Archive for the ‘Mead’ Category

I know it has been awhile since I’ve posted anything here. Life can get busy – of course, whether bored, busy, or making plans to be busy, wine is always good!

On September 18, 2008, I started a Malbec wine and kind of screwed up a bit, forgetting I’d be away when the wine would be ready to be racked from the primary fermenter to the carboy. Ah well.. as I then wrote in October, wine making can be very forgiving on these points.

Since then, life has continued to be very busy! Some wonderful adventures, a few stresses here and there, things that needed to be attended to. Meanwhile, lots of wine getting no attention at all, and bulk aging as it will. Admittedly, there was some fear and apprehension on my part: “Am I going to risk major disappointment with batches of wine and mead I started long ago, have given little attention to, and therefore be disappointed at how bad it is now?”

This evening, I decided to face my fears. I’m glad I did!

I decided to rack the Malbec I had started in September. Since September, the only thing I did was to rack it from the primary to the carboy, and since then, have done nothing. No sulphite. No clearing agents. I was worried that without any sulphite, perhaps the wine might have gone off and began to turn to vinegar. Tonight I decided that if that was the case, I might as well find out now and realize I had plenty of red wine vinegar to use on the steaks and roasts from the side of beef I will be putting in the freezer shortly.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised when I removed the airlock from the carboy. Very nice on the nose! I was even more impressed when I began the syphon to rack the wine – a velvety texture upon my tongue. Only 5 months old, but comparable to some Malbecs sold at the LCBO that are a couple of years old.

I added a quarter teaspoon of sulphite after racking and did some degassing – I’ll do more degassing over the next few days before adding the clearing agents – but I’m not sure they are even needed. I did pour a quarter inch into a glass and was impressed with the clarity of it as the wine has sat for five months, clearing on its own. It does need some degassing though.

Motivated by such good results, I decided to approach the very first batch of Mead I started, back on February 5, 2005. I have done nothing with it since January 8, 2007. Since then, it’s simply been aging – five gallons in a carboy. Gingerly, I removed the airlock with trepidation, worried that I might have produced five gallons of honey based vinegar.

Ah, what a delightful sense on the nose it was! But how did it taste? I took a sample and was impressed with the complexity on the tongue and have decided that this is ready for bottling. But first, another 1/4 teaspoon of sulphite for preservation, a good stir (which churned up some very light fluffy sediment on the bottom) and in a few days, I will filter and bottle this mead. I am thinking that I might experiment a little bit with bottling up the very dry mead as it is, but also bottling some with additions of ginger and/or cinnamon.

Tomorrow, I plan on sampling the blueberry wine that has been bulk aging for about three years, as well as some melomels that have been bulk aging for almost 4 years.

I’ve also got some frozen black currants, goose berries, and Elderberries in the freezer that I acquired for the purposes of making wine from.

There has also been some serious talk of a wedding. I won’t get into the personal details too much, right now, but indeed it includes thoughts of providing our own home made wines.. which I’ll have to think about and am excited to think about! More on that later and what we choose to offer our guests.

The last several posts here have mostly been about the recent meads I started, and of course the sweet mead I am attempting using White Labs Sweet Mead Yeast (# WLP720).

To summarize, I started a batch of sweet mead on the 28th of January. I had misread the “Best Before” date on the vial of the liquid yeast and the date on it was for last year.

I went ahead and made an activator while keeping my mead safe for a couple of days with added sulphite, hoping the yeast would still be viable. Then, I went ahead and pitched the yeast on the 3oth of January.

This morning, the 1st of February I was fully prepared to observe no yeast activity and pitch a package of 71B-1122 that I had on hand. But to to my joy, there was definitely yeast activity in the sweet mead batch! A good aerating stir produced lots of foamy CO2 on top as well.

I did not take a Specific Gravity reading this morning – I’ll do that in a few days and watch the progress over the next ten days or so.

I guess when some say that this liquid sweet mead yeast takes a while to get going, they mean it!

I’ll continue to update information on this sweet mead as the fermentation continues.

As I wrote on the 25th of January, I started a new mead which used 20 lbs. of honey and a starting SG reading of 1.110. Fermentation continues to be vigourous six days later and today, I took a SG reading which showed 1.090. Just to repeat if you are interested, I used Lalvin EC-1118 yeast strain. It looks like this may take a good ten days in the primary before I rack to a carboy.

I’m still not confident in the vial of “Sweet Mead Yeast” (#WLP720), the liquid yeast from White Labs that I wanted to use in the second batch of mead I started this week. After 30 hours in the orange juice/yeast nutrient activator, there is no activity that I can observe – although it does have a “yeasty” smell to it now. But I don’t know if that is because the activator containing juice, sitting at room temperature for almost a day and a half, would take on that odour regardless.

But, I’m going to give it a try anyhow and see how it goes. If there’s no noticeable activity in two days, I may decide to pitch some 71B-1122 yeast, where over on this forum, a “Frank” writes, “I really like the one I did w/ 71B-1122. That mead tasted good even after only a couple months of fermenation. ”

I’m not entirely convinced that a strain of yeast will produce a beverage that has that much difference in taste – I think there are a lot more variables than yeast strain that affect the final taste of a wine or mead. But, if this liquid yeast doesn’t come through, it will make for a good experiment.

