Planning my next move: Heather

[FrodeM]

As my first batch of mead started so well, and still I got some packs of D47 left, I am planning to try out a second batch. This will be a smaller and more fancy one; I am talking Heather Mead!

I am still not back from vacation, and on the islands in the area of my family home there is heather growing all over the place. Most of it is the common Heather, but "Erica tetralix" is also widespread and "Erica cinerea" grow in patches here and there. Needless to say, heather honey is a big deal in the district.

For those unaware, the heather honey often have a very distinct almost pointy taste. Its usually not overwhelmingly sweet, but often very aromatic. It is typically evenly foggy, and can often be a bit crystalized. It ranges from hard paste to creamy in consistency.

There is a couple of local honney proccessing facilities in the area. A company called "Stavland" have been processing heather-honey for decades, and they ship to grocery stores over the whole country. Locally, there is also this smaller company "Snill Bie" that only ship to the Bergen region and thereabouts. The more local company offers bigger jars and have a pretty detailed description of their processes on their webpage. They also seems to have a little less crystalization in their product, with a medium dark color. Stavland, on the other hand, can be quite crystalized and has an almost bright yellow color.

I am a bit split on this one. If I go for Stavland, I can buy it after I return from vacation, and I can buy more if I missjudged on the amount. However, if I go for the local brand I will have to buy it all now in the upcoming days. If I had to guess then the local brand sounds a bit more promising. I also have no idea how the two compares in taste this year.

To end this on a question: Does Glucose vs Fructose ratio have any effect on the cemistry of the fermentation?

 

[CKuhns]

Does Glucose vs Fructose ratio have any effect on the cemistry of the fermentation?

Both are monosaccharides, glucose is more efficient of the two when it comes to fermentation. Both glucose and fructose have the same molecular formula, C6H12O6. The difference is in the Hydrogen and Oxygen arrangement on the ring.

Glucose is most often easier to convert for wine and brewers yeasts. Fructose cannot generally be used immediately, but has to be slightly altered first. (Experiments indicate the difference literally is minutes.)

In short both can be easily converted in the fermentation cycle and in reality likely will be. Glucose is just a bit easier.

To take that thought a step further most yeasts can also break down sucrose to glucose + fructose, and maltose to glucose, but this takes a good bit of time in comparison.

 

[WVMJ]

Get the local stuff and lug it home, if you fall short you can get the commercial stuff to top off with. Is this the honey they have to squeeze out of the comb with a press? WVMJ

 

[FrodeM]

Thanks! Just wanted to be sure it wasn't like Lactose or Maltodextrin. I was talking to a beer-brewing friend of mine last fall, and he mentioned that certain kinds of sugars affect the fermentation and final taste, but he didn't go into the details on it.

In the old days maybe they squeezed out this kind of honey, but modern slings are more powerfull and agiate the honey enough to get it out the typical way. This is a great article about this type of honey: http://world-of-honey.com/honey-products/heather-honey/

Yeah, it's pretty clear the local stuff is the way to go. I wanted to link to a google-translate'd version of the company's webpage, but it's in dialect and lets just say the translation got pretty interesting. I'll give a short rundown:

They retreive the combs in mid-September, dry them for some time, before slinging the honey out. The honey is then run throug a coarse and a fine sieve, and put to storage till the consistency is just about right. During storage it is stirred daily. It's put directly on glass jars and shipped out to stores after storage. They guarantee that the product hasn't been heat treated, and that no additives are added.

 

[Maylar]

Are you in Scotland?

 

[Frognostic]

I know that the heather plant had been used as a bittering agent in beer.

Heather honey mead bittered with the heather plant could be interesting.

 

[bernardsmith]

I know that the heather plant had been used as a bittering agent in beer.

Heather honey mead bittered with the heather plant could be interesting.

This is more or less what I am currently doing... Making a gallon batch of heather mead using heather honey from Scotland and a tea made from heather tips boiled in spring water. Began this on Sunday so the mead is still in the primary. I like 71B so that was my yeast. Ambient temperature is about 60 F and starting gravity was 1.080 so I am looking for an ABV of 10%. I like how it is tasting...

 

[FrodeM]

Not from Scotland, but right across the pond; Norway. This particular part of Norway have traditionally had strong trade connections and cultural exchange with Scotland though.

I like the idea of using heather tea as a bittering agent. I might want to try that.

Would you think it's best to bitter and backsweeten it to taste after fermentation, clearing and stabilization, or is it best added directly to the must?

 

[Alchemymead]

I made a Lavender, Heather & rose hips mead that was quite good. I think the next time I make it I'll cut out the rose hips but I wrapped my herbs in muslin and let it boil in the water for about 10 minutes before letting the water cool and added the honey.

