Was curious if anyone has had any luck updating the recipe to use wine yeast. yeah yeah i know its no longer a JAO when it does have bread yeast. 
updated JAO(ish)
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Was curious if anyone has had any luck updating the recipe to use wine yeast. yeah yeah i know its no longer a JAO when it does have bread yeast.
I was all ready to do it with a Lalvin D-47 but literally everyone told me it would ferment the recipe dry and then take years and years to age out the bitter pith.
Well that's the most likely result.......
But you could easily ferment a JAOM mix with EC-1118 if you wanted, but it'd have to be back sweetened and might even need a little acid to balance.......
Maybe 6 to 12 months ageing ??????
8+ years ago I made a JAO and my own "more sophisticated" variation (KAO). My variation was identical but with Orange Blossom honey, D47 yeast, only juice/zest of orange, and a few oak cubes, but I left it on the lees as per the JAO recipe. Over the holidays a friend gave me the last bottle of each that he misplaced a few years earlier (in less than ideal storage conditions) for one last comparison. They both may have shown some slight damage due to warm/fluctuating storage temps. I didn't ever take gravity readings on either, but the KAO seemed just a hair less sweet and slightly spicier and we both had a slight preference for it. Both were excellent. So I say try it with D47, you won't be disappointed (nor will you with the original recipe)!
Cheers,
Kirk
Sounds like a plan. I've got to wait until I can keep the temp under 70F and that will be when I have a temp controlled fridge. Average temp here right now is 80F.
Ditto. I have used juice and zest of the orange versus whole fruit. I ended up adding D47 a few days after pitching Wyeast 4184 because it never took off (I have heard that yeast really sucks - but I think my smack pack died due to extreme heat during shipping). Added enough honey to have it stall out at 1.026. It turned out great! And I have heard that D47 is good for aging on the lees.
I can't take credit for the juice/zest idea, I got the idea from Malkore:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f80/malkores-not-so-ancient-orange-mead-50201/
There's no reason you can't use a real wine yeast for JAO, it's just not going to be JAO because it'll need backsweetening and age. Which sort of defeats the purpose of JAO.
The beauty of the JAO is its simplicity and how quick it's ready... if you use a wine yeast, it will very likely take it drier so you'll want to be prepared to backsweeten or step-feed it to make sure you've got at least some residual sweetness or else, like everyone always says, it'll be gross and take a while to age to something drinkable. It may well need some age anyway, but the sweet finish will probably leave it reasonably drinkable as soon as it's cleared...
The beauty of the JAO is its simplicity and how quick it's ready... if you use a wine yeast, it will very likely take it drier so you'll want to be prepared to backsweeten or step-feed it to make sure you've got at least some residual sweetness or else, like everyone always says, it'll be gross and take a while to age to something drinkable. It may well need some age anyway, but the sweet finish will probably leave it reasonably drinkable as soon as it's cleared...
I find JAO so delicious that it's hard to stop drinking. It's like Baileys. I no longer allow it in my house but once a year because no matter how big the bottle is it won't last a week. JAO proved the same. Two gallons were made and bottled as soon as they cleared and gone within a week after each bottling.
I just opened a bottle of almost-JAO.. the one where I only used 3# of honey. Well it's finally drinkable. The bitterness of the pith has receded quite a bit and the honey has come to the fore a little. And it only took a year and a month.
I'll wait and see what the rest of it tastes like in another year.
Correction: FWIW I dug up some notes and it looks like I did take gravity readings and both started right around 1.120. No final gravity readings though. Also, on my variation, I added 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of tannin and 0.9g per gallon of either yeast hulls or Fermaid 2133, and it sat sur lie for 5 months (no batonnage).
Cheers!
I just opened a bottle of almost-JAO.. the one where I only used 3# of honey. Well it's finally drinkable. The bitterness of the pith has receded quite a bit and the honey has come to the fore a little. And it only took a year and a month.
I'll wait and see what the rest of it tastes like in another year.
So, maybe some of us do know what we're talking about? ;D
Hahahaha! Yah, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Seriously though, I never doubted you (plural). It was just frustrating to have to wait for a 'quick' mead, and even more frustrating to know it was my own damned fault. <G>
Be well,
Joe
This BOMM idea is faster than JAO, and I've had first- and second-run hydromels that were clear in under two weeks, I don't know if I was ever on the ball enough to get 'em carbed and bottled right away but you could maybe have a carb'd hydromel in two or three weeks, although unless it had a strong flavour on its own (like ginger) I'm not sure you'd want to drink it that fast.
This is presuming you're going for speed. I don't drink that fast so I don't mind waiting. And I bet your decreased-honey JAO would have benefitted from backsweetening if you wanted to drink it earlier.
This is presuming you're going for speed. I don't drink that fast so I don't mind waiting. And I bet your decreased-honey JAO would have benefitted from backsweetening if you wanted to drink it earlier.
Think I'm goin to give it a go in a week or so. Goin to use 2 large oranges(just the meat) 1 cin stick, 1 clove, 3.5lbs honey and D47. See if I can get close to the taste.
I'm probably not the first person to nip into the local brew shop for supplies for his first JAO, only to be talked out of bread yeast by the guy behind the counter and sent packing with some high alcohol yeast (Gervin Desert Wine yeast, GV4, iirc).
As it turned out I ran two batches, one with each yeast - as per the recipe, save for the fact I topped up to an imperial gallon, as I forgot it's not the same as the US gal (1 imp gal = 1.2 US). So all else being the same, the SG would be a bit lower than the standard JAO. Both batches fermented dry, both I backsweetened to around 1.020. Both were fine after backsweetening, but I thought the wine yeast batch was a tad mellower. I've got another one on the go now with the wine yeast and lower SG from the imp gallon in anycase.
As it turned out I ran two batches, one with each yeast - as per the recipe, save for the fact I topped up to an imperial gallon, as I forgot it's not the same as the US gal (1 imp gal = 1.2 US). So all else being the same, the SG would be a bit lower than the standard JAO. Both batches fermented dry, both I backsweetened to around 1.020. Both were fine after backsweetening, but I thought the wine yeast batch was a tad mellower. I've got another one on the go now with the wine yeast and lower SG from the imp gallon in anycase.
Use at least some of the zest. That's where all the flavour is. And I suggest only one, otherwise it might be too acidic.
so really no worth wild taste from the meat of the orange? interesting. So ill zest at least one orange. I was thinking two orange because i wanted a touch more orangy flavor.
I've used three lemons, no zest, in a gallon of wine for acid adjustment and you can't tell once it's done. If you skip the pith from the JAO then you don't get the bitterness (which I always do now because if I don't, I get heartburn), but if you skip the zest it won't taste orangey at all.
