Chocolate mead.

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Spiker712

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Hey everyone, so I’m not exactly new to brewing, however I am with meads, I just find it interesting.

So I know they may be other threads I believe their called on this subject so if anyone can help me with linking I’d appreciate it.

I started making a chocolate strawberry mead thinking it’ll turn out like... you guessed it, a chocolate covered strawberry. First off chocolates, there’s many options out there, just wanna point out if your using powders make sure you understand the ingredients in them, hot chocolate for instance has dehydrated fats and preservatives so watch out. I opted to use Cacao nibs as some have asked about, I like to over flavor things as a result of my history with beers. So essentially I buy one pack of cacao nibs per gallon I make then toast them on a baking sheet at 350° F for 15-20 minutes ( always toast them for imparting flavor) other wise the flavors will be muted and lost then I boil them in water for 30 minutes before adding my honey, I know traditionally you would boil your honey in the water but I’m doing my own thing. So then after I get my nice hot chocolate water I added the honey and then soon after crash cooled it as you would for beer. I used 3 quarts of strawberry purée, may try with mashed strawberries another time. But I’ll keep y’all updated on how it turns out.
 
Welcome to the mead community.
It looks like you've already started this, is that correct?
Is this a 1 gallon batch?
How much honey did you use?
What strain of yeast?
Personally, I don't even heat my honey past 108°F. After 110°F, you start to lose some of the floral notes in the honey, so good that you're not boiling it in the water. I think the only 2 cases where people boil honey are when making a bochet or they want to make sure to kill off any wild yeast strain that may battle for dominance after pitching whatever yeast you're using. I, myself, have never had an issue with that, though.

I love the idea of toasting the Cacao nibs. But, from other posts I have read, (I'm sorry, I do not remember where I read those posts, I want to say reddit), it takes the nibs a long time to age out & really give the flavor profile, but, you're not putting the nibs directly into your must, is that correct?
I can't help but wonder if you could extract the flavor out without any bitterness, by letting it sit in cold water, essentially like cold brew coffee, where the whole idea is not to brew with hot water as to avoid extracting the bitter & acidic properties & just harvesting the sweet properties of the beans.
This is an experiment I think I will try on my own though. I have a sous vide machine & I constantly do experiments with different ingredients to see if I can extract flavors. Maybe just a low heat (say 105°F) over the course of 2 days, might be low enough temperature to get the flavor without having the long aging time. (I know, 105°F isn't cold water, but it is a middle of the road comprise) Hmmm...this has the wheels turning🤔🤔💡💡
Please keep us posted on your results. It sounds delicious!
Happy meading 😎

These are some of the ones that come up @ the bottom of the page.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/strawberry-chocolate-mead-experiment.289839/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/chocolate-mead.377695/
 
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Hi Spiker712 and welcome. A couple of quick thoughts.
1. Way back in history when well water was often laced with all kinds of pathogens from sewerage and dead animals boiling helped reduce deaths from disease. Honey was often boiled too because when honey was extracted it was extracted with the hive, some of the wax, and with many of the bees and bee parts. Boiling helped to separate the non honey elements. In most states today both the honey and the water come to us in fairly purified forms (Texas and Michigan are clear exceptions...o_O) so no need to heat your honey.
Interestingly, "brewing" suggests the application of heat in the making of beer (or tea or coffee) but wine making tends to avoid the use of heat , largely, perhaps because when you cook fruit you set pectins and when you set pectins you get jam and if you don't have enough pectins to make the fruit jellied you certainly have enough to make the wine cloudy... which is one reason that wine makers often add pectic enzymes to their fruit about 12 hours or so before pitching the yeast. The enzymes not only break down pectins preventing haze from forming but they also help in the extraction of juice from the fruit.

Chocolate flavors are incredibly challenging. The thing about the flavor of chocolate - and I am not a food scientist so I could be very wrong - is that it seems to need the cocoa butter for us to recognize the flavor as chocolate. Cocoa nibs - for me - rarely create the chocolate flavor I am looking for, and cocoa powder is just about impossible to clear, but chocolate malt (barley) does seem to impart a wonderfully chocolate flavor. You might try experimenting with those malted grains (4 oz /gallon.
One other thing and you may be very familiar with this. Barley is chock full of yeast nutrients. Honey has virtually none and so you may need to apply a good nutrient base for the yeast when you make mead. Fermaid O or K are standards but Wyeast makes some good nutrients too. (yeast need more than DAP).
Good luck with your mead making.
 