 

[bernardsmith]

Not from Scotland, but right across the pond; Norway. This particular part of Norway have traditionally had strong trade connections and cultural exchange with Scotland though.

I like the idea of using heather tea as a bittering agent. I might want to try that.

Would you think it's best to bitter and backsweeten it to taste after fermentation, clearing and stabilization, or is it best added directly to the must?

Not sure that the answer is either/or.. I think you may want to make a tea and use the tea to dissolve the honey and then in the secondary you may want to add more heather to capture more of the flavor and aromatics that may be boiled off and then blown off during active fermentation...

 

[Alchemymead]

I don't think he'll have too much of a problem with aromatics & flavor...
He would have heather honey dissolved in heather tea and add more heather in the secondary? I think it sounds like over kill to me but let me know how it works out either way!

 

[FrodeM]

Just got this started! OG dead on 1.100.

Right off the bat I can tell this honey foams a lot. I guess this might be due to a higher protein content, as this honey has not really had too much processing.

It will be really interesting to see how this turns out. Heather-honey has a bit of a tartness to it by nature, but only time will tell if that's gonna be a problem or not.

* 1st day *
Man, this foams! I can't just shake the foam down either, as it will just release more bubbles. Foam is brittle, so most of it breaks instead of going through the airlock. Put blankets around the carboy just in case.

 

[FrodeM]

Racked today, and have taken a small sample to get some hints about how the taste will eventually turn out.

It opens decently with the proper hints of ling, but then it turns very bitter. I'm talking grape-fruit levels of bitter here. The honey itself did have some bitter tones to it, but I wouldn't imagine they would become this strong. Compared to the first batch of regular blossom-honey mead, this problably needs well more than a year of aging to even out.

 

[Dr_Floyd]

In my experience making a tea out of your additional ingredients isn't necessary. I've read endless forums about the best way to make coffee before adding it to meads when the truth is you don't really need to, just add the damn grounds to the carboy! Alcohol is such a good solvent it could extract flavor from a rock.

Now that being said I could understand how a a brewed batch of Heather Tea added to a Mead would be different than just extracting the flavor, like some sort of a Hydromel (because of the additional water from the tea) but make sure you are actually deciding that's what you are going for. But if you just want to get the smell and flavor of Heather then just throw some (sterilized in vodka first) in the fermenter! In any case keep in mind that heating up any ingredients WILL cause it to lose volatile smells and flavors, just as most people on this forum would not recommend cooking your honey before starting fermentation.

 

[FrodeM]

In about two weeks time I'll be leaving for summer vacation, and I have this to consider (picture).

During vacation I'll be away for about 2 months, and will not be able to rack in the meantime. The heather mead settles very slowly, and right now it's one millimeter gross lees. Yeast is certainly concentrating in the lower 5cm of the carboy but it hasn't really dropped out of suspension yet. How long this will take to settle properly, I don't know! To get to the point in the picture, it has taken about 3 weeks since degassing.

This is at 4.7L, and I really don't want to rack more than nessecary. I haven't gotten hold of glass-beads to fill up the headspace, so racking will create quite a bit of headspace. On the other hand I don't want to ruin it by letting it sit sur-la-lees for too long either.

Any thoughts?

 

[CanadianJesus]

If it is done fermenting, rack it before you leave, then rack it when you come home. Try to get the glass beads in the meantime. I used those to fill the headspace in my mead.

 

[Maylar]

I'd just let it sit. It'll be clear when you get back.

 

[FrodeM]

2.5Kg of clear glass-pebbles are on their way. Should be about a liter, or just about the right amount.

I will wait another two weeks to see how it progresses, but from the looks of it the separation between the layer and the rest of the liquid is becoming more and more clear.

 

[FrodeM]

Okay. Problems.

The glass has not arrived yet, and I leave for my 2-months vacation tomorrow morning. This is how it looks like right now.

Working on getting to borrow 4L of glass jars. It's dry and degassed, so shouldn't produce that much preassure.

 

[FrodeM]

To make a long story short:

I got glass-beads after the vacation, and racked. I had it standing untill recently, and only a small layer of sediment settled out during the last half year. Today I bottled it, despite it not having cleared up completely. All in all the yield is around 4 liters in total from the 5.5 liters I started with!

When it comes to the taste, it's not far from the other 1.100-OG mead I made earlier. This one smells absolutely fantastic, but the taste is still just average (less acidic compared to the earlier mead). It has also inhereted some of the quite bitter aftertaste from the honey itself, and this bitterness is something that kinda sneaks up on you, becoming very prominent, if you drink it too fast.

Was going to bottle the interesting lemon-blossom mead as well, but I realized i'd run out of corks if I had continued! xD