Session mead treasure trove

[wooda2008]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The fine folks at Groennfell Meadery in good old Vermont have posted the recipes for their session meads!

http://www.groennfell.com/recipes

No affiliation other than I love their meads and think that public recipes are awesome!

 

[fossilcat]

The first thing that jumps out at me is the high fermentation rate. 88* for D-47???? I've been under the impression that D-47 starts to throw out fusels at 68*.

That being said, I'd love to try some of these recipies.

 

[bernardsmith]

Sorry, but I am a little skeptical. They dump all the nutrient in before they pitch the yeast? They heat the must? They use stock packages of D47 and don't rehydrate the yeast? I am not familiar with their meads but I wonder if these are "home brew" versions of their "recipes" ... Find it hard to believe that these are the protocols they in fact use...

 

[wooda2008]

These are definitely modified from their full scale batches to be homebrewer friendly.
They do indeed front load all their nutrients.
As for heating the must, they do heat their honey and water to 104*f. Enough to make mixing easier, but not hot enough to cook it.
I think a lot of the flavor in these small meads comes from the fermentation temperature.
high gravity, high temp ==> fusels
low gravity, high temp ==> esters
Give it a try. It won't be beer, but it can be good

 

[bernardsmith]

Not looking for beer, and I am currently experimenting with short meads (low ABV) - including sours and Brett fermentations, but I will give their technique a try .

 

[fossilcat]

Coincidentally, last night I was listening to the September 8, 2016 Basic Brewing podcast that featured Groennfell and Havoc Meaderies Ricky the Meadmaker with his wife and business partner, Kelly Klein. The Havoc side is actually a former employee of Groennfell that they've sponsored. I was able to listen to a little over half. He said some interesting things like: If you have enough yeast you don't need a starter - 15 pks (at 5gms each) for 5 gals should do it; he used to do SNA but doesn't anymore, he front loads everything; the more nutrients the better. He's also banked his own beer yeast (don't remember the original strain) that's very acid tolerant - pH 2.65 I think he said... although, he said it takes about 5 days to start fermentation.

high gravity, high temp ==> fusels
low gravity, high temp ==> esters

I thought about this in the same way. Maybe there's an interaction with esters at high alcohol that converts to undesirable fusels, something that doesn't occur at a low gravity must that ferments in 4 to 5 days. And how many nutrient additions can you squeeze into that time period, only generating 7% etoh?

I'm gonna try this in the summer.

 

[loveofrose]

Sorry, but I am a little skeptical. They dump all the nutrient in before they pitch the yeast? They heat the must? They use stock packages of D47 and don't rehydrate the yeast? I am not familiar with their meads but I wonder if these are "home brew" versions of their "recipes" ... Find it hard to believe that these are the protocols they in fact use...

For session meads or anything below 1.090, adding Fermaid O upfront one time works great. I tried to make this point before in another post, but failed [emoji17]. Sorry!

Low gravity is significantly less stress, so they can get away with not rehydrating. Would it be better with rehydration? Of course, but perhaps not detectable by taste.

 

[bernardsmith]

For session meads or anything below 1.090, adding Fermaid O upfront one time works great. I tried to make this point before in another post, but failed [emoji17]. Sorry!

Low gravity is significantly less stress, so they can get away with not rehydrating. Would it be better with rehydration? Of course, but perhaps not detectable by taste.

But if you are making the mead commercially and you don't rehydrate then you lose - what? - about 50 % or more of the yeast cells you have pitched and have crippled another 25%? So you need to really pitch about 3 or 4 times the cell count to obtain an adequate colony... No? And then you now risk a problem of leakage from the dead and dying cells and so off flavors... (I assume we are talking about barrels of mead and not five gallons so the pressure on those dead cells is not chopped liver).

 

[loveofrose]

But if you are making the mead commercially and you don't rehydrate then you lose - what? - about 50 % or more of the yeast cells you have pitched and have crippled another 25%? So you need to really pitch about 3 or 4 times the cell count to obtain an adequate colony... No? And then you now risk a problem of leakage from the dead and dying cells and so off flavors... (I assume we are talking about barrels of mead and not five gallons so the pressure on those dead cells is not chopped liver).

You are correct on all points. I would never advocate not rehydrating. I am simply saying that they compensate by over pitching a low gravity must. If you pitch 4 times what you need and half dies, you still have 2x what you need.