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Can you all help me get it right?

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Aragorn

Aragorn

NewBee
Registered Member
May 4, 2014
82
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East NC
Hello! :cool:

I have been looking into making mead for a little bit now and thought this forum looked really helpful! I want to make some mead but I don't want to get it wrong and waste all my delicious honey so I was wondering if you jolly fellows could look at my recipe before I make it and tell me what you think I should change?

I will only be making one gallon batches for a little bit until I can get it to be really good so...

It looks like Lalvin D47 is the yeast of choice for a lot of people so I figured id just use that in the amount recommended on the package but scaled to 1 gallon.

I went to the fresh market and looked at honey and decided that I wanted to use the wildflower honey cause that is my favorite.

-3 lbs of wildflower honey
-Lalvin D47 yeast
-1 gallon spring water
-diammonium phosphate
-1 stick of cinnamon
-1 clove

I figure I would put the honey in my glass carboy and then add the spring water until it is mostly full but leave enough room to pitch the yeast. Then I was gonna put a lid on it and shake it all up until the honey got all dissolved. After that I figured I would rehydrate the yeast (I don't know how to do this exactly but it seems like something I should do) and then toss the yeast in the honey water. Then put an airlock on it and wait I suppose. Then I figured I would just rack it off once it seemed to be done fermenting and add the cinnamon and clove then rack it off again soon after and then hide it from myself so I don't get to tempted and just drink it all before it ages.

What are your thoughts on this? What would you all do differently? I want it to be really good the first time around...

Thank you in advance! :)
 
Do you already have the D47? If not, and this is your first mead, look at the JAOM thread. Much easier much quicker and much more satisfying.

I came to mead from 20+ years of beer and I'm glad I tried JAOM first. I have not made a batch of beer since!


Sent from my galafreyan transdimensional communicator 100 years from now. G
 
Haha well I am glad to hear that mead is better than beer! That means a lot.

The only real problem I have with this recipe is that I don't like oranges all that much... And does using bread yeast not make it taste yeasty?
 
Aragorn said:
Haha well I am glad to hear that mead is better than beer! That means a lot.

The only real problem I have with this recipe is that I don't like oranges all that much... And does using bread yeast not make it taste yeasty?
Click to expand...
Apparently not. Or maybe, if you were to do the same recipe with a more mead-specific yeast, it might be noticeable, but only if you were really looking for it. I haven't seen anyone compare the two yet. (Although I'm sure someone has at some point.) The whole purpose of that recipe is to get one out of the gates as fast as possible, so it's supposed to come out swingin' and get to completion ASAP.


I came to mead from 20+ years of beer and I'm glad I tried JAOM first. I have not made a batch of beer since!
Click to expand...
Hey now, why can't we enjoy both? More options means more happiness, for me at least.
 
Oh I am sure I will throw a beer kit in a fermenter one of these days, but with the explosion of great craft beers on the market I don't see a reason anymore. I originally started brewing beer so long ago because when moved to Miami, Busch Beer and Old English were about as good as it got. Of course I kept doing it because it was fun. But a trip to total wine these days or even the local supermarket yields dozens of Belgian Ales, local craft brews and great imported beers. I couldn't justify the "double double toil and trouble" anymore.

And then mead. Like chess, it takes minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. No more boiling unless I want to and no more surgical level sanitation! And the raw ingredient, unlike grape wine, is right in my backyard! AND like when I started making beer, the retail offerings are slim and often of inferior quality or of the same quality I can make! Obviously there are some awesome commercial meads but not at the supermarket!


Sent from my galafreyan transdimensional communicator 100 years from now. G
 
Haha that is pretty much the exact reason I am taking up mead making. A friend of mine made some that I really liked but I haven't had a commercial mead yet that beats his.

So anyways, I see that the JAOM works really well and it seems pretty foolproof but I don't like oranges and I'd like to go ahead and learn to do it the right way (he was talking about how that recipe was pretty different than how people make mead nowadays). Will the recipe I posted work? And what should I watch out for?
 
Nah, I don't agree about the beer at all. Yeah, there are some good ones, but now that I have a brewery/meadery just down the road, I remember why I started doing it in the first place: Taste! and because I could experiment. Plus, I like brewing.
 