Back in the latter part of 2005, I ordered a variety of dry yeasts from a vendor that offered a good variety in stock that I wanted to try. As well, they stocked White Labs “Sweet Mead Yeast,” which comes in liquid form.

Well, I misread the “Best Before” date on the vial of liquid yeast when it arrived. My eyes are getting dimmer, I guess – but I had read it as January 26 – 08 when in fact it was January 26 – 06. I’ve never used liquid yeast before, so it didn’t strike me as odd to read an expiry date just over a year away after receipt of it.

Last evening, I decided to make use of some time – and honey, and try a sweet mead using White Labs yeast. I took the vial out of the refrigerator where it has been stored since I received it, and started to prepare the honey and must while the yeast warmed up.

After my must was prepared, I took another look at the vial of liquid yeast, and realized that I had read the expiry date incorrectly.

So, I sent an email to the folk at White Labs, and JoAnne Carilli-Stevenson, their Sales and Marketing Manager was swift to respond. I had several emails with her throughout the day as she offered me advice and tips – and let me tell you – over a five dollar product, or whatever that vial cost me, I’m very impressed with White Labs’ – and JoAnne’s – willingness to respond to me practically immediately!

To be honest, I cannot do that myself with all of my own clients.

We’re still not exactly sure if this yeast that I’ve been keeping will indeed come along, but both JoAnne and I are crossing our fingers and giving it some time before I decide to resort to one of my dry yeasts that I have.

I put the yeast in an activator – and have seen no observable yeast activity – although I am smelling a “yeasty” smell that was not evident before. It’s also my understanding that liquid yeast, especially “Sweet Mead” yeast, can take a while to show signs of activity.

I’ll let you know how it goes. But regardless, Kudos to White Labs and JoAnne Carilli-Stevenson!

As mentioned earlier this evening, I decided to start a new Mead. Mead takes a good long time to age to be enjoyed thoroughly – minimum of one year. In fact, I started a mead over a year ago and will continue to age it before serving to others for at least another six months.

However, using this recipe, I do find this mead to be a bit on the “thin” side as far as taste. This evening, I decided to increase the number of pounds of honey by almost 50%, and I was aiming for a specific gravity of at least 1.090. Using Lalvin EC-1118 yeast, this should provide a dry mead. An even higher specific gravity would be fine as well and indeed, increasing the amount of honey to 20 lbs and then adding enough water to just go over the 23 litre (5 Imperial gallon) mark, I ended up with a specific gravity of 1.110. A touch higher than what I was aiming for – but within range that things can be fixed later if need be.

I didn’t check acidity – I’ll worry about that later. I’m too tired now .

I’m not sure exactly how much water I’ve used by volume for the 20 lbs. of honey but basically what I did was use a kitchen scale that uses a large wide mouth plastic container for placing material in to be weighed. Five pounds of honey by volume takes up a full volume amount of the plastic container – and five pounds of honey combined with two lots of water that can be carried by the plastic container is about enough for my biggest pots to hold.

If you read the recipe, you’ll realize that the honey should be combined with twice it’s volume of water and then boiled for awhile, and the foamy bits skimmed off.

So I have two large pots and therefore went through two separate events of boiling the honey/water, each event using two pots.

So, making mead this way is time consuming as far as one evening goes. You really do need to boil the honey/water mixture for at least half an hour and skim off the foam that appears on top. As you skim off the foam, you should end up with mostly just a boiling liquid. The foam will contain wax and impurities and the mead will clear much better the more foam that is skimmed.

A few other suggestions: Using liquid honey, if you can get it in a large enough size, will save you time!! My honey is not liquid, so I spent much of my time trying to carve up the hone in the large pails of it that I had and then spooning it out onto my kitchen scale. Makes for very sticky fingers. Which is ok.. if you like honey… and don’t mind sticky fingers

I have a very large “spoon” type of implement with holes in it – not sure what it is called… but it is simlar to what you might use for spooning out vegetables from boiling water. Except, mine has a very wide (about 4 inches across?) surface, with very little lip to it. This works well for me. But.. don’t worry too much if all you have is a ladle or some other type of serving spoon… don’t worry if you skim a little bit of the honey/water mixture. This ain’t rocket science, where you have to have everything exact.

Hey.. don’t forget that you’re boiling this mixture – it’s going to need time to cool down before you pitch your yeast! Hot temperatures can kill yeast. To get my must up to just over five gallons, I needed to add about two gallons of cold water – and it was still way too hot to add yeast. Use that time to proof your yeast in the orangejuice and yeast nutrient mixture. Heck, you could even just let it cool overnight to room temperature, and you’ll be fine.

Anyhow, if you’re interested in mead making, be prepared to experiment. Be prepared to realize it should take at LEAST a year before you have something that is enjoyable.. and even then.. it might be longer.

If you really want to make mead and melomels, prepare to spend a little on honey… experiment… try some different things (my next experiment will be decreasing the pounds of honey.. probably to about 18 pounds approximately, and using a yeast developed for sweet mead – I’ve got some yeasts that I want to try and see how things turn out as opposed to others that I’ve tried in the past).

And in the meantime, go buy some mead from the local liquor store. You might not even like the stuff that others like! And that’s ok.

But.. a bit of trivia… do you know that the term “honeymoon” and mead are related? The term “honeymoon” comes from an ancient tradition of some peoples, where newlyweds would drink “honeyed wine” or mead everyday for the first month after being married.