Traditional Mead

[ZKrantz]

Hi this may have been posted before or not and if so I would love to be pointed in the right direction.

I am getting ready to do my very first brew. I want to do a very traditional brew with open bucket fermentation all organically sourced or wild picked, honey, winter fruits and herbs I plan on using and starting a totem stick and using natural yeast from the air and fruit/honey and NOT using any store bought yeast at all. I want to step away from the glass jugs and carboys absolute sterilization of tools and equipment I have a 5 gal wooden bucket that I plan on using for this and future meads and want to age them for about a month or two in wooden kegs. Is it possible after the initial fermentation to filter the mead into a keg for aging about a month or two I do want to try and get a carbonated mead with a big frothy head upon pouring or would I wind up blowing my new keg to bits from pressure build up

 

[Seamonkey84]

Wild ferment using the yeast from the fruits is fine. You’ll want to cover the bucket with a cloth, it’ll keep bugs out. If your filtering instead of racking, do it before ferment is complete, you’ll need a hydrometer to be sure. The keg question I don’t have a clue.

 

[SKBugs]

Chuck an organic apple should get you started. Wild bacteria love apples apparently. Maybe skin first.
Same as seamonkey on the keg issue.

 

[Squatchyj]

My brother and I have brewed a lavender mead open style but in a plastic fermenter bucket for the first few days of fermentation to allow the vapors to escape into the air and not back into the mead, then it was covered and allowed to continue to ferment for several months. However, we did use a Hornindal kveik yeast for it's fruity characteristics it can give. Once aging was done, we transferred to a corny keg, pressurized it for a few weeks in my kegerator at 37 degress and around 3.5 bar of pressure (I think) so that it would be almost champagne like in effervescence. Turned out just like we had hoped, the carbing gave it a good mouthfeel. We served it from the tap at a local brewfest and it was a hit, with quite a few people coming back multiple times for refills. The kegs are rated up to 130 psi, something you'd have to purposefully make that high to blow up.

We never developed a head like beer. I suspect that you would have to have adjuncts/proteins in the mead to be able to have head retention. I may be wrong though, so if anyone wants to chime in on that, please do. We were never after a foamy head, as it kind of goes against the style of mead and wine in general. Might be neat to have some though!

 

[ZKrantz]

I have never made mead yet but I know with this first batch I do not want it flat if it has a sparkle more akin to champagne that would be fine but I keep reading that it gets foamy upon fermentation and that is what I’m hoping to shoot for I’m still waiting on my keg to arrive in the mail so I have everything on hand before I start I plan on using raw unfiltered organic honey with the comb from a local source along with a bit of wild wormwood sourced from my own property along with wild sage, hawthorn berries, winter sweet violet and a few handfuls of organic berries picked up at my local grocer I’d have to say though my biggest concern is the wooden keg I do not plan on bottling rather than storing in and drinking from the kegs I want to leave it kinda raw in the sense of only one fermentation and pouring it through a few layers of cheese cloth as a filter into the keg for a secondary/aging has anyone does this yet or am I really out there with this

 

[RPh_Guy]

my biggest concern is the wooden keg

yeah I don't think you can achieve champagne level carbonation in a wooden keg and even if you manage to carbonate it appropriately inside your wooden keg it won't STAY carbonated once you start drinking it because each time you remove a serving the remaining portion will lose carbonation and also oxygen in the air will encourage vinegar formation and potentially other undesirable flavors unless maybe if you're keeping it cold

 

[Amadeo38]

yeah I don't think you can achieve champagne level carbonation in a wooden keg and even if you manage to carbonate it appropriately inside your wooden keg it won't STAY carbonated once you start drinking it because each time you remove a serving the remaining portion will lose carbonation and also oxygen in the air will encourage vinegar formation and potentially other undesirable flavors unless maybe if you're keeping it cold

Is everyone having a malfunction of the period key or did you just decide to respond in the style of the OP; stream of consciousness without punctuation?

Anywho, agreed with the wooden keg issue, unless the inside has some sort of hard plastic shell liner. Even then, you likely won’t reach champagne level, but who knows? I’ve carbed a mead to champagne level in champagne bottles and while it does foam heavily a la champagne when poured, this dissipates quickly and leaves just a constant stream of bubbly effervescence in the flute.

I’ve never attempted wild ferment, though from what I understand, and @RPh_Guy can probably comment on this better as he’s quite the information source, things go bad more often than not. I believe it’s better start with a small starter jar of honey water with cheese cloth stretched under the ring of the lid, left out in a breezy area overnight or for a few hours, at least. You can then let it ferment that small volume for a few weeks, and if it ends up being narsty, you didn’t lose much compared to a whole batch of mead. Check out Sui Generis channel on YouTube for more specifics, as his stuff is great.

