Joe's Ancient Orange Mead

[mpjay2000]

How do I scale this recipe to 5 gallons?

I tried searching this thread and couldn't find a 5 gallon recipe. Forgive me if I missed it.

I bottled a gallon of this recently and it tasted great going into the bottle. I have an old 5 gallon carboy that is going unused right now that I would like to use for more of this.

Thanks in advance for help and suggestions!

Mpjay

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Scale up proportionally for everything but cloves and yeast. Yeast stays the same, and cloves add one or two at most.

 

[mpjay2000]

Thanks! I thought I may have to cut back on the cinnamon sticks also.

Mpjay

 

[CreamyGoodness]

I agree but MUCH less important than the cloves... lol... you might even like the added cinnamon, but few people like a clove explosion.

 

[bottlebomber]

+1 to not more cloves... I didn't add any for mine. I'll leave the cloves for pumpkin pie or something.

 

[nhush]

Sorry to change the subject but I think I should know how many liters you all are talking about when you say 1 gallon.

Where I am in South Korea we don't use gallons - so how many liters are we talking about for a 1 gallon batch - 4 or 5.

I don't want to end up messing the batch with not enough or too much of something.

Thanks for being patient with me.

 

[tom_gamer]

Sorry to change the subject but I think I should know how many liters you all are talking about when you say 1 gallon.

Where I am in South Korea we don't use gallons - so how many liters are we talking about for a 1 gallon batch - 4 or 5.

I don't want to end up messing the batch with not enough or too much of something.

Thanks for being patient with me.

An American gallon, which is what we are using, is just under 4 liters.

 

[Goofynewfie]

3.79 litres I think is what it equals. If you were to do 4 litres it would be not much different. You wouldnt even need to add extra of anything, your mead would just be a minuscule amount drier

 

[CreamyGoodness]

I apologize if I already said this, but JAOM is more an art than a science. Honey, water, and breadyeast together seem to really really want to make mead. Can you screw it up? Sure, but its not easy.

As far as fermenters go, I personally use a gallon (4 liter) glass jug that used to have cheap wine in it. I made sangria from the wine, consumed, and then made mead in the jug. If you go by my logic, I got the fermenter for free

 

[BWN]

I just threw this together I used three pounds of honey though. How much difference will that make.

 

[billslaw1024]

I just threw this together I used three pounds of honey though. How much difference will that make.

Seems like it will just be a little bit drier.

 

[rideincircles]

Based on what I have read on gotmead.com in their JAOM thread, it is recommended that the 3.5 lbs be used. I was short when I made my first batch and just added extra honey later. I would add the extra half pound of honey based on what I was told to do. Adding it late won't hurt anything.

This is recommended info when making JAOM by chevette girl who has made lots of JAOM on gotmead.com.

Originally Posted by Chevette Girl View Post
Well, yeah, it does sort of break all the rules... don't check SG, don't aerate more than once, don't degas, don't stir, don't do staggered nutrient addition, don't remove the fruit or rack off the lees after the change in SG starts slowing down, don't stabilize... but so long as the recipe was followed precisely, we usually know exactly what to expect with it, so it's OK to break the rules because we get repeatable results. So yeah, it is pretty special

We know the mead will have a high enough sugar and alcohol content that "cleaned" equipment is fine, "sanitized" is not a necessity.

We know one good vigorous aeration at the beginning gets enough oxygen into the must that the yeast can get their expected 10-12% alcohol made.

We know the raisins provide enough nutrients that the yeast can get their expected 10-12%...

We know that the bitterness from the orange pith will be balanced by an approximately known amount of residual sweetness, and though it will mellow over time, is drinkable on a much shorter time scale because of the residual sweetness.

We know that the amount of acidity from the single orange isn't too much for the yeast to get to their 10-12% alcohol.

We know we can top up with water a few days after the initial violent fermentation dies down because fleishchmann's yeast when used in this manner doesn't tend to kick back up violently.

