Apple mead

[jtrux]

Looking to make a one gallon batch Of apple mead, looking to use 3.5 - 4 lbs honey (local in pasteurized) one cinnamon stick (McCormic about 2 gram) and topping off with fresh juiced apples.

Is this too much cinnamon? Is acid like lemon juice etc needed to keep apple juice from browning? Does apple juice need to be pasteurized ie cooking for 10-15 min at 160 - 175 F or will the honey protect from infection.

Is there anything else I should add to complement the mead? Using champagne yeast btw. This is my first mead so sorry for the novice question

How vigorous does mead ferment? Do I need to use a primary like a bucket or can a one gallon carboy contain it from the start.

Jeremy

 

[biochemedic]

Looking to make a one gallon batch Of apple mead, looking to use 3.5 - 4 lbs honey (local in pasteurized) one cinnamon stick (McCormic about 2 gram) and topping off with fresh juiced apples.

Overall sounds like a good basic cyser recipe. 3.5-4 lbs *may* be a bit much for a 1 gal batch. I generally start with 3 lbs per gallon -- my annual cyser is 5 gal fresh pressed juice and 1 gal (~ 12 lbs) of honey.

Is this too much cinnamon?

No, I think a single cinnamon stick is fine. Someone had recently commented on another thread that 1 stick per gallon is the ratio used in the famous JAOM recipe. If you want to keep a strong cinnamon aroma/flavor, you could consider adding the cinnamon stick at the end of your primary fermentation. The primary will blow off some of the cinnamon aromatics.

Is acid like lemon juice etc needed to keep apple juice from browning?

No. Generally acid is NOT needed at the beginning of the process, and could potentially drop your pH low enough to affect the yeast negatively. I do add acid blend to my cysers before bottling to give it a little extra tartness.

Does apple juice need to be pasteurized ie cooking for 10-15 min at 160 - 175 F or will the honey protect from infection?

No, you do not need to heat or pasteurize it...the fermentation itself will inhibit any wild yeast/bacteria as long as you are pitching a good quantity of healthy brewing yeast. For a 1 gallon batch, a single packet of dry yeast, or container of liquid yeast is more than enough. I do recommend properly rehydrating the yeast if you are using dry (per the manufacturers instructions on the packet).

Is there anything else I should add to complement the mead?

I tend to use a little bit of tannin in my cysers as well, and I do add this up front. You can make a cup of black tea and add this to your must, or get tannin powder from your brewing supply place.

Using champagne yeast btw.

I have used a variety of yeasts to make cyser, including the Wyeast Dry Mead strain (which I understand to be a strain of champagne yeast), 71B, and this year the Wyeast Dry English Cider strain. I think any basic champagne yeast will be fine, but be aware that you'll likely go completely dry, so if you like a little sweetness, you may have to look into the process of stabilizing and backsweetening later on.

How vigorous does mead ferment? Do I need to use a primary like a bucket or can a one gallon carboy contain it from the start

It can depend on a lot of factors (OG, yeast strain, temperature....) but mead can blow off...I generally use blow off tubes for my primary ferments just in case, then switch to an airlock after a couple weeks.


Good luck, and have fun!

 

[jtrux]

Thank you for the detailed reply

 

[avidhomebrewer]

I made an apple/cinnamon mead a few years ago but used fruit instead of juice. It was excellent; tasted like apple pie.

 

[jtrux]

Do you add oak to apple meads?

 

[fatbloke]

Do you add oak to apple meads?

If you want too! It's something that a lot of people have a view about, though I'd have thought it might be better not, well initially anyway. Because more than just a hint of spices is likely to mask any actual oak flavour, but not any tannin that gets extracted from the wood. So I'd just make it, let it finish, racked, cleared, etc etc, age it for 6 months and then taste it too see if it needs something. Only then experimenting (and researching) to work out how much for how long etc.....

On the yeast front, I would suggest that you don't use a champagne yeast, as they have a habit of blowing some of the aromatics and more subtle flavouring elements straight out of the airlock.

Something like K1-V1116, or the already mentioned 71B. As it's a cyser, I'd have thought that the 71B would be ideal as it metabolises some of the malic acid (malic is the main acid found in apples).

Sure, it does mean that you can't just leave it on the lee's to age, because 71B isn't good for that, but if you're reasonably attentive at your ferments and take readings regularly etc, then you'd be racking it off the lees once the ferment has finished, then as it drops sediment, etc

K1-V1116 is likely to take it dry, if you used about the 3lb honey per gallon level, then you'd just have to stabilise it with sulphite and sorbate, and if you used a mix of apple juice and honey to back sweeten it, it's best done once the ferment has finished and it's been stabilised i.e. honey backsweetening can cause a haze (protein haze I believe), so rather than finish the ferment, stablising and clearing etc, and then back sweetening, it's better to back sweeten after stabilising and racking, but to a desired level (I like about 1.010, but up to about 1.020 shouldn't make it cloyingly sweet like some of the commercial meads that can be obtained - they can be up in the 1.040 region, which is much too sweet for me).

Dunno if any of that helps.....

 

[jtrux]

Thank you

 

[jtrux]

Made my batch last night, will let you know how it turns out in a year. Exact recipe I used is as follows:

3lb 6oz honey (local)
6 lb gala apples juiced
3 lb fuji apples juiced
1/8 tsp Irish moss
1/8 tsp tannin
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp yeast energizer
Red Star champaign yeast rehydrated in 1/2 cup preboiled water (its what I had)
Top off with water (about 1.5 cups) to one gallon

For the apples I cored them, picked out any remaining seeds, then juiced them in a jack lalane juicer.

Will add 1 cinnamon stick in 4-5 weeks. Would any other spices complement it? Was wondering about a very small amount of nutmeg or allspice ( just enough to be in the far background but not a dominate flavor)? Thinking along the lines of apple pie.

Getting decent activity already even though last night got to 39F and a high of 67 today. Getting bubble in airlock every 20 sec.

 

[jtrux]

Going to rack a second time this weekend. Plan on adding a cinnamon stick on this racking. Is there any special way to handle the cinnamon stick? Should I soak it in vodka, or crushed campden and water? Or is the meads high ABV enough to protect from spoilage? OG 1.12 FG 1.005.