Metheglin - First try - Opinions/Advice please.

[L. Hunt]

I have made a few batches of JAOM that all turned out pretty well. I would like to try something different. After doing a bit of research, I modified/combined a few things to come up with the following:

1 Gallon Batch:
3 lbs honey
.5 oz Simcoe Hops (pellets)
1 stick cinnamon
1 clove
½ tsp rosemary


Bring 1 gallon of water to a boil and stir in honey. Throw in spices (in mesh bag) and boil for 30 minutes. Cool, transfer to carboy, top off with water and add bread yeast. After clearing, bottle.

I've never tried anything like this. Any thoughts/advice would be much appreciated.

 

[bernardsmith]

H L.Hunt - and welcome. Choose a wine yeast - or if you know what you are doing choose an ale yeast but avoid bread yeast. JAOM is a novelty mead and its ingredients and methods (protocol) are not transferable to regular run of the mill meads. D47 is a good yeast; 71B is good. I like Belle Saison for some of the flavors it produces
Secondly, do not bring your honey to a higher temperature than one in which you would bathe a baby. You want to boil hops? boil them in water and add the cooled water to the honey. You want to use hops? OK but why are you extracting their acidity rather than the flavor? Beer has a final gravity that is sweet so brewers use the acidity of the hops to balance the sweetness. You can boil hops for 10- 15 minutes to extract flavor (and dry hop to extract aroma).
Third, honey needs nutrients and there are no nutrients in your recipe. Nutrients for mead are not the handful of raisins that you used in the JAOM but are additives that provide specific minerals and nitrogen without which the yeast cannot successfully ferment. Fermaid O or K or substitutes are what you need.
Last point: to learn to make mead you need to practice making what is called traditional mead. That is honey, water, yeast and nutrient. When you can make a trad mead well then you can add spices and herbs and the like. If you cannot make a trad mead well then your spices might hide the faults or more likely they will enhance them and shine a powerful light on them...
Good luck! and stay away from bread yeast unless you are baking bread.

 

[L. Hunt]

H L.Hunt - and welcome. Choose a wine yeast - or if you know what you are doing choose an ale yeast but avoid bread yeast. JAOM is a novelty mead and its ingredients and methods (protocol) are not transferable to regular run of the mill meads. D47 is a good yeast; 71B is good. I like Belle Saison for some of the flavors it produces
Secondly, do not bring your honey to a higher temperature than one in which you would bathe a baby. You want to boil hops? boil them in water and add the cooled water to the honey. You want to use hops? OK but why are you extracting their acidity rather than the flavor? Beer has a final gravity that is sweet so brewers use the acidity of the hops to balance the sweetness. You can boil hops for 10- 15 minutes to extract flavor (and dry hop to extract aroma).
Third, honey needs nutrients and there are no nutrients in your recipe. Nutrients for mead are not the handful of raisins that you used in the JAOM but are additives that provide specific minerals and nitrogen without which the yeast cannot successfully ferment. Fermaid O or K or substitutes are what you need.
Last point: to learn to make mead you need to practice making what is called traditional mead. That is honey, water, yeast and nutrient. When you can make a trad mead well then you can add spices and herbs and the like. If you cannot make a trad mead well then your spices might hide the faults or more likely they will enhance them and shine a powerful light on them...
Good luck! and stay away from bread yeast unless you are baking bread.

 

[L. Hunt]

Bernard - Thanks for the guidance. This is exactly the kind of help I was looking for. Much appreciated!!

 

[L. Hunt]

H L.Hunt - and welcome. Choose a wine yeast - or if you know what you are doing choose an ale yeast but avoid bread yeast. JAOM is a novelty mead and its ingredients and methods (protocol) are not transferable to regular run of the mill meads. D47 is a good yeast; 71B is good. I like Belle Saison for some of the flavors it produces
Secondly, do not bring your honey to a higher temperature than one in which you would bathe a baby. You want to boil hops? boil them in water and add the cooled water to the honey. You want to use hops? OK but why are you extracting their acidity rather than the flavor? Beer has a final gravity that is sweet so brewers use the acidity of the hops to balance the sweetness. You can boil hops for 10- 15 minutes to extract flavor (and dry hop to extract aroma).
Third, honey needs nutrients and there are no nutrients in your recipe. Nutrients for mead are not the handful of raisins that you used in the JAOM but are additives that provide specific minerals and nitrogen without which the yeast cannot successfully ferment. Fermaid O or K or substitutes are what you need.
Last point: to learn to make mead you need to practice making what is called traditional mead. That is honey, water, yeast and nutrient. When you can make a trad mead well then you can add spices and herbs and the like. If you cannot make a trad mead well then your spices might hide the faults or more likely they will enhance them and shine a powerful light on them...
Good luck! and stay away from bread yeast unless you are baking bread.

H L.Hunt - and welcome. Choose a wine yeast - or if you know what you are doing choose an ale yeast but avoid bread yeast. JAOM is a novelty mead and its ingredients and methods (protocol) are not transferable to regular run of the mill meads. D47 is a good yeast; 71B is good. I like Belle Saison for some of the flavors it produces
Secondly, do not bring your honey to a higher temperature than one in which you would bathe a baby. You want to boil hops? boil them in water and add the cooled water to the honey. You want to use hops? OK but why are you extracting their acidity rather than the flavor? Beer has a final gravity that is sweet so brewers use the acidity of the hops to balance the sweetness. You can boil hops for 10- 15 minutes to extract flavor (and dry hop to extract aroma).
Third, honey needs nutrients and there are no nutrients in your recipe. Nutrients for mead are not the handful of raisins that you used in the JAOM but are additives that provide specific minerals and nitrogen without which the yeast cannot successfully ferment. Fermaid O or K or substitutes are what you need.
Last point: to learn to make mead you need to practice making what is called traditional mead. That is honey, water, yeast and nutrient. When you can make a trad mead well then you can add spices and herbs and the like. If you cannot make a trad mead well then your spices might hide the faults or more likely they will enhance them and shine a powerful light on them...
Good luck! and stay away from bread yeast unless you are baking bread.

Thanks again. I boiled the Juniper Berries (replaced the rosemary with this), whole hops (Simcoe), cinnamon (1 stick) and clove (1) for 20 min. After cooling, I added this tea to the honey, Fermaid and yeast. I just bottled a few days ago. This already tastes really good. Can't wait to see how it ages. Thanks again. Your advice made the difference between a really good, interesting mead and me wasting my time.