We know when the fermentation's stopped because the airlock is quiet and the bread yeast settles to the bottom. Other yeasts can fool you but bread yeast is usually pretty honest about when it's actually done (I've only had one or two of at least 40 JAO batches carbonate once bottled.

We know the must is mostly degassed when the fruit pieces sink.

These are all things we can use as general guidelines when applied to other recipes, but most of the time when using other recipes, there are enough variables we're not controlling (or that haven't been so extensively tested/observed) that we need other tools like hydrometer, pH meter, etc. to tell us exactly what's going on, instead of guessing by look, smell, taste, airlock activity and clarity.

 

[baseness]

I just made put the airlock on a not-so-ancient variant of this recipe.

6 gallon batch. Did not take a gravity measurement, because the honey and water didn't mix completely.

20 lbs of clover honey
5 Large oranges, cut in eights
5 Small handfuls of raisins
5 Cinnamon sticks
2 Whole cloves
2 Vanilla beans
Two packets of D47 yeast, since I had some.


I wanted to avoid boiling such a huge amount of honey. I tried shaking it with every gallon of water I added, but the honey and water are still mostly separate. Obviously, some is dissolved in the top water layer, and I assume the yeast will eventually scrounge it all up. I hope, anyway. That carboy is heavy and I don't want to shake it anymore. I think I should get a dry product, and then i'll back sweeten it.

 

[salli4102]

I wanted to avoid boiling such a huge amount of honey. I tried shaking it with every gallon of water I added, but the honey and water are still mostly separate. Obviously, some is dissolved in the top water layer, and I assume the yeast will eventually scrounge it all up. I hope, anyway. That carboy is heavy and I don't want to shake it anymore. I think I should get a dry product, and then i'll back sweeten it.

I don't think you have to boil the water and honey, I never do. But I do warm all the honey and a couple gallons of water to make it easier to handle once I get it in the carboy. Thinning the honey a bit makes it easier to incorperate all the ingredients evenly. Plus I buy my honey in half gallon jugs, so I use the water to get the last of the honey out of each one. There is about a pound of residual that clings to the sides. Incidentally, this is also true for extracts in beer brewing. Just a suggestion.

 

[salli4102]

How do I scale this recipe to 5 gallons?

I tried searching this thread and couldn't find a 5 gallon recipe. Forgive me if I missed it.

I bottled a gallon of this recently and it tasted great going into the bottle. I have an old 5 gallon carboy that is going unused right now that I would like to use for more of this.

Thanks in advance for help and suggestions!

Mpjay

I always make the JAOM in 5 gallon batches as 1 gallon just doesn't last. Yes, basically scale the recipie up.
Here's what I do:

5# honey= 6 cups, 3# is 4 cups and 16 cups is 128 oz/1 gallon
I use 15# honey or 144 oz plus 4 gallons of spring water.
I have found that zesting the oranges and juicing them tastes better than just cutting them up and putting them in, but I have done it both ways and it still tastes good. If you want it a little less sweet, scale down the honey about a pound.

 

[nhush]

Just made a JOAM 10 liter batch 6 hours ago;

6.5 lbs honey
5 tangerines (peeled)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 clove
.5 tsp nutmeg.
big handful of raisins
1 tsp instant dry yeast

nothing is happening - no airlock activity.

My last batch was bubbling like crazy after 6 hours but I did not use any spices that batch.

What is wrong? Any ideas?

I did take out some tangerines thinking they were blocking the CO2 from escaping, but no improvement.

The only things I can think of are:

1. not enough shaking (oxygenation)

or

2. not enough rinsing (iodine solution still lingering on equipment.)


Could either of these be responsible or is there something else?

Should I wait, or throw in some more yeast, or give it another good shake?

Any advice?

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Just made a JOAM 10 liter batch 6 hours ago;

6.5 lbs honey
5 tangerines (peeled)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 clove
.5 tsp nutmeg.
big handful of raisins
1 tsp instant dry yeast

nothing is happening - no airlock activity.

