Subject: Mead Lover's Digest #1478, 29 June 2010 Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:44:06 -0600 (MDT) From: mead-request@talisman.com Mead Lover's Digest #1478 29 June 2010 Mead Discussion Forum Contents: Re: Powders to mead (docmac9582@aol.com) back sweetening ("Greg and Sandy Swob") The Evolution of a Mead...or the Evolution of Taste? (Craig Bryant) RE: Mead Lover's Digest #1477, 23 June 2010 (Wyatt Kilgallin) NOTE: Digest appears whenever there is enough material to send one. Send ONLY articles for the digest to mead@talisman.com. Use mead-request@talisman.com for [un]subscribe and admin requests. Digest archives and FAQ are available at www.talisman.com/mead#Archives A searchable archive is at http://www.gotmead.com/mldarchives.html Digest Janitor: Dick Dunn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Powders to mead From: docmac9582@aol.com Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:10:53 -0400 Dissolved Carbon Dioxide in Mead Ken suggests dissolving the bicarbonate (and or sugar, brown sugar) that is being added to the mead. I HIGHLY agree with this. I thought I had learned my lesson a number of years ago when adding yeast nutrient or post-fermentation acids to my mead I created a volcano. Trying to hold it in with my hand only made like I was spraying with a garden hose and increased the distance of wet basement. I have also generated a similar effect by stirring the mead. But just last month, I swirled one of my carboys to put the yeast back into suspension - hoping to help the mead to keep fermenting. It obviously should have been a gentle swirl first (with the air lock off), as is my usual practice. Carl McMillin Brecksville, Ohio ------------------------------ Subject: back sweetening From: "Greg and Sandy Swob" Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:29:10 -0500 I think we all agree that prior to any back-sweetening, fermentation should be halted. One commercial meadery in Colorado I know of puts their meads to below freezing temperatures to halt fermentation. Their fermenting tanks are capable of being heated and/or chilled as needed. While we may not all have this capability, most chest freezers will easily hold one or more carbouys vertically. I do believe the commercial meadery slowy chills their meads, but I have no idea what the time frame for chilling or length of exposure time is. Having personally never tried it, I don't know if simply placing a carbouy in the freezer is acceptable or harmful in any way. Anyone have thoughts? Thanks, Greg Swob - bee keeper and hobby mazer ------------------------------ Subject: The Evolution of a Mead...or the Evolution of Taste? From: Craig Bryant Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 23:12:50 -0400 I'm sipping a traditional clover mead at the moment...nothing special at all, 3 pounds clover honey to the gallon of mead, Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast. The batch was started November 15, 2008. But I can't quite figure this thing out. I opened the first bottle two months ago, in April, and it was nothing like love at first sight. My notes say "a hard one to love"..."overly grassy, vegetal, even a kind of muddy quality." I finished the bottle, but never cared for it. In fact, I was prepared to write off all-clover meads altogether. And yet here we are, two months later, and I am in love with this mead. I roused out a second bottle, thinking I might blend it with an overly tart orange blossom mead, from the days when I was experimenting with various acid levels to find the "right" one (incidentally, I'm increasingly convinced that the right level of acid addition is zero), and I thought: why not have a glass straight, see if my impression has changed. Dry but rich--the aroma by itself is nothing much, but roll it on the tongue and inhale, and...ahhhhh...ancient memories of meadows in springtime. Muddy? No--a kind of mellow almost-buttery quality, underneath the rolling green hills that fill the nasal cavity. And I keep turning it over in my mind: what happened? Did the mead change? Or did I? Did two months--or bottle-to-bottle variation--work this alchemy, or did it simply take a few glasses worth to train my palate to appreciate the sensation of an all-clover traditional mead? I'm thinking in particular about an experience I had last year, when I proclaimed the hot months of 2009 "The Summer of Cocktails," and set our household on a systematic exploration of probably a hundred different mixed drinks. I picked up a bottle of the bright red Italian spirit Campari, an intensely bitter and herbal concoction, mixed it with soda, and detested it. Mixed an Americano--Campari, sweet vermouth, and more soda. Revolting. But so many sages of cocktail culture spoke so admiringly of the drink! Italian mixed drink culture, such as it is, rests on Campari! Negroni: Campari, gin and more sweet vermouth. Ugh. Campari and orange juice...lots of orange juice...and it was at least quaffable. Even if only just. But the next day, damn me if I didn't find myself thinking of nothing but Campari...longing, almost, for another go at it. I made a second Americano that evening: beautiful! Today, I keep Campari stocked in the bar, and enjoy a Negroni or Campari Soda for an aperitif. Now, did the Campari change in that time? Of course not. I changed--I acquired an acquired taste. Taste is such a damn funny business. There are times I wonder why I write tasting notes in the mead journal. When I look at a tasting from a year ago, that's some other guy talking: I'm never going to be that person again. ------------------------------ Subject: RE: Mead Lover's Digest #1477, 23 June 2010 From: Wyatt Kilgallin Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:45:51 +0000 Greetings, I have made up a batch of Cyser and had racked it a couple of times and everything seemed fine. We went on vacation and came back to find that the Cyser had turned essentially black. Any ideas as to what might have happened? Wyatt ------------------------------ End of Mead Lover's Digest #1478 *******************************