hop metheglin aging question

I just recently discovered the idea of hopping mead as an alternative means of creating a gluten-free ale replacement - actually I thought I dreamed up the idea, then learned from numerous threads here that it's far from an original thought!

I'm relatively new to brewing, having just made a few 1-gallon batches of IPA at this point. In those cases I fermented for 2-3 weeks, bottle conditioned for 2, and had yummy drinkable beer in 4-5 weeks total. I learned that the longer I let the beer age, the better it seemed, but I couldn't hold myself back from drinking everything I've brewed.

I see folks age most meads for dramatically longer times, on the order of months. But here's my question - if I'd like to make a hoppy mead that I plan to carb in bottles and serve like an ale, and if I really just want an IPA-like 6-7% ABV out of it, how long do I really need to let it sit? Can I cold crash after say 3 weeks in a fermenter, bottle condition for 2 weeks, and expect something drinkable?

I'm planning to use an ale yeast, Safale US-05, which is all I have experience brewing with. I *think* this may be the key fact in my question, as I suspect it's the type of slow yeast used in most meads that require all the time to ferment?

My desire to "rush" this is to create more GF alternatives for my wife, who has recently determined that she's got a gluten sensitivity and will no longer touch beer (though she'd adored hoppy IPAs until recently).

Thanks!
Jeff

Sounds like a neat project...I think there are two reasons why meads generally take longer, and have the perception of needing prolonged aging times. 1) meads tend to be fairly high gravity, but your idea effectively negates that problem. 2) it's often difficult for homebrewers to properly manage the fermentation. If you pitch proper amounts of yeast, oxygenate well, degas frequently, add proper nutrients, and keep fermentation temps under control (this is my biggest hurdle still), you can have a very good mead in 2-3 months.

For your project, I would give you the following advice...
1) You definitely need to add nutrients (check out "staggered nutrient additions" as a search topic) when fermenting honey. Using a single 11.5 gm packet of 05 you will have a totally adequate pitch rate. Shake the crap out of things at the beginning. Degassing is probably less of an issue with this lower gravity project. I'd still try my best to keep things as close to 68*F as you can...
2) Bear in mind that honey is essentially 100% fermentable, and your attenuation, even with an ale yeast like US-05 will be 100%; ie, you will finish dry. I have found that my hop metheglins are best with a little residual sweetness, and I generally backsweeten to ~ 1.012-1.014. You will not be able to both back sweeten and bottle condition, so you might consider adding maltodextrin (essentially gluten free, even if wheat-derived, because of the processing) to give you that little bit of body and sweetness, and/or perhaps some lactose, which can also add some sweetness. Both of these are unfermentable, so you can add them without worry of getting bottle bombs; you would add your priming sugar as per a normal beer.
3) Since you will likely finish at 1.000 (or perhaps even lower), you will only need to have an OG of 1.050 to get 6.5%
4) You will have to boil to get bitterness from your hops. You will not "ruin" the honey by boiling it (but it is different than non boiled honey). I strike a compromise when I do my hop metheglin by boiling 1/2 of the honey when I do my boil for hop additions, then add the other half while cooling. This is more of an issue with my higher gravity mead related to hop utilization, but still...
5) Since this is honey, you don't need to do a long boil like you might with a barley wort. Consider doing a short 20 or 30 min boil and do a "hopburst" addition schedule where you add a $h!Tload of hops in 20 min to get the same amount of IBU's you would get by having a bittering addition...you get great hop flavor and aroma. You'll want to run your numbers in a brewing software package or one of the online brew calculators.


Good luck, let us know how it turns out!

Thanks for the detailed reply!

I was definitely planning to boil - really I was planning to keep all my methods very ale-like since it's what I know. I've worked this out:

http://hopville.com/recipe/1654112

That was set for a 60-minute boil, but I'll try to work out a hop schedule using a shorter boil time.

It sounds like you're telling me to expect this to ferment more than the calculator is calling for, essentially yielding higher than the 6% and a lower FG? I guess the formulas there still assume ale-like fermentables that normally aren't that efficient.

Can I add that maltodextrin when I rack to the bucket (pot in my case) for bottling after seeing what happens in the fermenter and measuring FG? It's not that I don't believe you on the fermentation, but I just have this feeling that I don't want to "junk up" my brew with additives without knowing empirically that they were necessary.

Thanks!
Jeff

Yeah, if you look at the recipe settings you have, it assumes 73% attenuation for US-05, but with honey, it will be effectively near 100% since honey is nearly all fermentable sugars. I was thinking though that you may get *some* unfermentables created during the boil, but there's really no way you will be at 1.017 FG! If you did do a full 60 min boil, you might get enough maillard reaction and carmelization to have your FG be 1.004 or .005... As an example, when I did my last hop metheglin, I did a 45 min boil with 9 lbs of honey, and added another 9 lbs later during cooling, and my FG was 1.008. Certainly this effect will be lesser in your recipe given 1) The significantly lower quantity of honey, and 2) the shorter boil (if indeed you only do a 20 or 30 min boil).

I actually would add the maltodextrin at bottling...that's generally what I do...if for some reason you do end up with a higher OG, then you can either use less, or not at all, or whatever...

When you wiggle your numbers, I would actually try to shoot for more of a 1:1 BU:GU ratio, or about 50-60 IBU's...I think 80 might be a bit much for this concept, but perhaps your tastes are different... Also, if you do the hopburst thing, you may not even need to dry hop...you get awesome hop aroma and flavor just from the massive late boil additions!