Bernardsmith funny you bring up the cloudyness, the last batch I did with raspberry was cloudy but I think that could have been clarified with some sort of wine makers product.

as for the other questions.

Dan O and I’ll touch on one I think may help bernardsmith as well.

1) currently I’m watching my blueberry batch and chocolate batch bubble away happily the only major difference between the two is the chocolate has no foam or trub or possibly pectin floating, again idk all the terms so I can only speculate. But I think that maybe due to oils or “butter” that may occur in the extraction process of the cacao to the wart if you want to call it that. So my thought there is like with making pasta, carbohydrates will create a white froth when boild but if you add EVOO or something of the sort it will bind with the carbohydrates and BAM no froth. I don’t want to rule out the possibility that the yeast may some how have less nutrients with the chocolate version but as I didn’t exactly do anything different between the two batches I’m leaning towards my first idea.

2)Its a 5 gallon batch so I used 12lbs of wildflower honey in both I may try different honeys in the future on small scale. I don’t believe in wasting batches after all I can purchase a distilling hat for my brew machine and use what ever ferments out of them for liquor haha.

3)For these two batches I used white labs sweet mead yeast, I used two packs to try to help with the process as I thought it was a bit slow the last time, the last time I used white labs English cider good for 14%abv I believe the last came out to 12.5%.

4)No I did not boil the honey in either batch but I did add it while the water was quite hot at 180°F, now my brewing system has a pump on it for circulation though so it helps to impart oxygen into the wart before pitching the yeast.

5) chocolate flavor from cacao, now here interestingly enough I did not taste my wart before adding to my carboys, typically I will do that so I can gauge the flavor profile. However I got the idea of the cacao nibs from a food network video with Alton brown using the cacao nibs for hot chocolate, in which he stated if you use raw nibs it will do no more than impart aroma and there for it’s imperative to toast them for ANY length of time to extract flavor. And I might add as they were boiling away they were the most delicious smell I’ve experienced in a long while lol, so I’m curious as everyone seems to state chocolate takes forever, but I’ve had chocolate beers the day after they’ve been released and guess what they taste like chocolate...so I think maybe the mead community is missing something. But I say that without trying to be ignorant as I have no idea.

Lastly I’d like to state, I brewed a burban coffee stout using cold brew and as you may guess there was bitterness but only in the wart as it was due to the black coffee, so that can be corrected with age or sweetening, I didn’t think of sweetening back then so instead I just aged them and after 6 months it was a pretty delicious stout at 9% abv
 
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Hi Spiker712 and welcome. A couple of quick thoughts.
1. Way back in history when well water was often laced with all kinds of pathogens from sewerage and dead animals boiling helped reduce deaths from disease. Honey was often boiled too because when honey was extracted it was extracted with the hive, some of the wax, and with many of the bees and bee parts. Boiling helped to separate the non honey elements. In most states today both the honey and the water come to us in fairly purified forms (Texas and Michigan are clear exceptions...o_O) so no need to heat your honey.
Interestingly, "brewing" suggests the application of heat in the making of beer (or tea or coffee) but wine making tends to avoid the use of heat , largely, perhaps because when you cook fruit you set pectins and when you set pectins you get jam and if you don't have enough pectins to make the fruit jellied you certainly have enough to make the wine cloudy... which is one reason that wine makers often add pectic enzymes to their fruit about 12 hours or so before pitching the yeast. The enzymes not only break down pectins preventing haze from forming but they also help in the extraction of juice from the fruit.

Chocolate flavors are incredibly challenging. The thing about the flavor of chocolate - and I am not a food scientist so I could be very wrong - is that it seems to need the cocoa butter for us to recognize the flavor as chocolate. Cocoa nibs - for me - rarely create the chocolate flavor I am looking for, and cocoa powder is just about impossible to clear, but chocolate malt (barley) does seem to impart a wonderfully chocolate flavor. You might try experimenting with those malted grains (4 oz /gallon.
One other thing and you may be very familiar with this. Barley is chock full of yeast nutrients. Honey has virtually none and so you may need to apply a good nutrient base for the yeast when you make mead. Fermaid O or K are standards but Wyeast makes some good nutrients too. (yeast need more than DAP).
Good luck with your mead making.

