Boiling nutrients for mead

[brazilhead]

I´m making my first batch of mead and I thought I´d take the honey to a sterilizing temp just below boiling for 15 minutes or so. This won´t hurt the nutrient or acid blend either, will it?

[corkybstewart]

If I remember correctly, I brought my mead to a boil, but then immediately turned it off. That allowed me to scoop off some nasty foam (Idon't remember what it's called). Some people boild theirs for a few minutes, some never do, I thinks it's more of a personal preference. I know youy'll lose some of the aromatics of certain honies by boiling them so your idea is probably pretty good.

[Mad Scientist]

If you are going to heat the honey up, be sure and take the opprotunity to add some yeast nutrient.

[Lupulinitus]

How it took me this long to find this board I have no idea. Anyway, I posted these instructions on Hank III's message board in a homebrewers thread for someone who had never brewed before. This should answer some questions.


5 gallons of mead
ingredients:
*12 lbs. honey(1 Gallon)(alfalfa,orange blossom, clover, etc.)
*6 oz. acid blend(homebrew shop)
*1 Tsp yeast nutrient
*wine or mead yeast(I use WYEAST 3632 dry mead liquid yeast)
*iodaphor(for sanitizing)

optional(but awesome)
*get 3 oz. fresh ginger and cut the bark off and grate. Put in a steeping mesh bag.

Directions:
put 3 gallons of spring water(or FILTERED tap water) in your brew pot. Once it starts to get near boiling slowly add the gallon of honey. Bring to a boil. While it is boiling you will notice that there is fluffy white stuff(albimum) that keeps forming on the surface of the boil. Take a strainer and keep scooping it out. It can cause bitterness in the finished product. You are only going to boil for 15 minutes. With 10 minutes to go add the acid blend and yeast nutrient. You can also add the optional ginger. After the 15 minute boil, turn off the heat and now is a critical time. You must get the mead chilled down to under 80 degrees as quick as possible but without getting bacteria in it. If you don't have wort chillers(for beer) the quickest way to do this is to fill your sink with water and ice and submerge the pot with a lid on it in the ice water, and keep recycling the water and ice. Another trick if you're using spring water is to keep the 2 gallons you will be adding to your mead in the refrigerator. Once it is chilled enough, pour the mead in to a SANITIZED fermenter and add the other 2 gallons of water. You will start off with about 6 gallons but you will be racking it in to other fermenters a couple of times and will be leaving some behind. Shake fermenter VIGOROUSLY for about 10 minutes to aerate. Put yeast in(as long as it is under 85 degrees) and shake again. Put on an airlock and be patient. Within 3 weeks rack out of the primary fermenter and in to a secondary. Secondary must be a glass or a stainless steel and NOT plastic. The less air space in the top of the fermenter the better. You will know it is done when it clears. Mead, unlike beer, likes to ferment between 70 and 75 degrees. If you ferment it 65 degrees and under your yeast will probably fall out and you will end up having to add more.


hints
*you will need a beer homebrewing kit. They're about $60 and they come with almost everything you will need.
*do not use any dark honeys
*liquid yeast is much cleaner than dried
*only use a stainless steel pot or an unscratched canning pot(those black pots with the white spots) because other metals react with beer etc.
*after the boil is over, bacteria would love to get in to your mead before the yeast can take over. Try to get it chilled as quick as possible.
*sanitation,sanitation,sanitation. I use this chemical called iodaphor. You can use the best ingredients in the world but if you don't pay attention to sanitation you'll end up with a shitty product.
*remember, anything that will be in any contact with your mead after the boil is over MUST BE SANITIZED.
*when racking mead from fermenter to fermenter make sure your hose is all the way to the bottom of the second fermenter and looped around a little bit. The last time you really want to introduce oxygen to your mead is when you are shaking it before you add the yeast. After that it can mess it up.

[Mad Scientist]

Why shake the fermenter? I believe most of us here use an aeration system:D

[Mad Scientist]

Lupulinitus, would you recommend bottling a mead in 12 oz bottles, or would those of use wanting to make some mead need to go and aquire regular wine bottles and a corker? If wine bottles are needed, what color of wine bottle is needed, or is a varietly o.k.?