I also wanted to point out that the hopville calculator has your honey set at 40 pppg (points per pound per gallon); some honey may actually contribute this much sugar, but 36-38 is more average. What this means is that you may get slightly lower OG in real life than what this calculator is telling you. It's no big deal though; you can always just add a little extra honey, or more water to tweak things where you want to be OG-wise.

I had to go grab some stuff from my local brew store, so i picked up a pound of maltodextrin while I was there.

The only thing that bugs me about using this is that it seems like such a processsed food product, and I've wanted my brews to be about doing a super-simple all-natural kind of thing. Maybe in the future I'll have to experiment with some mashes to add unfermentables into the brew (have read promising things about quinoa) so I can avoid it.

I'll reduce the boil time and try the hopburst thing (which I take to mean "more hops later in the boil").

My wife and I both love the hoppiest beers we can get our hands on - usually brews with IBUs in the 80s and 90s. So that's why I was going so hardcore with the hops.

Thanks again for the detailed replies!
Jeff

There's a number of threads on this topic you can search out if you want more details, but yeah, "hopburst" just refers to putting all your hops into the last 20 min, but increasing the amounts such that you still achieve your desired bittering level; as you would imagine, it requires a lot more hops, especially if they're all relatively low alpha...it definitely helps to have something like Columbus, Simcoe, or Citra that is going to be in the 'teens alpha-wise. When I did my hopburst pale ale with just cascade, I used 6 oz of hops for only 38 IBU, but with cascade and citra, only needed 4 oz total to get 40 IBU. (And FWIW, I thought the cascade/citra one actually came out better, BTW.) One other way to replicate this is to use a small addition of a really high alpha, but "clean" bittering hop such as Magnum at 45 or 60 min, then cram all your flavor/aroma hops into the last 5 or 10 min. I have eventual plans to do a hop metheglin with "noble" low-alpha hop varieties, and I will use this technique...it would be rediculous to try and get as much hopping as I want with hops at 6 alpha and under! (I'd probably loose a gallon to hop absorption...)

You should definitely check out the gluten free section, they probably have lots of other ideas and info (mashing alternative grains may be different / require different techniques / mash temps may be different), but yes, mashing your own grain is the ultimate way to control your fermentability and ultimately, your FG. From the limited amount of gluten free beers I've tried, I would think that a gluten-free braggot (mix of grain and honey for fermentables) would be interesting at least...

Hi,

My Ale mead was started on the last Saturday but It's ferment by Brewferm ale yeast from Belgium only 6 grams because my batch is only 2 gallon.
The yeast was started the fermentation slowly and now going faster at 66 - 68 F.

I brewed the first batch yesterday. I wound up using a mix of wildflower and clover honey to try and dial in a good IPA color since the wildflower honey i found was very dark. Did a 30 minute boil with most of the hops added quite late.

biochemedic - good call on the honey pppg; I adjusted it in the calculator to 36 and picked an amount to give me a 1.062 OG, as I'd decided I don't mind if it comes out packing a little extra punch. What I pitched came in at 1.063. So possibly 37 would have been perfect for that honey. I added nutrient too.

It's bubbling away in the fermenter as we speak!

Jeff

I bottled this the other day - your predictions were spot-on as I reached a final gravity of about 1.001.

What I tasted was very thin and super bitter - in fact I'm worried now I over-hopped it like you warned me about. Although with all the sugar in the honey fermented, it makes sense that only bitterness would be left.

So I added maltodextrin prior to bottling. At first I just added a small amount of the powder straight in, but it seemed difficult to dissolve. So for the remainder I experimentally heated up small amounts of water to dissolve it and stirred that mixture in. Made me wonder what exact technique you use when adding this stuff at bottling time when you don't have hot wort.

I didn't remember to taste after adding the maltodextrin - I hit about 1.015 on gravity and bottled it up. So we'll see what I have after a while! I usually taste one of my beers after a week and try to save the rest for the 2 week mark, and then drink them all in a few days (1 gallon batches here so usually just 8-10 bottles). I'll report back!

Jeff

I generally make various sugar and other additions by dissolving in a small amount of warm/hot water then adding to the primary (if fermentables) or to the bottling bucket (lactose/maltodextrin, priming sugar).

The "FG" after maltodextrin of 1.015 should fix the body/mouthfeel issue; I'll be curious to see what your perceptions are regarding the sweetness to bitterness balance thing...to me maltodextrin isn't all that sweet, which is why I use lactose (+/- maltodextrin) when I'm looking to add unfermentable sweetness...

Having aged ever so slightly, this is now wonderful. That initial over-the-top weird bitter thing I tasted at bottling has transformed into a mellow honey sweetness with a cirtus hoppy bite.

Things I'd adjust next time:

• Consider incorporating a bit of earthier honey like buckwheat (which i've since used in another GF experiment).
• Just like biochemedic suggested, I think I'd like to use more "noble" hops instead of the american IPA type. I think they'd make for a more interesting flavor combination with the honey. I've since brewed a beer that involved Magnum for bittering and Hallertau for flavor/aroma and I think those would be really interesting, maybe and/or some Saaz.
• I'd think about ditching the maltodextrin altogether. While I appreciate that it gave this a beer-like body, the taste of an all-honey brew is enough not-like beer that I'd almost rather just leave it be its own thing and enjoy the thin-ness. I would, however, still bottle and carb it like a beer. I enjoyed it much more carbonated than I did young and flat.

Sounds great! I just filled up every last carboy I have with a cyser, cider, and a graff (got some awesome fresh pressed cider this year!), but I want to put a hydromel hop metheglin like this on my to do list...