I actually wasn’t aware of that at all I just simply stick to my beer brewing premis that yeast feeds on sugar to create alcohol, nutrient is only for making them stronger if their a bit weak due to being used for multiple cycles or temperature in my personal opinion. Yeast don’t know anything more than eat so as long as you have a strong OG and warm environment they should eat until they run out of food or die from lack of oxygen due to high abv %
 
These are a few pics
 

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Welcome to the mead community.
It looks like you've already started this, is that correct?
Is this a 1 gallon batch?
How much honey did you use?
What strain of yeast?
Personally, I don't even heat my honey past 108°F. After 110°F, you start to lose some of the floral notes in the honey, so good that you're not boiling it in the water. I think the only 2 cases where people boil honey are when making a bochet or they want to make sure to kill off any wild yeast strain that may battle for dominance after pitching whatever yeast you're using. I, myself, have never had an issue with that, though.

I love the idea of toasting the Cacao nibs. But, from other posts I have read, (I'm sorry, I do not remember where I read those posts, I want to say reddit), it takes the nibs a long time to age out & really give the flavor profile, but, you're not putting the nibs directly into your must, is that correct?
I can't help but wonder if you could extract the flavor out without any bitterness, by letting it sit in cold water, essentially like cold brew coffee, where the whole idea is not to brew with hot water as to avoid extracting the bitter & acidic properties & just harvesting the sweet properties of the beans.
This is an experiment I think I will try on my own though. I have a sous vide machine & I constantly do experiments with different ingredients to see if I can extract flavors. Maybe just a low heat (say 105°F) over the course of 2 days, might be low enough temperature to get the flavor without having the long aging time. (I know, 105°F isn't cold water, but it is a middle of the road comprise) Hmmm...this has the wheels turning🤔🤔💡💡
Please keep us posted on your results. It sounds delicious!
Happy meading 😎

These are some of the ones that come up @ the bottom of the page.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/strawberry-chocolate-mead-experiment.289839/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/chocolate-mead.377695/

Something else I’d point out, for the coffee idea, coffee is a very strong flavor in beer so a little bit will do I can’t remember how much we used back then but we made our cold brew the night before so maybe just a 2-3 cups who knows. But I distinctly remember the coffee being the most prominent flavor and that was on a 5 gallon batch as well. I’d personally experiment between using coffee grounds for a cold brew or even steep them in a brewers bag. Or add whole beans as in secondary fermentation I think they’ll have less of an effect that way, the other option still being instead of coffee grounds use beans and steep them in a bag. So there’s 4 options for you, nothing wrong with making mistakes. Fermented beer is simply the base for liquor so why not do the same with mead lol.
 
In fact yeast cannot repair cells and may have difficulty transporting sugars through cell walls without a number of critical chemicals such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, magnesium and calcium among many others and yeast need B vitamins... None of this is readily available in honey though much of this will be in wort. (See Chris White andJamil Zainasheff's Yeast (2010))
 
In fact yeast cannot repair cells and may have difficulty transporting sugars through cell walls without a number of critical chemicals such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, magnesium and calcium among many others and yeast need B vitamins... None of this is readily available in honey though much of this will be in wort. (See Chris White andJamil Zainasheff's Yeast (2010))
Yeast is cheap though, you just keep dumping more in until you can’t keep them alive any longer. I think that’s like a sugar crash or something
 
Yeast is cheap though, you just keep dumping more in until you can’t keep them alive any longer. I think that’s like a sugar crash or something
But I understand it’s easy enough just to give the resources their lacking in the beginning
 
Certainly, yeast is inexpensive but procuring the best fruit is not cheap and mistreating yeast will likley result in a poor wine. Yeast are very karmic. You stress them and they can really return the favor.
Moreover, yeast can survive for millennia without any food. Archaeologists have re-animated yeast cells that were found in sites in Egypt from around the time when the pyramids were being sealed. Sure you can kill yeast but stressing them with excessively high temperatures and alcohol poisoning is not perhaps the best way to make a wine
 