Keep in mind that there is absolutely ZERO orange flavor in the finished mead. They are there to add somethin' but it ain't flavor. Trust me and make a gallon of JAOM then follow it up with a BOMM. BOMM is actually much quicker than JAOM but I recommend doing the latter first because you can get everything at the local grocery store. AND because it's awesome. While that JAOM is brewing, you can go to the LHBS (Local HomeBrew Store) or to Amazon or your favorite online merchant and purchase the specialty equipment needed for BOMM. Hydrometer, Wyeast 1388, etc.; look at the BOMM protocol and everything you need is listed there. JAOM takes at minimum 8 weeks and up to 12 to be ready to rack into a secondary. BOMM is ready quicker, but it really helps to have the JAOM experience under your belt first.
 
So I actually got all the equipment like the hydrometer and stuff already cause there is a homebrew store that is closer than the grocery store and I have a few gallon sized glass jugs (4 actually, a size 8 1/2 stopper fits them nicely. The apple cider I love so much comes in them and I thought why not use those?) So could I just do all three at once? The yeast and ingredients are the only other things I need to get.
 
I can't see why not! Go for it!


Sent from my galafreyan transdimensional communicator 100 years from now. G
 
Alright! I'll start one tomorrow and then the next two later this week. I'll go ahead and start off with the recipe I had originally posted and post the SG once I make it. Is there anything I should be aware of, or anything that won't be obvious that I should know to do this so I don't screw it up? Or maybe some modifications to my recipe I should consider? Or a change in the method? And what all should I include in my mead journal?
 
First, if you're going to make JAOM, don't modify anything. Follow the recipe exactly or you will void the warranty. The best thing to do is to put it in a closet or cupboard and forget about it for 8 weeks.

BOMM is similar. If you follow Bray's protocol you can't miss. Heck, it was only the second or third mead I ever made and BOMM made me look like a pro. The BOMM will be ready before the JAOM.

The only thing I would add is to get some acid blend. That way you can play with the sweet/tart balance until you get something you like. Of course, that will come later after all the batches are fermented, aged a bit and clear.

The only way to learn is to do!


Sent from my galafreyan transdimensional communicator 100 years from now. G
 
Okay! I made my first batch. I used 3 lbs of Medford Farms wildflower honey and spring water for a one gallon batch. The specific gravity of it was 1.104 and I used Lalvin d47 yeast so I am expecting a relatively dry mead that I will potentially back sweeten and most certainly add spices to. I rehydrated the yeast by what was on the package and then added that plus a little bit of Diammonium Phosphate for nutrient. I shook it up all nice and good so that I had a homogenous mixture. Have I messed up anything yet? And is my next step just adding nutrient at the 1/3 and 2/3 sugar breaks?

Thank you!
 
As far as nutrient additions go, most will tell you not to add any after the 1/3rd sugar break mark


Sent from The Age of Legends, trapped inside a Stasis Box
 
Yah, that's at least what I have gathered. Still rather new at this myself


Sent from The Age of Legends, trapped inside a Stasis Box
 
If you wanted to take a look at how I added my nutrients take a look at my mead log : berry melomel


Sent from The Age of Legends, trapped inside a Stasis Box
 
Ah I see... You should let me know how it turns out! I wanted to make one with blackberries


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Aragorn said:
Oh and also, is there a way to keep my mead cooler without hiking up my AC bill?
Click to expand...
Two things come to mind: one is cheap, but not very effective. The other is expensive, but is very effective.

You could get you some kind of tub or aluminum wash bin (I've used one) and set your fermenter (they're glass, right? plastic doesn't work so well) in it. Then, wrap you a nice big towel around it, if they're the 5 or 6.5 gal carboys, and use a smaller one for the gallon size, covering most of the glass and let the extra gather around the base in the tub. Just snug the top edge up around the neck of the carboy or bottle and you can clip the edges where they wrap around the carboy with some of those mailer clips, the black springy kind that are pretty stout. Fill the tub up with water until the towel starts soaking it up and stays moist up the entire sides to the top of the towel.

Cons: a wet towel will lower the temperature a few degrees; you can make it more by setting a fan on low near it to move some air, but you don't want to overdo it. You'll have to keep adding water to the wash basin, and a wet towel will eventually start to mildew. Replace it with a clean one ASAP when that happens; no sense having wild critters growing too proliferatively around your meads.

The other method is definitely more worry-free and exact. You can get you a freezer and turn it into a cooler with one of those digital control thingies. Somebody else can explain it better than I can; there are lots of threads here on gotmead? about them. Basically, a digital thermostat checks the interior temperature of the freezer with a probe, and the digital thermostat regulates the on/off cycles to maintain the interior temp at the temp you want. This is the preferred method, for obvious reasons, but it can be a significant purchase.

Cons: price. But it's worth it.
 
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