Joe's Ancient Orange Mead

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Greetings everyone,

After recently discovering my love for mead and its relatively low maintenance capabilities, I decided to dive into the world of mead making! Here I followed the JAOM recipe as close as possible, but wanted to try it with some darker full flavored honeys.

I found a 2lb. jar of some raw Ukrainian buckwheat at my local grocery store (it was on sale and had a nice amber color to it). I also picked up some Wildflower honey to round out the taste (as I've heard that the buckwheat is a little too overpowering). I'm hoping to get a nice festive tasting wine from this when all is said and done.

1 Gallon spring water
2.2 lbs Raw buckwheat honey
1 lb "Natural" Wildflower honey
0.3 lb Acacia honey (just for the sake of amounting to 3.5 lbs per the recipe)
1 Orange with the tops chopped off (to reduce some of the pith)
1 cinnamon stick
A pinch of Chaucer's mulling spice (to add a little clove flavor)
25 Raisins
Fleischman's Active Dry

I mixed everything together in the carboy and gave it a lot of head room (in case of eruption). Topped it off with water the next day and it is fermenting beautifully! I'm thinking of using some "reclaimed" Grolsch bottles after the 2 months are up. Are those bottles pretty good at preserving mead?

IMG_20160817_213508.jpg


IMG_20160816_234400.jpg


IMG_20160816_225141.jpg
 
KrystoferGrim said:
Greetings everyone,



After recently discovering my love for mead and its relatively low maintenance capabilities, I decided to dive into the world of mead making! Here I followed the JAOM recipe as close as possible, but wanted to try it with some darker full flavored honeys.



I found a 2lb. jar of some raw Ukrainian buckwheat at my local grocery store (it was on sale and had a nice amber color to it). I also picked up some Wildflower honey to round out the taste (as I've heard that the buckwheat is a little too overpowering). I'm hoping to get a nice festive tasting wine from this when all is said and done.



1 Gallon spring water

2.2 lbs Raw buckwheat honey

1 lb "Natural" Wildflower honey

0.3 lb Acacia honey (just for the sake of amounting to 3.5 lbs per the recipe)

1 Orange with the tops chopped off (to reduce some of the pith)

1 cinnamon stick

A pinch of Chaucer's mulling spice (to add a little clove flavor)

25 Raisins

Fleischman's Active Dry



I mixed everything together in the carboy and gave it a lot of head room (in case of eruption). Topped it off with water the next day and it is fermenting beautifully! I'm thinking of using some "reclaimed" Grolsch bottles after the 2 months are up. Are those bottles pretty good at preserving mead?
Click to expand...


Grolsch bottles aren't great with oxidation IMO
 
Well I started my mead today after following the directions. Well I thought I did and grabbed the wrong yeast. I grabbed the red star quick rise bread yeast. Is this something that should be pitched and start over or let it ride out.
 
Meh, let it ride. See what happens. Maybe do another batch for comparison and for 'just in case'
I'm sitting at 4 months of the fruit still hangin out around the top of the jug on my latest batch. Patience and trust in the method. Even if ya screw it up, it won't be all bad. You might find that it tastes different, but still good.
 
What is the outcome or why is it said not to use fast rising yeast? Does it create a hotter flavor that takes longer to fade out? Or does it poop out and can't carry on the fermentation process? I wish the original author of this thread would make it clear on exactly what to use. Did not see until page 7 or 8 that quick rise was not the way. Tried to research this and I can't find any solid answer. Thanks in advance
 
So, I've never done it myself, but plenty of people have used rapid rise yeast with no issues reported. Just what I've heard from others reporting when I've asked them.
 
well just a bit of an update to my try on this. I went ahead and moved it over to a secondary this evening and sampled a bit of what I had. I think it will turn out just fine. It does have a taste of the medicine that everyone talks about but also a strong orange flavor. I could see this smoothing out over time. Its still giving off some bubbles so I plan to allow it to finish and clear before bottling. Thank you for the help!
 
After reading about 50 pages of this thread, I couldn't resist putting this together. I put together 2 batches. One exactly as described in the first post. The second I substituted Lalvin EC-1118 for the bread yeast. I just wanted to see the difference. I put the yeast in about an hour and a half ago and both batches are already bubbling. (Picture was taken before the bubbling started.)

20161021_183800.jpg
 
Just made this recipe tonight. My first mead. Looking forward to see how it tastes. Thanks Yooper and Joe! I used some local honey from a local bee keeper. He said it was really high quality honey. I did the optional all spice and nutmeg. I've used these spices in a cider I made and it turned out delicious.
 
timdsmith72 said:
After reading about 50 pages of this thread, I couldn't resist putting this together. I put together 2 batches. One exactly as described in the first post. The second I substituted Lalvin EC-1118 for the bread yeast. I just wanted to see the difference. I put the yeast in about an hour and a half ago and both batches are already bubbling. (Picture was taken before the bubbling started.)
Click to expand...

Likely the EC1118 batch will be higher alcohol, very dry, and bitter.
 