Something else I’d point out, for the coffee idea, coffee is a very strong flavor in beer so a little bit will do I can’t remember how much we used back then but we made our cold brew the night before so maybe just a 2-3 cups who knows. But I distinctly remember the coffee being the most prominent flavor and that was on a 5 gallon batch as well. I’d personally experiment between using coffee grounds for a cold brew or even steep them in a brewers bag. Or add whole beans as in secondary fermentation I think they’ll have less of an effect that way, the other option still being instead of coffee grounds use beans and steep them in a bag. So there’s 4 options for you, nothing wrong with making mistakes. Fermented beer is simply the base for liquor so why not do the same with mead lol.
Manmade Mead on YouTube did a similar experiment. I don't remember it clearly, but, what you mentioned rings a similar bell. Having the beans directly in the must, primary or secondary, left a bitterness that he said was undesirable. That was partly what led me to make my coffeemel with the cold brew.
Post #2089 on this link is my recipe that I used, for anyone interested.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/show-us-your-mead-in-a-photo.294571/page-53In the near future, I'll be doing a side by side making another 4- 1/2 gallon batches to see what other kinds of flavors I can pick up from different coffees.


For the friends & family that like their coffee on the sweeter side, they loved it. For the ones who take no sugar or very little, there was no love.:(
I think it came out delicious, although, I'm bias towards my meads, anyways.😁
 
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Manmade Mead on YouTube did a similar experiment. I don't remember it clearly, but, what you mentioned rings a similar bell. Having the beans directly in the must, primary or secondary, left a bitterness that he said was undesirable. That was partly what led me to make my coffeemel with the cold brew.
Post #2089 is my recipe that I used, for anyone interested.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/show-us-your-mead-in-a-photo.294571/page-53In the near future, I'll be doing a side by side making another 4- 1/2 gallon batches to see what other kinds of flavors I can pick up from different coffees.


For the friends & family that like their coffee on the sweeter side, they loved it. For the ones who take no sugar or very little, there was no love.:(
I think it came out delicious, although, I'm bias towards my meads, anyways.😁
Well you should be, their yours after all. I’ve watched some of the manmademead videos he covers some decent stuff but I have to be honest I’m not a fan of him he seems to not understand what he’s doing most of the time haha.

I was wondering at work has anyone made wine using caramel instead of honey... so like using caramel for 50% of the base fermentable sugar???
 
Manmade Mead on YouTube did a similar experiment. I don't remember it clearly, but, what you mentioned rings a similar bell. Having the beans directly in the must, primary or secondary, left a bitterness that he said was undesirable. That was partly what led me to make my coffeemel with the cold brew.
Post #2089 is my recipe that I used, for anyone interested.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/show-us-your-mead-in-a-photo.294571/page-53In the near future, I'll be doing a side by side making another 4- 1/2 gallon batches to see what other kinds of flavors I can pick up from different coffees.


For the friends & family that like their coffee on the sweeter side, they loved it. For the ones who take no sugar or very little, there was no love.:(
I think it came out delicious, although, I'm bias towards my meads, anyways.😁
Dan O that's referred to as "Candy Coffee" around my house as my wife is a self admitted coffee snob haha. Have yet to try a coffee mead but it will be cold brew when I do, wanting to try a coffee Bochet but really don't want to ruin my blend.
 
Well you should be, their yours after all. I’ve watched some of the manmademead videos he covers some decent stuff but I have to be honest I’m not a fan of him he seems to not understand what he’s doing most of the time haha.

I was wondering at work has anyone made wine using caramel instead of honey... so like using caramel for 50% of the base fermentable sugar???
Spiker I've had a similar reaction to most mead makers on youtube, I don't doubt they are capable of making a product they like but some mazer's look awkward or intentionally "fibbing" when they taste their mead right out of primary fermentation after only 2 weeks... If they honestly like that, to each their own, but I feel there's alot missed by most of them when trying to explain and educate others. That said there is a youtube channel on meads and wines that I find entertaining and informative to a point but that's another thread entirely.