 

[RPh_Guy]

punctuation is overrated fight the power

I’ve never attempted wild ferment, though from what I understand [...] things go bad more often than not.

I haven't yet made a "spontaneous" mead, but I do have a lot of experience with "spontaneous" cider.

Last year was my first time working with unpasteurized juice. I made around a dozen batches or so testing out different yeast strains and processes. Two batches were 100% wild (from different pressings) and another one was a wild primary ferment with added Brett. Those 3 batches were my favorites out of all of them, among the best ciders I've ever had.

The other batches with pitched yeast I sulfited before fermentation but not after, so many of them still developed a little wild character. I ended up dumping one of them because it had a lot of sulfide and mercaptans too I think; maybe I could have saved it but it didn't seem worth my time for 1 gal.

My take-home is that wild fermentation most frequently produces good results in wines*. I've heard similar success rates from others here too, with ciders in particular. Justin Amaral (founder of a commercial yeast supplier) has done a lot of wild and spontaneous meads and gets good results from those, and solid attenuation.

A wild starter like you suggest might be a good idea for mead since the starting cell count is pretty low and a larger batch might grow mold before the yeast get started. I wouldn't want to risk 5 gallons.

You need to be willing to wait. I don't recommend wild fermentation for beginners because of the long timeframe and less predicable results. Come to think of it, a mead will probably get over-oaked in a new barrel/keg before it's ready to drink, even with pitched yeast.

*Wild fermentation of beer is a completely different story.

 

[ZKrantz]

yeah I don't think you can achieve champagne level carbonation in a wooden keg and even if you manage to carbonate it appropriately inside your wooden keg it won't STAY carbonated once you start drinking it because each time you remove a serving the remaining portion will lose carbonation and also oxygen in the air will encourage vinegar formation and potentially other undesirable flavors unless maybe if you're keeping it cold

The vinegar formation and storage of a partially empty keg I’m not to worried about I plan on using 1gal kegs and when I crack one drink it all with friends. I have 5 brand new 1 gallon kegs on their way.

 

[RPh_Guy]

OK... I recommend you:

• Strip the barrel and bucket oak flavor beforehand with a few long soaks in boiling water. Several days. Hydrate first.
  
• Wax the barrels to avoid excessive oxygen.
  
• Use a cool fermentation temperature like 50-65°F.
• Target no more than 8% ABV.
• Taste the mead periodically after it finishes fermenting and you fill your barrels.
• Keep the barrels full.
• Forget the idea of champagne level carbonation. I'll be impressed if you can get to a moderate level of carbonation (2.5-3.0 volumes CO2) without some kind of leak.
• Prime and allow to carbonate if/when it reaches a point where it's drinkable.

With all this it has a fighting chance to turn out well.

 

[Miraculix]

I have an spontaneous mead going on since half a year, only honey based yeasts. It started to clear a month ago and I hope it's going to be ready to bottle before I move countries at the end of the year.

It tastes really interesting and much more complex than any mead I had before.

A few things I have learned, as long as it is visibly fermenting, agitate the yeast on a daily basis, better multiple times a day. You don't want the yeast to drop to the floor and stay there.

Calcium levels of around 100ppm help the mead to clear at the end, best achieved by adding calcium chloride.

If you have access to honey which went a bit foamy, that's the good one, it already started fermenting! I had a Scottish heather honey which already started in the glass, I added it in the middle of fermentation. I started with a starter I made in an almost empty honey glad by adding water and shaking it daily. Once that really took off, I fed it a few times with a teaspoon of honey and then combined it with the rest of the honey and water in the fermenter.

O2 is a good thing at the first few days/weeks as the yeast needs it too multiply. No air lock first might be a good idea.

Step feeding might also be good, as you never know when the wild yeast gives up. This gives you more control. Basically ferment till dry, sweeten till it tastes nice, wait till dry, sweeten again till it tastes nice, repeat till the desired sweetness doesn't change anymore.

However, now it won't naturally carbonate anymore.

Oh well, and the most important thing:
Be careful as f*CK with the wormwood!!!! This stuff has the potential to ruin everything due to overpowering bitterness.

Make a tea first, measure the amount you use, and scale it up from there!

The tea method is actually a really good way of determining the amount of every herb you plan to use. I used it often for herbal beers.