I think this was one of the first five or so things I ever brewed...think I might throw together another batch and add some leftover hibiscus, rise hips, an chamomile I have left over from a Saison I did a while back. Should be pretty good
 
Blasphemy alert:

Anyone ever zest & juice the orange? What better way to concentrate the flavors, right? Thinking about doing this for my next batch. The original is quite drinkable but I want more orange character.
 
brewski09 said:
Blasphemy alert:

Anyone ever zest & juice the orange? What better way to concentrate the flavors, right? Thinking about doing this for my next batch. The original is quite drinkable but I want more orange character.
Click to expand...

My first gallon of JAOM, I zested a navel orange, then peeled it and put the zest and orange sections into the mix.

I just started bottling it at the one-year mark and the orange flavor is subtly making its presence known.

Maybe put the zest into some cheesecloth and add it to the secondary and let the alcohol extract the orange oils?
 
I made this recipe a few weeks ago and it's now at FG. I fermented at 75 degrees, and
was wondering if I should lower the temperature a bit, or let it ride at 75?
 
Holy smokes this stuff is good. The bread yeast and the lalvin EC-1118 both finished/cleared up within a week or so of each other. The two batches were started mid-October. Tried samples of them both last weekend. In my opinion, I like the batch with Lalvin EC-1118 slightly better. Both versions are absolutely delicious, though
Sorry the picture is sideways. Can't get it to stop doing that.

20170101_132221.jpg
 
Ive never made mead before but thought this would be a great one to start with. So i started my brew on 3 Jan 17. I made a 5g batch using..

11 lbs of honey
4 blood oranges

Basically made 4x recipe requirements except for the honey and orange type. The yeast was Lalvin EC 1115 or 16. Dont remember exactly but it was recommended by the local brew shop. It is fermenting very slow but study, belching every 20 sec or so. Temp stays at about 72 and its in a home brew bucket set up. I cant see inside so its just the waiting game. Should i agitate it a little or just let it sit? Any other recommendations?
 
Bjornelkpounder said:
Ive never made mead before but thought this would be a great one to start with. So i started my brew on 3 Jan 17. I made a 5g batch using..

11 lbs of honey
4 blood oranges

Basically made 4x recipe requirements except for the honey and orange type. The yeast was Lalvin EC 1115 or 16. Dont remember exactly but it was recommended by the local brew shop. It is fermenting very slow but study, belching every 20 sec or so. Temp stays at about 72 and its in a home brew bucket set up. I cant see inside so its just the waiting game. Should i agitate it a little or just let it sit? Any other recommendations?
Click to expand...

Leave it be. You didn't make JAOM though. It should be a nice orange mead and lighter on the alcohol. But with EC 1115 it will be totally dry if it doesn't stall. A possibility though, if you didn't use any nutrient, it may stall. Then it gets tricky. Do you bottle and risk fermentation restarting and blowing corks? Kegging is a good option if you can.

The reason JAOM uses the bread yeast is to it will kill itself with alcohol before the mead goes dry. They you get some residual sweetness without the worry of blowing out corks.
 
I will check it again tonight. The local home brewer said to swap buckets in about a week or so after the bubbling stops, then add more fruit and let it sit for the remaining 2 or more.months I want to let it go. Will that make any difference if I do it that way or will that just screw my entire batch?
 
So its actually belching every 7ish seconds. The siphon I have also has a screen on it so I am assuming the guy at the home brew supply was expecting me to have to filter the yeast out
 
Bjornelkpounder said:
So its actually belching every 7ish seconds. The siphon I have also has a screen on it so I am assuming the guy at the home brew supply was expecting me to have to filter the yeast out
Click to expand...

I would not bother it for 6 weeks or so. Then, if you have a glass carboy, I would rack it off the lees into glass and let it sit for another 8 months. If I misread and it is already in glass then I would leave it alone for 3 months and then either rack to another or bottle.

My experience is that mead is fine with being left alone.
 
My JAOM tastes like a raunchy bitter Old English. It's terrible! Followed the recipe to the letter and no matter how I make it(3 batches so far) it tastes exactly the same every time.
 
How long have you let it age? What honey are you using?

I will be sample tasting mine tonight, its about 6 weeks since yeast pitching.
 
I used local clove and it's sat for 11 weeks. The oranges managed to drop on one of the batches but not the other two.

I used distilled water in one and spring in the other two. In the two with spring water I took the peel off the oranges and in one I substituted cinnamon stick for ground cinnamon. But they all taste identical; really, really tart and bitter. Just like Old English malt liquor and I would make a wager that an OE drinker would have a seriously hard time telling the difference. Terrible!

I'm starting to wonder if I screwed something up when cleaning and sanitizing my gear. I clean with One Step then sanitize with Star San.

I dunno.
 
abv101 said:
My JAOM tastes like a raunchy bitter Old English. It's terrible! Followed the recipe to the letter and no matter how I make it(3 batches so far) it tastes exactly the same every time.
Click to expand...

Are you using the pith from the oranges? That could be a cause. Also, just throwing it out there: are you COMPLETELY sterilizing everything?
 

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