Brewing with caramel, I've done a caramel apple cider and Cyser but the caramel was homemade and added in secondary to taste and backsweeten. If caramel in primary as the base 50% sugars, I might be a stickler here but if it's half, I say make the caramel from any sugar you want, just make sure the other half is honey or it's not a mead but some kind of wine. If you caramelized half the honey you are making a Bochet and that I've done plenty of times. If you are talking about caramel chews or candy I don't know that I've ever tried or heard of someone trying that out, just check ingredients and preservatives, I say try it out and see what happens.

As for a chocolate mead recipe, I have a recipe given to me years ago that I haven't tried, but I have samples plenty, delicious but my hang-up is it says the recipe takes 2 years for everything to go together haha I have patience but haven't been willing to lose a carboy to that amount of time yet, maybe soon though.
 
I've had a similar reaction to most mead makers on youtube, I don't doubt they are capable of making a product they like but some mazer's look awkward or intentionally "fibbing" when they taste their mead right out of primary fermentation after only 2 weeks... If they honestly like that, to each their own, but I feel there's alot missed by most of them when trying to explain and educate others. That said there is a youtube channel on meads and wines that I find entertaining and informative to a point but that's another thread entirely.
As for a chocolate mead recipe, I have a recipe given to me years ago that I haven't tried, but I have samples plenty, delicious but my hang-up is it says the recipe takes 2 years for everything to go together haha I have patience but haven't been willing to lose a carboy to that amount of time yet, maybe soon though.


I don't follow everything I see on YouTube, but, I have gotten many great ideas for meads of my own through it.
As far as Man Made Mead, he tends to like meads dry, where, for myself (& most of the people I share my meads with), tend to like it on the semisweet side, kind of middle of the road from dry to sweet. I agree, a LOT of YouTubers rack way too early, (IMO), & don't just let it sit nearly long enough.
Then, there are some mead makers out there, on YouTube, that horrify me by starting a syphon with their mouth :barf::...but, they'll preach all about their sanitation practices.😕
Seriously??? :confused::confused::confused:
If you walked in to a fellow mazers house when they were racking a gorgeous (insert you absolute FAVORITE mead here) mead & you saw them start the syphon with their mouth, & then they offered you a glass....would you drink it?? Food for thought. But, I can say with certainty, I'd pass & opt for the tap water...even if the water sucked.😅 But, that's just me.
Some, may say get over it, but, for me, if your going to preach good sanitation practices, & then totally contradict yourself like that, in the same video, total turn off from whatever you're making. I can only get as far as the racking portion of his videos & then shut it off.😄
As for the extra carboy, I have 5 that I just inherited from a very generous
former coworker, 2- 5 gal, 2- 6 gal, & 1- 6 1/2 gal. He went to SS for brewing his all grain beer so he just gave them to me...SCORE! I'm pretty sure, as soon as I can afford 19 1/2 pounds of honey, the biggest one is getting a JAOM.

(Sorry if I got off topic here)
 
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I don't follow everything I see on YouTube, but, I have gotten many great ideas for meads of my own through it.
As far as Man Made Mead, he tends to like meads dry, where, for myself (& most of the people I share my meads with), tend to like it on the semisweet side, kind of middle of the road from dry to sweet. I agree, a LOT of YouTubers rack way too early, (IMO), & don't just let it sit nearly long enough.
Then, there are some mead makers out there, on YouTube, that horrify me by starting a syphon with their mouth :barf::...but, they'll preach all about their sanitation practices.😕
Seriously??? :confused::confused::confused:
If you walked in to a fellow mazers house when they were racking a gorgeous (insert you absolute FAVORITE mead here) mead & you saw them start the syphon with their mouth, & then they offered you a glass....would you drink it?? Food for thought. But, I can say with certainty, I'd pass & opt for the tap water...even if the water sucked.😅 But, that's just me.
Some, may say get over it, but, for me, if your going to preach good sanitation practices, & then totally contradict yourself like that, in the same video, total turn off from whatever you're making. I can only get as far as the racking portion of his videos & then shut it off.😄
As for the extra carboy, I have 5 that I just inherited from a former coworker, 2- 5 gal, 2- 6 gal, & 1- 6 1/2 gal. He went to SS for brewing his all grain beer so he just gave them to me...SCORE! I'm pretty sure, as soon as I can afford 19 1/2 pounds of honey, the biggest one is getting a JAOM.