[Lupulinitus]

I have an aeration system myself, my left and right arm.
:D

I would always recommend using a dark colored bottles regardless. Mead is much more easily oxidized than beer. I'm much more of a beer brewer than a mead maker and have never made a high gravity mead. Mine usually start with an O.G. around 1.10 and don't need to age much when they are done fermenting.

[Mad Scientist]

Hmmm...what would the gravity be on a high gravity mead be? And what about aging time once bottled?

Also, in terms of fermentation, you said around three weeks for the primary, but what about the secondary?

My wife likes mead, and I would like to make so for her.

[Lupulinitus]

Originally posted by Boerne Brew
Hmmm...what would the gravity be on a high gravity mead be? And what about aging time once bottled?

Also, in terms of fermentation, you said around three weeks for the primary, but what about the secondary?

My wife likes mead, and I would like to make so for her.




For a higher gravity I would say 1.15 or so. For mine after primary it will take a couple more months but it depends for me on what time of year it is. Most books say mead is done fermenting when it is clear. The only issue I have had is when fermenting over the winter it ends up fermenting below 65 and the yeast ends up dropping out, it clears, but I have to ad more and it starts going again. Mine actually ferment down below 1.010 so there is not much sweetness. If you would make a higher gravity mead it will not ferment down as far and there will be some sweetness to it. It is the easiest thing to make and everybody likes it, especially the ginger mead. If you have only made beer and you decide to make some mead don't panic about the fermentation. It seems to take longer to start, goes much slower and doesn't have the krausen or whatever you guys call it on the top. My wife doesn't drink but she loves the mead. As far as fermentation, maybe three months and my experience with my meads is when they are cleared they are ready to drink. If you want to carbonate it, just use corn sugar and it will take about a month or so because the yeast count has declined a lot. Hope this helps.

[Mad Scientist]

That does help a bunch.

Here are a couple more:

Is the acid blend necessary?

When you boil the mead, should it be a low rolling boil, or is a full on violent boil desired?

Fruit: If I desire to add fruit flaovr to a meads, when should it be done, and how?

[Lupulinitus]

Originally posted by Boerne Brew
That does help a bunch.

Here are a couple more:

Is the acid blend necessary?

When you boil the mead, should it be a low rolling boil, or is a full on violent boil desired?

Fruit: If I desire to add fruit flaovr to a meads, when should it be done, and how?



Almost every recipe I've seen calls for it. A wine guy would probably be able to answer that better than me. I always get a nice rolling boil as I would with beer. Some mead makers will tell you not to boil at all and others will tell you you to pasteurize it at 170 degrees for 20 minutes. I'm a beer brewer primarily, so I say boil. I've made fruit meads once or twice before. This is a difficult question. The first time I pasteurized the fruit but I know I had instructions from somewhere because you have to worry about releasing pectins or something(not a scientist). The last time I waited till it was almost done fermenting, bought some frozen blackberries and dumped them in the fermenter. As a sanatation freak this bothered me but it turned out great. The only other thing I've thought about doing is getting one of those little bottles of flavoring from the homebrew shop and put it in when bottling.

[Mad Scientist]

To answer your question about fruit...

When pasturizing fruit (as I do when I use it), do not bring it above 180F, as it will 'set' the pectin, and it will be forever hazy. I am not aware if a fining agent will clear it up or not.

[Mad Scientist]

I think adding the bottled flavoring is cheating....

[Lupulinitus]

Originally posted by Boerne Brew
I think adding the bottled flavoring is cheating....


Yeah, the reason I was thinking about trying it sometime was because when I've added fruit to my meads it has turned out more like a wine. The ginger mead tasted like a good ginger ale, and my straight meads just turn out nice and clean.

[jjpm74]

Originally posted by brazilhead
I´m making my first batch of mead and I thought I´d take the honey to a sterilizing temp just below boiling for 15 minutes or so. This won´t hurt the nutrient or acid blend either, will it?

There is absolutely no reason to ever bring the honey up to that high a temperature. If you're doing that, you might as well use plain old sugar since that's basically what you'll end up with afterwards.

Bring the honey to a temperature of 140 degrees maximum so it can blend with the water.

