JOAM with the wrong yeast

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LeverTime

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A friend of mine moved back to Hong Kong permanently, and gave me a bunch of his stuff. This included 6 lbs of Trader Joe's mesquite honey. I want to try making some JOAM with it, but I don't have any bread yeast. I do have Safale 05, Lalvin EC 1118 and Montrachet. Will any of these get the job done?
 
Yea. Any of those will work fine. That's what Malkore did in his re-write of the recipe (search for MAOM).
 
I'd probably be most inclined to go with the Montrachet of those three, 1118 will probably take it dryer than JAOM is intended to be and I'd just stick with a wine yeast over an ale yeast.

Since you are moving away from the original recipe anyway you could go with 3 pounds instead of 3.5 pounds and make two batches, try the safale and the montrachet and compare the results.
 
I'd probably be most inclined to go with the Montrachet of those three, 1118 will probably take it dryer than JAOM is intended to be and I'd just stick with a wine yeast over an ale yeast.

Since you are moving away from the original recipe anyway you could go with 3 pounds instead of 3.5 pounds and make two batches, try the safale and the montrachet and compare the results.

Excellent idea! I think I'll do just that.
 
The Safale 05 will go up to 12%. The Montrachet will go up to 13%. The 1118 will go up to 18%. IMO the Safale or the Montrachet will be the better bet. The point of using bread yeast in the recipe (other than you can get it in the grocery store) is that it has a relatively low tolerance (I believe in the 12-13% range too) resulting in a semi-sweet mead. If you like it bone dry, go with the 1118. If you want to get close to the result of the JAOM, go with the Safale or Montrachet.
 
The above comments sound right on. Your mead will turn out better by not using the bread yeast. I would go with the 1118 but I prefer dry wines.

-ask ten brewers a question....get fifteen different answers.
 
The above comments sound right on. Your mead will turn out better by not using the bread yeast. I would go with the 1118 but I prefer dry wines.

-ask ten brewers a question....get fifteen different answers.
If you make a JAO with wine or ale yeast, its probable that it will go dry, and having made a few like this, I can confirm that it won't matter, as without exception, all the batches I've made that way, have turned out bloody horrible. It's not a good "dry" recipe.

Without the residual sweetness, the pith bitterness is concentrated and comes to the forefront, along with the spices.

I suspect you'd have to back sweeten and age for at least a twelve month....
 
I honestly think the montrachet would be perfect. JAOM is designed to skip stabilizing and backsweetening by starting right off with way too much sugar for the yeast to eat it all (this is a legitimate tactic, I'm just sayin.) It may well be alright if you hit it with the safale, I can't say I've tried. But if you use the 1118 you're gonna be in for a ride (and probably half a decade of aging, haha.)

Completely unrelated but useful... if you're making JAOM, only use one clove unless you don't genuinely love yourself.
 
So I made it last night. I used Montrachet, dividing the packet between two one-gallon fermenters (old glass jugs). I put two cloves in one batch, and one clove in the other. They are happily bubbling away right now.

Thanks for all of the comments.
 
A friend of mine moved back to Hong Kong permanently, and gave me a bunch of his stuff. This included 6 lbs of Trader Joe's mesquite honey. I want to try making some JOAM with it, but I don't have any bread yeast. I do have Safale 05, Lalvin EC 1118 and Montrachet. Will any of these get the job done?

safeale 05 will work and actually survive to 12abv
lalvin 1118 will work fine
I'm not real familiar with Montrachet

Bread yeast in JOAM is traditional, not required.
Bread yeast favors brews with less than stellar sanitation as its designed to put off a lot of cO2 fast (for bread) and that fast blanket can fix mistakes.
 
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