(Sorry if I got off topic here)
Lucky, son of a gun, haha congratulations on your good fortune and I think based on your 1 gallon fermenters and recent acquisition you are tied or surpassed my carboy volume haha. Not grabbing a tape measure but honestly how many gallons of brew volume do you now have? Not counting an order that isn't here yet but I'm sitting at 43 gallons of carboy space, not counting brew buckets haha.
 
Spiker I've had a similar reaction to most mead makers on youtube, I don't doubt they are capable of making a product they like but some mazer's look awkward or intentionally "fibbing" when they taste their mead right out of primary fermentation after only 2 weeks... If they honestly like that, to each their own, but I feel there's alot missed by most of them when trying to explain and educate others. That said there is a youtube channel on meads and wines that I find entertaining and informative to a point but that's another thread entirely.

Brewing with caramel, I've done a caramel apple cider and Cyser but the caramel was homemade and added in secondary to taste and backsweeten. If caramel in primary as the base 50% sugars, I might be a stickler here but if it's half, I say make the caramel from any sugar you want, just make sure the other half is honey or it's not a mead but some kind of wine. If you caramelized half the honey you are making a Bochet and that I've done plenty of times. If you are talking about caramel chews or candy I don't know that I've ever tried or heard of someone trying that out, just check ingredients and preservatives, I say try it out and see what happens.

As for a chocolate mead recipe, I have a recipe given to me years ago that I haven't tried, but I have samples plenty, delicious but my hang-up is it says the recipe takes 2 years for everything to go together haha I have patience but haven't been willing to lose a carboy to that amount of time yet, maybe soon though.
Yeah I read about the caramel apple cider, the thing is I think caramel is made from dry milk or I believe I read something along those lines, but yeah imagine the caramel from a peanut chew or Twix how it’s elastic vs a candy apple how it’s a hard shell, I think that’s the major difference, now I just woke up what about using molasses 🤣
 
I don't follow everything I see on YouTube, but, I have gotten many great ideas for meads of my own through it.
As far as Man Made Mead, he tends to like meads dry, where, for myself (& most of the people I share my meads with), tend to like it on the semisweet side, kind of middle of the road from dry to sweet. I agree, a LOT of YouTubers rack way too early, (IMO), & don't just let it sit nearly long enough.
Then, there are some mead makers out there, on YouTube, that horrify me by starting a syphon with their mouth :barf::...but, they'll preach all about their sanitation practices.😕
Seriously??? :confused::confused::confused:
If you walked in to a fellow mazers house when they were racking a gorgeous (insert you absolute FAVORITE mead here) mead & you saw them start the syphon with their mouth, & then they offered you a glass....would you drink it?? Food for thought. But, I can say with certainty, I'd pass & opt for the tap water...even if the water sucked.😅 But, that's just me.
Some, may say get over it, but, for me, if your going to preach good sanitation practices, & then totally contradict yourself like that, in the same video, total turn off from whatever you're making. I can only get as far as the racking portion of his videos & then shut it off.😄
As for the extra carboy, I have 5 that I just inherited from a former coworker, 2- 5 gal, 2- 6 gal, & 1- 6 1/2 gal. He went to SS for brewing his all grain beer so he just gave them to me...SCORE! I'm pretty sure, as soon as I can afford 19 1/2 pounds of honey, the biggest one is getting a JAOM.

(Sorry if I got off topic here)
Haha
 
Largest I have is a 12 gallon container which I might use this year if I manage to get one of these recipes just right.
 
.
Then, there are some mead makers out there, on YouTube, that horrify me by starting a syphon with their mouth :barf::...but, they'll preach all about their sanitation practices.😕
Seriously??? :confused::confused::confused:
If you walked in to a fellow mazers house when they were racking a gorgeous (insert you absolute FAVORITE mead here) mead & you saw them start the syphon with their mouth, & then they offered you a glass....would you drink it?? F

Personally, I siphon with a self priming siphon but I am not sure I see the problem with sucking to start the vacuum. You will have soaked the tube in sanitizer and your lips are around the tip on the outside. Hard to see where any real problem is likely to occur especially if you coat your lips with vodka and if your wine is at about 12% ABV. If you have some kind of infectious disease - OK but otherwise I would not be overly concerned (although, clearly one can be disgusted at the idea). My issue with a number of Youtube self professed "mavens" is that during this time of the pandemic they share space with one another without masks while defying good practice of keeping 6 feet apart. THAT disgusts me far more than anyone creating a vacuum with their mouth.
 
