Joe's Ancient Orange Mead

[amber-ale]

Mead doesn’t foam up like beer does
And top up with juice instead of water. Why dilute your mead?
Do a modified JOAM and let it age at least 3 months after bottling. If it tastes like rocket fuel, let it age another month and taste again. Repeat until tasty or gone.
Modified JOAM : use ale yeast instead of bread yeast, and use the zest and juice and pulp of the orange, but not the white pith. Shortens aging.

 

[T Murph]

I have never had a mead foam up like mentioned earlier. But I also don't boil meads at all for any reason although I understand some people do boil it for a few minutes and that apparently is when it foams up. It is absolutely not necessary to boil mead. You only need to warm the water enough to dissolve the honey well and maybe to pasteurize it. I don't pasteurize mine either. Note I have never had one go bad from oxidation either. Neither do I bottle it. I keg everything, I protect it from excessive oxygen, however once it gets below a gallon I don't fret about it and will carefully transfer it to a smaller bottle until it is gone. Meads have a life of their own, they can take on a taste that is not pleasing but put it away and leave it alone a few months and it will change again. At the moment I have Blackberry and Raspberry Melomels that I made January 20, 2020. I have less than a half gallon of each left. They started out undrinkable, way too tart and alcoholic. As they age the get better, then worse then good again. Both are delicious at the moment but I don't expect them to be around much longer.

 

[CDS]

So I'm a complete mead newbie and decided to make a batch of JAOM on a whim over the Christmas holidays. Well, almost JAOM - I happened to have some blackberries on hand, and no raisins, so I threw in about 6 blackberries. Anyway, in my excitement, I forgot to take an OG reading, but after just over 2 months, when everything had settled down I bottled it, and took a gravity reading anyway. It ended up at .994. Is that a normal FG? Can I get an estimate of ABV with just that reading? Thanks.

 

[T Murph]

It looks good. You would need to know the original gravity to calculate the abv. However you can come up with a good estimate going by the quantity on honey to water and type of yeast used.

 

[CDS]

It looks good. You would need to know the original gravity to calculate the abv. However you can come up with a good estimate going by the quantity on honey to water and type of yeast used.

Thanks. Yeah, that's what I was thinking - I followed the recipe quantities pretty closely, right down to using the Fleischmann's bread yeast, so I figure it should have a similar OG to anyone else's who did the same. The recipe didn't mention an expected OG though.

 

[bernardsmith]

If you know the ingredients and you know the starting volume, then it is easy to estimate your starting gravity. Here's the rule of thumb: one pound of honey dissolved in water to make 1 US gallon of must will increase the gravity of the water by 35 points - and so give you reading of 1.035. Two pounds to make that same volume will double that to 1.070 etc etc. A handful of fruit will add no significant amount of sugar or liquid.

Never tried to make JOAM so I honestly have no good idea of what the other ingredients are, except for an orange which is there perhaps to increase the bitterness (the pith) and the acidity if the JOAM finishes sweet. Yours is brut dry at .994.

You may want to taste it and see if you want to back sweeten, but to do that you may need to stabilize the mead to prevent the yeast from refermenting any sugars you add. I have the feeling that the original JOAM recipe assumed that it would finish with unfermented sugars.

 

[SeanC138]

That's very dry for a JOAM. I've never had one go dry before and it usually remains rather sweet. I'd rack it and taste and and determine what you want to do next (either leave it if you like the taste or stabilize and backsweeten to your liking.

 

[CDS]

If you know the ingredients and you know the starting volume, then it is easy to estimate your starting gravity. Here's the rule of thumb: one pound of honey dissolved in water to make 1 US gallon of must will increase the gravity of the water by 35 points - and so give you reading of 1.035. Two pounds to make that same volume will double that to 1.070 etc etc. A handful of fruit will add no significant amount of sugar or liquid.

Never tried to make JOAM so I honestly have no good idea of what the other ingredients are, except for an orange which is there perhaps to increase the bitterness (the pith) and the acidity if the JOAM finishes sweet. Yours is brut dry at .994.

You may want to taste it and see if you want to back sweeten, but to do that you may need to stabilize the mead to prevent the yeast from refermenting any sugars you add. I have the feeling that the original JOAM recipe assumed that it would finish with unfermented sugars.

Thanks! Really helpful - I appreciate it. Based on those estimates my OG was somewhere around 1.105, leaving me with an ABV of 14.5%. It actually tastes pretty good - much better than I expected. I bottled it and will let it sit for 3 months or so and see how it is then.

 

[shilohhills]

I made a batch of JAOM a few years ago, and it turned out great! I have been on a sabbatical from brewing for a few years due to life. I decided to get back into it, and of course JAOM was my first thought. I decided to do a 3 gallon batch, and followed the recipe. Even looked at my notes from the 1 gallon batch previously. After mixing (aerating) well, this was my OG. Does this seem normal?

 

[bwible]

I made a batch of JAOM a few years ago, and it turned out great! I have been on a sabbatical from brewing for a few years due to life. I decided to get back into it, and of course JAOM was my first thought. I decided to do a 3 gallon batch, and followed the recipe. Even looked at my notes from the 1 gallon batch previously. After mixing (aerating) well, this was my OG. Does this seem normal?

That looks high. 1.170? If that fermented to zero it would be over 22%. But most yeast can’t go there. It would take almost 5 pounds per gallon to get to that. Most people use 3 pounds in a gallon. Did you use like 14 pounds for your 3 gallons? Or is it possible maybe its not stirred up well?

 

[bernardsmith]

I think the original recipe may have called for 3.5 lbs of honey dissolved in water to make 1 US gallon, that would have had a starting gravity of about 1. 112, with the expectation that the bread yeast would have quit before all the sugars would have been fermented, so leaving the mead sweet rather than brut dry. But the ABV would have been around 12-14%

 

[Miraculix]

4 or 5 years later... still having some bottles from my first batch and it is still getting better. Have to admit, it is my best mead up until today.


.... and it is done with the cheapest bread yeast . Ja! Yeast, to be precise, if any German wonders.

 

[fluketamer]

jbaom ( joes better ancient orange mead)

3.5 lbs of good honey (not buckwheat)
orange zest and juice of 1 orange. ( make sure no white pith)
1/4 of a cinnamon stick.
1 little piece of a clove.
stepped yeast nutrient
ec 1118
water to 1 gallon

fermemtn dry and back sweeten with honey / and sugar syrup. to taste.

this is good