This post is more for my own sanity than for actual information, that is unless
you plan on making mead. Earlier this month I took a class on making mead and was inspired to try my hand at it. We were told you need bottles, airlocks, sanitizer, honey, distilled water and yeast, with some nutrients and energizer for the yeast. When we go to get the yeast and other supplies from a wine making shop we are given a bunch of information completely contrary to what I was told in the class. O.K. we can deal with this, it sounds good. OOPS our bottles are too small and my husband wants more information. So we go to another wine shop where they basically tell us completely different information than either my class or the other person. My husband buys a book. We put the mead and 1 melomel together, careful to follow the directions that we think are correct. Thursday comes and we only see minimal proof of any kind of fermentation. So, back to store 2 to get more yeast. Where the guy gives us more information, tells us that we need to know some kind of gravity to determine the sweetness of the start product and finished product and that it is not an issue that we haven't seen any real movement of fermentation yet?????HUH??????I have no idea how the thickness of the beginning process tells us how sweet it is. Then he proceeds to tell me that you HAVE TO ADD SULFITES TO ANY BREWED PRODUCT LIKE MEAD OR WINE!!!!! BULL$#!+!!!!! At which point I explain to him not only are there wines on the market that have no added or detectable sulfites but that the added sulfites and naturally occuring sulfites bond differently and the added ones are the sulfites that cause people issues. He finally offers me a different option of preservation at the end of potassium sorbate. So, I guess what we have learned is that no two people are able to agree on one method of making mead. So, if you plan on doing any brewing either get a book or only ask 1 person, because if you ask more you will end up confused, frustrated and broke!!!! Tomorrow we are planning on re-bottling the mead, adding the new yeast and adding nutrient and energizer. We will see how that goes. Thank you for reading my MEAD rant. Anthoinette |
Friday, December 14, 2012
Mead, the good, bad and ugly of getting started
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To have a Mead that is made in Period SCA, You will not find. You will need
ReplyDeleteto modernize some of the equipment.
And do the making of mead in this modern world way. Sorry you got so jerked
around on the subject.
If a mead was made the way it was in period I would not want to drink it at
all. And I know it is very pricey to make a mead with the price of honey.
To do a class it should mention what you will need to pull it off and to
have a nice quality mead/wine.
All of brewing is made pretty much the same way. There are some that has
more attention you will need to apply.
As far as so many people telling you what to do. Yes! No one person will
give the same answer. But it should be
in the ball park of what is being said. Also you can good information to
keep in the back of the mind for another time, from more than one person.
But I do remember Hawthorn asking some store owners if they have ever made a
Mead and if they said they had not, he did not take much stock in what the
guy said.
Yes! A book is a good thing to get for just about anything you want to do.
There is a Northshield Brewers Guild that you can join.
There are several good Web sites that offer help also.
Once you get the equipment for mead/ wine making and maybe beer making. You
should not have to get much more. Unless you want to make different stuff
and more of the stuff, then you will have to invest into getting more
equipment. There is cheap equipment or you can go for the more expensive
equipment. The glass Carboy's are high priced.
Different kinds of yeast will give different results. The packs of yeast you
pop inside itself was difficult for Hawthorn to get them to start in meads,
now for some of the wines they was great. The dry packets kind worked better
for him with making mead. And was cheaper.
Than getting the ingredients for the mead, wine and beer making. Then some
attention given to racking it over to get the sediment off the bottom to
have a nice clear product. This done over a time span of maybe a couple of
months or so, depending on how dry or sweet mead/wine you want to achieve.
I think I am done now.
Sorry for your bad experience with Mead making.
Kori