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Orange Melomel

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desertwind56

NewBee
Registered Member
May 10, 2010
19
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Tri-cities, WA
Hi -

I'm a newBee mead maker. Last weekend I bottled a 1 gallon batch of JAOM. It’s not bad, but it has a bitter kind of back taste that is not to my liking – kind of like grapefruit.

I’m not inclined to cut up whole oranges again and stuff them in a gallon jug or carboy. And I want to avoid the bitter taste from the white part of the orange.

I’m planning to make a 3 gallon batch, but not exactly like the JAOM recipe. I want to shoot for an SG of 1.090 and an ABV of about 12%. I plan to ferment to dry and then back sweeten as necessary.

I looked at the orange melomel recipes in the recipe sections on this site. In particular, I was looking at this recipe:
http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_rapidrecipe&page=viewrecipe&recipe_id=219&Itemid=459
The recipe is for a 1 gallon batch.

1 Litre orange juice
2.4 lbs honey (med-light colored local wildflower vs. 3 pounds orange blossom as recommended by Acton and Duncan).
8 oz apple juice starter
2 tspn tea (very strong for tannin)
1 tspn yeast nutrient
1.25 tspn acid blend
1 pinch of epsom salt
WYeast Labs liquid "sweet mead" yeast

Has anyone tried this recipe? And what is apple juice starter? Why the Epsom salt?

I was thinking of adding golden raisins instead of the tea called for in this recipe. And adding spices like the JAOM recipe.

Also, I’m wondering how orangey this tastes? It has more orange juice that the other recipes. I want a bit of a taste of orange, but not nasty overwhelming.

Any thoughts or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Connie M.
 
My (inexperienced) thoughts:

That much orange juice is going to be pretty acidic. Adding acid blend on top of that is almost certainly going to stress your yeast. Given that Wyeast's "sweet mead" yeast is known for being finicky and sensitive, I'd be hesitant about using it in this sort of must.

My first suggestion, then, would be to drop the acid blend. It's not needed for most meads, and if you find the final flavor to be in need of acid, it's easy to add then.

My second suggestion is to monitor the PH of this batch closely. Make sure you have something on hand to bring the PH up if it gets too low.

As to your questions...

Apple juice starter sounds to me like apple juice concentrate, but I could be totally off base.

Epsom Salt (or magnesium sulfate) is apparently used to adjust the profile of the water. It would seem to lower the PH a small amount (which doesn't sound good to me) and impart a "crispiness" to the drink somehow.

Spices and raisins are all up to your tastes.
 
Can't help you with the Orange Melomel recipe.

How old is your JAO? The taste is from the pith of the orange. It will go away after a while, but it'll still be very sweet. I put a couple of gallons on oak, and it hide the pithyness very well. It's about 8 mounths old right now.

I will be making more, even though I'm not fond of the sweetness.
 
I would get rid of the acid blend (do this for SURE, if it needs more acid you can always add it after aging, but added at the beginning will cause your yeasts grief - this probably means this recipe is an outdated one). Most likely you won't end up needing to add it for taste at all, orange is pretty acidic as is.

I would also get a different yeast, I would personally use 71B from Lalvin.

That WYeast sweet mead yeast is notorious for stalling and being a general pain in the butt to work with!

Epsom salts are nutrient for the yeast, but are in no way necessary for a low starting gravity mead like this. Very few people use epsom salts, and those that do generally just recommend it for high gravity meads.

That amount of tea will probably do next to nothing, I don't think whoever made this recipe did very much experimenting to be honest! I would either add at least a full cup or just skip it altogether.

Starter - skip this, you do not need to make starters for mead, it doesn't really bring anything to the table other than extra steps. If you do use that WYeast then maybe ignore this comment and do use the starter, it will need all the help it can get! If you use a dried yeast pack from Lalvin you will absolutely not need a starter though.


I think the amount of orange juice is probably a good one. It's hard to say for sure how orange-y the finished mead will be, but you can always just backsweeten it a little extra to taste if it is too tart.

EDIT: I see some people are faster at typing than I am!
 
Ok, I like the idea of an orange mead, and this post has me brainstorming recipes. So, if I were going to make this, here's how I would do it....

First, I would use fresh squeezed orange juice. It really is that much better than anything you can get at the store. Personally, I would use either Valencia oranges or some kind of tangerine. Then I would add some blood oranges for color (I don't know if the acid in the orange juice will preserve the anthocyanin color or if you would need to take extra steps). I might add some zest from some of the oranges (no pith) for the aromatic oils.

I would also use orange blossom honey if you can get it. Wildflower can be good, but it's unpredictable. This is an orange mead, so lets use an orange honey. The recipe you linked appears to have chosen wildflower only for lack of orange blossom.

If I were going to add spices, I would add a little bit of allspice and a stick of cinnamon (real cinnamon, not cassia). You could add cloves as well, but I'm told they rapidly become very potent in mead, so you'd have to monitor them closely.

