

[strife440]

well atm my recipe is 1.6kg honey, 710g blueberries, yeast and nutrient and water to top up to nearly 5L to have room for fermenting. i dont want to back sweaten and so will this recipe work if i find a yeast with 14% tolerance. here is a link to my local brewcraft shop, can you please tell me which yeast to get? here is the link http://www.brewcraftwa.com.au/

 

[strife440]

plus 1 tablespoon of lemon juice

 

[strife440]

i found this yeast on the website and it said its good for fruity blends what do you guys think? here is the link http://www.westbrew.com.au/showProduct/Wine+Making/Wine+Yeast/840033

 

[huntingohio]

I have used the lalvin ec-1118 on that site and hated it [personal preference, goes way too dry, takes a LOONG time of aging for any sweetness] so i would avoid it. From all of those strains I would assume the one you chose is as good as any having not tried them. It seems to fit the description atleast.

 

[strife440]

thanx to all of you for your advice i have now finallized my recipe and will keep you up to date on the progress.

 

[GDP]

Not sure if it was stated yet, however the recipie calls for 3.5lbs honey per gallon, not 3. That would explain the dryness.

 

[strife440]

i am actually using 3.5274lbs of honey to be exact because i used 3lbs last time and it was dry. remember all my measurements were in metric form before i said 1.6kg of honey wich is more than 3.5lbs of honey as you can see. easy mistake to make, i used to do it all the time till i learned to convert imperial and metric.

 

[dannyhall1987]

The is a little green spec floating around in my orange mead, I was wondering if this could be early signs of a bacterial infection. I figured that should leave it a few days to see if it grows. I used some juice from boiled raisins as a nutrient and there are loads of bits of raisins which have clearly found there way into the mixture. I wasn't as stringent with hygiene as I usually am, so there is higher risk of infection but doesn't mean I should assume the worst.