Personally, I siphon with a self priming siphon but I am not sure I see the problem with sucking to start the vacuum. You will have soaked the tube in sanitizer and your lips are around the tip on the outside. Hard to see where any real problem is likely to occur especially if you coat your lips with vodka and if your wine is at about 12% ABV. If you have some kind of infectious disease - OK but otherwise I would not be overly concerned (although, clearly one can be disgusted at the idea). My issue with a number of Youtube self professed "mavens" is that during this time of the pandemic they share space with one another without masks while defying good practice of keeping 6 feet apart. THAT disgusts me far more than anyone creating a vacuum with their mouth.
I’ve never witnessed the whole self priming vacuum before, but yeah I could see it was a disgusting image if you went to a public location or maybe even a friends house, depends how close with people you are.

As for the other point I could see that being concerning. Just do what you thinks safe and let others make their decisions. That’s how I look at it.
 
It's not about what I do to keep myself safe but what we allL do that endangers others and so what everyone does is at the heart and center of PUBLIC HEALTH, not what I do to keep myself safe. Sorry but Covid 19 has little or nothing to do with personal health.
 
Anyway... if anyone is wondering I discussed the chocolate thing with some local vintners and they said to finish over cacao for like two weeks, so now you don’t have to wait a year
 
A very good wine can become great after a year or two but if one needs to wait for a year or more to be able to enjoy a wine then that wine might not be a good wine to begin with. In the dim and distant past meads often took years to be drinkable but that was largely because wine makers really had poor understanding of yeast's needs and honey's lack of ability to provide for those needs. Today we do know a great deal more and a typical mead can be enjoyed a month or two after bottling. Very high ABV meads are different. They can take years for everything to settle down, but hydromels (quick meads) or meads made at 12 -13% ABV should be drinkable very soon after bottling. If made well they will continue to improve over time... but they begin as delightful wines from day one.
 
Anyway... if anyone is wondering I discussed the chocolate thing with some local vintners and they said to finish over cacao for like two weeks, so now you don’t have to wait a year

I would question that.

cacao imparts flavor via the oils in it, and those fatty acids take a long to properly break down in mead, regardless of how they got there.

that being said, I have a 6 month chocolate mead that sat on cacao powder and nibs in secondary, and I would consider it relatively 'drinkable' now - at least, compared to just a month or two, when i still had my doubts. We'll see how things improve once the 1 year mark rolls around
 
I would question that.

cacao imparts flavor via the oils in it, and those fatty acids take a long to properly break down in mead, regardless of how they got there.

that being said, I have a 6 month chocolate mead that sat on cacao powder and nibs in secondary, and I would consider it relatively 'drinkable' now - at least, compared to just a month or two, when i still had my doubts. We'll see how things improve once the 1 year mark rolls around
Did you ever try anything to separate the oils from the end product
 
Their done with fermentation now reading 0.999 they’ll probably drop slightly more as the week carry’s on but, onto clarifying next week.

I Adjusted the flavor profile on the barrel aged Raspberry taste great now. Needed citric acid, and flavor added back to it.
 
No Because that is what imparts the chocolate flavor.
Not necessarily but I can imagine their being oils in the Cacao. That’s why I was telling the others how the blue berry was foaming while the chocolate was not.
 
Im highly positive chocolate is a type of sugar, the fact that there’s fats or acids in it is more I’m part due to the make of where you get it ergo a nut would be protein/fats and in the jungle/acid, but that’s just me. During the process of extracting the flavor I was well over 1.500 gravity and the cacao nibs were the only thing I had used at the time. It wasn’t until I later added the strawberry that the gravity had reduced.
 
Raw cacao is very very low sugar. It is fiber,protein and fat, which is why nibs are ok for diabetics.

If you use chocolate,then you'll get sugar.

Most if not all commercial chocolate wine uses chocolate syrups
 
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