My last batch was bubbling like crazy after 6 hours but I did not use any spices that batch.

What is wrong? Any ideas?

I did take out some tangerines thinking they were blocking the CO2 from escaping, but no improvement.

The only things I can think of are:

1. not enough shaking (oxygenation)

or

2. not enough rinsing (iodine solution still lingering on equipment.)


Could either of these be responsible or is there something else?

Should I wait, or throw in some more yeast, or give it another good shake?

Any advice?

My advice for now is to just let it ride. Sometimes it will start bubbling quicker than others for any number of reasons. I would just relax for now.

 

[baseness]

This is my JAOM variant, which has been frothing and bubbling since last night. I'm happy that the honey/water border is already becoming less sharply defined.

I don't think you have to boil the water and honey, I never do. But I do warm all the honey and a couple gallons of water to make it easier to handle once I get it in the carboy. Thinning the honey a bit makes it easier to incorperate all the ingredients evenly. Plus I buy my honey in half gallon jugs, so I use the water to get the last of the honey out of each one. There is about a pound of residual that clings to the sides. Incidentally, this is also true for extracts in beer brewing. Just a suggestion.

I did use hot water to extract the last little bit of honey out of each bottle. That stuff is expensive, and I didn't want to waste any. But, I guess that I didn't mix it as vigorously as I was supposed to. From now on, I think i'll try to make mead in smaller batches, so it will be easier to mix.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Ive made JAOM where I have forgotten to mix at all. Guess what still happened? I made mead . I'm tellin ya, this stuff is forgiving.

 

[Zaffo]

Indeed. I made a 5 gal batch and put in 5 cloves and 5 cinnamon sticks. A bit clovey (is that a word?), but still tasty. No complaints from all who tried it.

(I won't do it again, though... so if you read this before you make it, take that advice from the pros that have posted here...1-2 max cloves for 5 gal)

 

[FTG-05]

I got my gallon and a half (18 lbs) of honey today from a local beekeeper and I'll pick up the rest of the stuff tonight. My wife makes all our bread, so she has plenty of fresh yeast. Now, NB just has to deliver my third fermenter tomorrow and I'm all set for my first five gallon batch!

 

[SpaDe]

Just put together a 6 gal batch of this today, and can't wait to try it for the first time.
Stuck with the main recipe for the most part with the exception of I added 20lbs of honey, used 3 cloves, 3 cinnamon sticks and I had a sweet mead yeast so I used that instead of bread yeast.

*Edit*
My sweet mead yeast was DOA, so I did end up using the bread yeast as in the original recipe.

 

[baseness]

Just put together a 6 gal batch of this today, and can't wait to try it for the first time.
Stuck with the main recipe for the most part with the exception of I added 20lbs of honey, used 3 cloves, 3 cinnamon sticks and I had a sweet mead yeast so I used that instead of bread yeast.

Cool.

I got impatient and decided to mix mine up for the heck of it, since it had only been closed a day I don't think re-aerating would hurt.

 

[SpaDe]

Once mine gets going I am going to just put it away and forget about it for a while. I don't generally mess with my wines until it's time to rack them off, so I will just do the same with this.

 

[luda007]

Started this on August 29th.

1.154 OG
17 lbs honey
-10 wild flower
-7 clover
5 oranges (sliced in 1/8)
1lb raisins
4 cinnamon sticks
3 cloves
1/2 t energizer
5 t nutrient
5 t yeast

 

[dohertyc9]

Something that would make this recipe even easier is using the wild yeast already available in honey. I have a running yeast starter going for a while now, per Sandor Katz's "The Art of Fermentation" and I've made some good short runs of freshly alcoholic juices and such, as well as ginger beer and root beer type drinks. The starter itself smells good, fizzes up EXPLOSIVELY, seems to 'flocculate' well at the bottom of the container, and the end products taste good - but I haven't tested anything like attenuation or alcohol tolerance. Only been doing this a few months so I haven't aged anything out. But it's nice because it's free, seems to work, and if it ever dies I'm pretty sure I could duplicate it using the same honey.