[Lupulinitus]

The main thing is to make sure the honey gets dissolved and mixed well. I've always boiled and definately don't agree with the might as well boil with sugar instead. I'm sure either way it works, so just enjoy it.

[toneyc]

All I can tell you is that out of the 3-4 batches of mead I've made, the first was the best, and it was boiled. It was almost like champaign. I did not boil the other batches and they taste a bit like lighter fluid smells.

:)
Toney.

[jjpm74]

All I can say is that I have been brewing mead for a lot longer than I have been brewing beer and that the times I boiled the honey were the times the mead turned out the most one dimensional. I also think using champagne yeast makes the mead way too dry. To each his own I guess.

The recipe that was posted sounds similar to one I made a while ago. Here's another variation of it:

http://www.gotmead.com/component/option,com_pccookbook/page,viewrecipe/cat_id,1/recipe_id,69/

gotmead.com is an awesome resource for anyone getting into brewing mead.

[DecoJuicer]

I just checked my vanilla-orange blossom mead on sunday and it is really clearing up well. Cherries are coming into season here in Michigan in the next month, so I am toying with the idea of a cherry-vanilla mead.

Here's what I am thinking:

15 lbs honey(most likely wild flower honey)
1 cup of thawed orange juice concenterate(acid)
5 lbs of pitted, pasteurized, and pureed sweet cherries
yeast nutrient
3 vanilla beans
White Labs WLP720

Everything but the vanilla beans go into primary

This is for 5 gallons of mead. I have read that 3lbs of honey per gallon is about right. I used 13 lbs in my orange blossom mead, and the SG was only 1.075. It did finish out at 1.004 though.

[mookow]

Originally posted by DecoJuicer
I just checked my vanilla-orange blossom mead on sunday and it is really clearing up well. Cherries are coming into season here in Michigan in the next month, so I am toying with the idea of a cherry-vanilla mead.

Here's what I am thinking:

15 lbs honey(most likely wild flower honey)
1 cup of thawed orange juice concenterate(acid)
5 lbs of pitted, pasteurized, and pureed sweet cherries
yeast nutrient
3 vanilla beans
White Labs WLP720

Everything but the vanilla beans go into primary

This is for 5 gallons of mead. I have read that 3lbs of honey per gallon is about right. I used 13 lbs in my orange blossom mead, and the SG was only 1.075. It did finish out at 1.004 though.

Some cherry vanilla mead sounds good to me. However, Promash gives me an OG of 1.101 for using 12# of honey in a 5 gallon batch of mead. So... I dont know the cause, but there is a rather large discrepency between your OG for 13#, and Promash's predicted OG for 12#.

Anyway, I think I'm going to do mine with 12# of orange blossom honey, a can of OJ concentrate, ~5oz of healthy yeast thrown into the last couple minutes of the boil to provide nutrients, and two or three vanilla beans. That way my ABV will certainly be low enough to make some of this batch a sparkling mead; the rest will be a still mead.

You might consider using a can of Oregon Fruit's cherry puree... it's already aseptic, usually can be found for ~$10, and easy to add to secondary. Speaking of which, given my experience with fruit beers, you may want to add the cherries to secondary rather than primary. The aroma tends to be blown off if you add the fruit while fermentation is still vigorous.

[DecoJuicer]

I have heard from people that the oregon puree adds a bit of a "tin" taste to delicate brews. Also, the point of this brew was to use Michigan cherries during michigan cherry season.

I may wait until secondary to add the cherries though. I don't want the cherry flavor to be too overpowering. Just a nice subtle flavor to compliment the honey.

Beersmith gave me a SG of 1.075 and an FG of 1.018 with my original recipe. The new recipe with 15# gives it a SG of 1.104 and a FG of 1.024. Of course, the sugar in the cherries will cause a second fermentation that will cause the FG to drop a little more, so this may end up somewhere around 12%abv.

I'm thinking about a July 4, 2007 premier for this mead. My original was started in January, and I will be trying the first bottle around Christmas. If all goes well, I will be giving them out as gifts this year to family(only about 10 bottles).

[mookow]

Originally posted by DecoJuicer
Also, the point of this brew was to use Michigan cherries during michigan cherry season.

Damn you, you forced me to drink a bottle of Bell's Cherry Stout.