Recipe please

[markalbob]

bert, everything I've heard has been that mead is a bit touchy, and you are best supplementing the nitrogen......attenuation less the concern than harsh and unwanted "off" flavors. I'm not so sure I'd want to do it with yeast myself, but to each their own.....also not at all sure I'd want to bottle a "sweet" + "carbonated" mead--if you can prime and get an additional fermentation to add "fizz", eventually you're risking a bottle bomb.

I just had lasik 2 years ago; I happen to really like my eyes......Aspera sounds as though he has experience, I cannot argue it, but he's doing a 180 from most of what I've seen and some of the ideas just don't mesh with my personal experience. No offense, just adding my 2 cents as well.....

[chemistbert]

It just peaked my interest is all. I'll probably cave in and go ahead with DAP but this whole subject is of interest to me.

[Ben Brewcat]

I think it's an interesting idea too. I don't know enough about pollen chemistry to speculate on it's availability for yeast metabolism, but it's a cool idea. My next batch is probably a few months out, but an experiment suggests itself: prepare a batch, an off-dry, semisweet or sweeter would be ideal, and pitch your fungus of choice. Immediately plit the batch into equal volumes and to one add, I dunno, two to three tablespoons finely ground pollen. Rack on the same schedule and store together to minimize differences across the batches. Perhaps someone smarter than I could speculate on whether boiling the pollen would make its constituent components more available (denaturing the proteins and dissolving the pellets) or degrade the good stuff too much.

Then compare the attenuation level when they finish. Preliminarily one could speculate that if the pollened batch attenuates more fully to a significant degree, then the pollen may have been of benefit. Pitching rehydrated yeast without a starter would be best, to try to isolate the effect of the pollen.

Any takers? Say what ever happened to that experimental honeyed kombucha?

Now we can start a thread on whether adding pollen to mead makes it an evil, chemical-laden "cheater's" mead or whether it's a crunchy granola-mongers best friend that you could still call "natural" .

[Ben Brewcat]

I thought I'd bump and stick this thread; it's getting around time to make some varietals with early honey harvests or make some quick meads for the holidays. If we keep one thread with folk's recipe recommendations it'll make searching a little easier. Prost!

[nursebee]

Read the Schramm book. Nuff said

[chemistbert]

I think this fall calls for an experiment. I'll collect some nice fall pollen and then make up a 2 gallon batch of mead. I'll split right after pitching the yeast into two one gallon bottles. I'll add pollen to one and nothing to the other. In 6 months I'll try it and test for attenuation. Wish me luck!

Or maybe three one gallon, one with boiled pollen.......

[Ben Brewcat]

I like the boiled pollen idea; some bugs (that might hitch in on the pollen) can over-attenuate, that is, can ferment more than the pitched yeast would have, giving a potentially misleading attenuation. Keep us posted and thanks!

[chemistbert]

So what I really need is to have some of my pollen irradiated then. Hadn't thought about that. I'll need to call Geneva College and see is they have that ability. Thanks for pointing that out.

Matt

[Ben Brewcat]

Oh, I don't know if I'd go to that trouble (though I suppose it'd be ideal). Must be nice having access to that kind of equipment!

[Aspera]

With regard to the idea of heating removing aromatics, I say, "poppycock!" The blowoff of CO2 from fermentation removes far more aromatics than heated water ever would. The clarity and additional available aminos that comes from **adding cool honey to recently boiled water** is unsurpassed. Also, boiling precipitates unwanted solutes, removes solubilized chlorine gas and provides superior sanitation. The chief drawbacks are time and energy consumed, not adverse flavor effects. I always boil my water, even if I intend to use it cold the next day. In the case of pectin-rich fruits, heat pasteurization is contraindicated, but not because of flavor....only because of pectins. Even for wine concentrate kits, I don't think that adding concentrate to recently boiled water is so terrible provided you don't "set" the pectins or carmelize sugars. Sulfites are for lazy wine makers. The true mazer boils his water. This is a technique that is ageless, pre-dating sulfer candles and so forth.

[Ben Brewcat]

Hey Aspera, can you tell us a little more about the increased amino acids' availability from having boiled the water? Not familiar with that, and always learning!

[Aspera]

Proteins are often unavailable or undigestible to yeast until they are denatured and partially hydrolyzed. Additionally, some proteins are physically packaged in material which make them less bioavailable (eg the silica shell of raw pollen in the field). Yeast, as it turns out only needs small amounts of free A.A.'s and has no requirements for peptides (which bacteria loooove). My reasoning is that the more peptides and proteins you can denature, destroy, hydrolyze and digest, the the better. It will make free nitrogen available, reduce or eliminate the need for DAP and reduce the likelihood of bacterial contaminants. If you have a low gravity mead and feel that it needs sulfites for stability/freshness, you can always add them later. I also feel that heat, cleanliness, and a low pH do more for sanitation and stability than pounds of sulfites ever could.

[HVH]

Can you guys tie together the topic of cooking and clarity? I read many years ago that people often cook their honey, skim the scum, and then ferment in order to provide a clear finished product. I have also read that cooked honey can lend a bitter flavor to mead. If you don't cook, is fining needed?

[Ben Brewcat]

As a new subject this might be better served as a new thread.

[HVH]

As a new subject this might be better served as a new thread.

If the original post in this thread was how to go about making mead from just honey, water and yeast, and someone else brings up "to cook or not to cook" it seems that the clarity of the finished product and possible bitterness are relevant. :confused:

[Ben Brewcat]

Sorry, no intent to chastise! Just a suggestion that a boiling/clarity thread might get a little more traffic than the thread for sharing recipes.

[HVH]

Sorry, no intent to chastise! Just a suggestion that a boiling/clarity thread might get a little more traffic than the thread for sharing recipes.

Thanks for the kind response.

[roger eagles]

I tried some mead and turned out great.Put in freezer till ice crystals started,then drank.Construction crew loved it.I only heat it lately to 140.I never boil it.Just enuff to kill the main bacteria.Works for me but heated it with the water.

[Aspera]

If your goal is to pasteurize, then I would suggest preboiling your water, removing it from the burner and then adding the honey. This works well and prevents any chance of scorching the honey or allowing waterborne bacteria to survive. The honey will cool down the mixture to the right temp. For instance:

24 lbs water @ 200 F = 4800 lbs*degrees
+ 18 lbs @ 70 F = 1260 lbs*degree

= 6060 lbs degrees/44 lbs = about 137 degrees

[roger eagles]

Nice,I like that.Thanks