Has anyone tried this? Any thoughts? I know real homebrewers and most books are very skeptical about wild yeast fermentation but I haven't read many accounts of people actually giving it a shot.

What happens is that raw honey already contains yeast, but they're inhibited by the low water content of honey, like 19% I think? Increase that water content by any amount and they will initiate fermentation.

I imagine you could mix this up without the yeast and within 1-3 days you'd have a vigorous bubbly batch going. If you're really afraid of wild yeast you could mix up a honey and water starter (any proportion, but probably 1 part honey to 3 or 4 parts water) and let that sit for a couple days, and when it's fizzy smell it and see what you think.

Anyhow, I have two batches going, one with my wild yeast and one with bread yeast. They both bubbled vigorously, and now everything except the oranges have settled to the bottom. The bread yeast seems to stir up much easier, but whatever. I don't even really care that much about cloudiness at this point. They both smell the same, very good. I'm curious if there will be a taste difference at the end.

By the way you have to use raw honey, but I'm not sure normal storebought honey is pasteurized or not. The little jars at Target here don't say, and honey preserves itself so well, so I'm curious if all honey is raw or not.

Chris

 

[CKL958]

After seeing the post of the person that pitched late August, I'm wondering why I haven't hit that point yet.

I made a 1 gal of JAOM. Pitched the first weekend in August. Fruit fell after about 9 weeks, however, my JAOM hasn't cleared yet.

I know the directions say not to touch, and various posts I've seen say just leave it - would it be worth trying to use some gelatin or equivalent to get things cleared up?

 

[billslaw1024]

Something that would make this recipe even easier is using the wild yeast already available in honey. I have a running yeast starter going for a while now, per Sandor Katz's "The Art of Fermentation" and I've made some good short runs of freshly alcoholic juices and such, as well as ginger beer and root beer type drinks. The starter itself smells good, fizzes up EXPLOSIVELY, seems to 'flocculate' well at the bottom of the container, and the end products taste good - but I haven't tested anything like attenuation or alcohol tolerance. Only been doing this a few months so I haven't aged anything out. But it's nice because it's free, seems to work, and if it ever dies I'm pretty sure I could duplicate it using the same honey.

Has anyone tried this? Any thoughts? I know real homebrewers and most books are very skeptical about wild yeast fermentation but I haven't read many accounts of people actually giving it a shot.

What happens is that raw honey already contains yeast, but they're inhibited by the low water content of honey, like 19% I think? Increase that water content by any amount and they will initiate fermentation.

I imagine you could mix this up without the yeast and within 1-3 days you'd have a vigorous bubbly batch going. If you're really afraid of wild yeast you could mix up a honey and water starter (any proportion, but probably 1 part honey to 3 or 4 parts water) and let that sit for a couple days, and when it's fizzy smell it and see what you think.

Anyhow, I have two batches going, one with my wild yeast and one with bread yeast. They both bubbled vigorously, and now everything except the oranges have settled to the bottom. The bread yeast seems to stir up much easier, but whatever. I don't even really care that much about cloudiness at this point. They both smell the same, very good. I'm curious if there will be a taste difference at the end.

By the way you have to use raw honey, but I'm not sure normal storebought honey is pasteurized or not. The little jars at Target here don't say, and honey preserves itself so well, so I'm curious if all honey is raw or not.

Chris

Let us know how the batches come out. I've read Wild Fermentation and have wanted to try a wild fermented mead since reading it. But I can't get past the thought of wasting precious honey if it comes out bad. Especially when dry yeast is so cheap. Hope the wild ferment comes out good for you.

 

[huesmann]

Anyone know what the operating temperature is supposed to be for Fleishmann's yeast?

 

[CsaintG]

I did a champagne yeast mead. It finished at 17% abv but was like turpentine for the first two years. It has been around four years now and is reasonably good. I expect in another 5 years, it will be great.

It's been nearly 4 years now, how's it tasting?