Phenylalanine: A New Era of Mead-Making

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MightyMosin

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Over on Omni Mead there is an article entitled Phenylalanine: A New Era of Mead-Making.
https://www.omnimead.com/nexus

The short story is that using this will help promote/preserve honey flavor in your mead. I did a small experiment with mixed results.

I made two batches of a session mead that was done identical with the sole exception that one of the 5 gallon batches received this extra ingredient, while the other did not. The packets of yeast were even batched together by weight so that they were the same and the yeast batch couldn't account for a difference.

This is a recipe that I have made many times and its my Honey Crisp summer sipper at ~6%. In this recipe I throw the acid adjustments in at primary as I know that the amounts work and it doesn't crash the pH and cause fermentation issues.

Results:
Both finished fermenting at the same time, so no difference there. If I was doing a YouTube channel, I would have taken readings every 6 hours to chart it; but I'm not.

The standard recipe tastes mostly as expected, though this time I used a Kviek instead of D47 as I couldn't control the fermentation temperature. There is a crispness brought by the small amount of citric acid and the malic acid mimics an apple flavor. All in all a nice session when carbonated.

The second batch with the Phenylalanine. It was carbonated like the other batch. In tasting, it really destroyed the acid balance. The citric pop was pretty much removed and the malic acid was lacking that perception of "apple" which really handicapped. It was there, but not punching above its weight like the other batch.

The question here is "but was there more honey profile?" That was slightly hard to tell at first as the acid profile was so different, but I can say that after tasting the original batch and then switching to the Phenylalanine batch that there was certainly a more detectable honey and perceived sweetness. It must be stated that it was mostly lost in the sort of lackluster overall flavor caused by the acid reduction.

I think I need to do this once again, but I won't front load the acid adjustments and only after fermentation and racking will I add the acids prior to carbonation. This may be a nice adjunct to use in mead but I may have stumbled upon an instance where the process order needs to be modified. I have to say I'm a bit bummed that I may need to do this again, but I normally wouldn't do acid adjustments ahead of time and I only did it this time as it was a "tested" recipe that turned out what I want... It just seems to have ran afoul of something in primary that this added component caused an issue with.

At this point it is inconclusive for me, but I will try again.
 
Last edited:
I'll bet Bray would be happy to answer any questions or concerns about that, if you ask. He may be able to answer your concerns, maybe even suggest possible tweaks to your process .
 
Over on Omni Mead there is an article entitled Phenylalanine: A New Era of Mead-Making.
https://www.omnimead.com/nexus

The short story is that using this will help promote/preserve honey flavor in your mead. I did a small experiment with mixed results.

I made two batches of a session mead that was done identical with the sole exception that one of the 5 gallon batches received this extra ingredient, while the other did not. The packets of yeast were even batched together by weight so that they were the same and the yeast batch couldn't account for a difference.

This is a recipe that I have made many times and its my Honey Crisp summer sipper at ~6%. In this recipe I throw the acid adjustments in at primary as I know that the amounts work and it doesn't crash the pH and cause fermentation issues.

Results:
Both finished fermenting at the same time, so no difference there. If I was doing a YouTube channel, I would have taken readings every 6 hours to chart it; but I'm not.

The standard recipe tastes mostly as expected, though this time I used a Kviek instead of D47 as I couldn't control the fermentation temperature. There is a crispness brought by the small amount of citric acid and the malic acid mimics an apple flavor. All in all a nice session when carbonated.

The second batch with the Phenylalanine. It was carbonated like the other batch. In tasting, it really destroyed the acid balance. The citric pop was pretty much removed and the malic acid was lacking that perception of "apple" which really handicapped. It was there, but not punching above its weight like the other batch.

The question here is "but was there more honey profile?" That was slightly hard to tell at first as the acid profile was so different, but I can say that after tasting the original batch and then switching to the Phenylalanine batch that there was certainly a more detectable honey and perceived sweetness. It must be stated that it was mostly lost in the sort of lackluster overall flavor caused by the acid reduction.

I think I need to do this once again, but I won't front load the acid adjustments and only after fermentation and racking will I add the acids prior to carbonation. This may be a nice adjunct to use in mead but I may have stumbled upon an instance where the process order needs to be modified. I have to say I'm a bit bummed that I may need to do this again, but I normally wouldn't do acid adjustments ahead of time and I only did it this time as it was a "tested" recipe that turned out what I want... It just seems to have ran afoul of something in primary that this added component caused an issue with.

At this point it is inconclusive for me, but I will try again.
This sounds very interesting!! I like the d47 better but i know the kviek allowed a fast fermentation.

I might try this for next spring.
 
No, I've done this with Kviek before and the control batch was what I expected. A different flavor than D47, but expected.
Have you tried high abv mead with a kveik yeast? If so, did it need the usual aging time or was it good faster?
 
Where did you get the Phenylalanine and how much was added?

Here's where I got mine. I have yet to use it though

BulkSupplements.com L-Phenylalanine Powder - Phenylalanine Supplement, L-Phenylalanine 500mg - Amino Acids Supplement, Gluten Free, 500mg per Serving, 250g (8.8 oz) (Pack of 1) https://a.co/d/37kTbsp
 
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