You should also remember that I'm pretty new to meadmaking myself, and I've never made anything like this. So my recipe could turn out terrible. :P

So, here's my recipe:

8lbs Orange Blossom Honey
4lbs Sweet Oranges
2lbs Blood Oranges
Lalvin 71B yeast
Fermaid K/DAP (recommended dosages)
Water to 3 gallons
Spices (if desired)

Juice the oranges, zest a couple of them, and mix the juice and zest with the honey and water. Ferment. If you're using the spices, put them in the secondary until it reaches the spice level you want. Backsweeten if desired.
 
That recipe won't be bad at all.
However, blood oranges do add more bitterness than other oranges (sort of a grapefruit-like character).

I'm with AToE on this one. I'd simplify the recipe and skip the Wyeast Sweet mead yeast. I'd skip the tea - you won't need it for tannins (citrus fruits provide plenty), and I'd skip the acid blend (ditto). 71B is good, K1V would be good, D47 can be good so there are many readily available yeast that will make a nice dry orange mel. You won't need epsom salts either. If you use the dry yeast, you won't need to fiddle with a starter.

I'm partial to Orange Blossom honey, but that is a personal preference.

I like fresh squeezed. If you use 25% of your volume with orange juice, there's a good chance it may end up too phenolic. I'd cut that back to maybe 2 cups if you want this dry. You can add a bit more at the end to perk up acidity and flavor if you find it needs it. You won't need to worry about the pH - orange juice usually comes in around 3.6-3.8 which is perfect for yeast, and it has plenty of potassium for them. Because it provides a lot of acid, it has buffering capacity that prevent sudden pH drops.

At the end of fermentation add the zest of 1 orange to kick up the aromatics. Ferment it cool to keep the orange aroma. You should be able to get something really tasty.

Good Luck! And Welcome to GotMead!
 
Medsen Fey said:
That recipe won't be bad at all.
However, blood oranges do add more bitterness than other oranges (sort of a grapefruit-like character).
Click to expand...

I drink my grapefruit juice straight, so that's sounds like an excellent quality to me.

I like fresh squeezed. If you use 25% of your volume with orange juice, there's a good chance it may end up too phenolic. I'd cut that back to maybe 2 cups if you want this dry. You can add a bit more at the end to perk up acidity and flavor if you find it needs it. You won't need to worry about the pH - orange juice usually comes in around 3.6-3.8 which is perfect for yeast, and it has plenty of potassium for them. Because it provides a lot of acid, it has buffering capacity that prevent sudden pH drops.
Click to expand...

That's really good to know. Should save me some anxiety if I ever get around to making this.
 
Thanks for the quick replies! ;D

I don’t mind that my JAOM is a little sweet. I didn’t actually use the bread yeast it called for. I either used cote des blanc or Champagne yeast (don’t remember, better notes next time). I started the JAOM back in August and bottled last weekend.

But, I would rather ferment to dry, and then sweeten to taste. More control of sweetness and alcohol that way.

As for the spices, defiantly want to add cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. I like cloves, but it is easy to overpower with them and I may leave them out. I have some clover honey on hand I was thinking of using.

I plan to make a batch of orange blossom honey mead, but that is a little later project. Need to find honey and buy more carboys.

So about 6 cups of fresh squeezed orange juice (think I’m going to have to use navels however) for 3 gallons.
6.75 pounds of honey (more or less) for SG of 1.090 / ABV of 12.3% (If I did the math right)
Don’t have Fermaid, or DAP, just have generic yeast nutrient and yeast energizer.
Yeast, depends on what the brewery store has (71B, K1V or D47)
Add spices and orange zest after fermentation is done.

As for temperature for fermenting, my house is about 60 – 66 degrees right now – hope that is warm enough. (It’s not for me, wearing sweats and long johns until summer).
 
60 F is perfect! You can get a nice, slow(er) fermentation that preserves more of the flavor/aroma of your ingredients and produces fewer off-flavors.

You can work with generic nutrients, it's just a little harder to be exact about the amounts you need to add (for Fermaid & DAP we know exactly what is in them). Since you're staring from 1.090, that loss of precision shouldn't be too big a problem.
 
I'm planning on starting this today, after doing some cleaning in the kitchen. Here's the basic ingredient list:

For 3 gallons
6 cups orange juice
6.75 lbs clover honey (approx. for SG of 1.090)
water to a little over 3 gallons
Yeast - D47
yeast nutrient 1 1/2 teaspoons
yeast energizer 1 1/2 teaspoons
pectic enzyme 2 1/4 teaspoons

After fermentation add:
zest of 1 orange
cinnamon - 3 sticks
allspice - 3 berries
nutmeg - 3
cloves - 3

I've read through the NewBee Guide (ton of info). I won't be boiling the honey. However, I will boil the water and let it cool before adding to the honey.

I'm planning to work on this later this afternoon. Right now, I have a dog demanding to be walked!

Thanks again!

Connie M.
 
AToE said:
That amount of tea will probably do next to nothing, I don't think whoever made this recipe did very much experimenting to be honest! I would either add at least a full cup or just skip it altogether.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the recipe was meant to use 2 tsp tea leaves? If I converted that to number of teabags (I use one fat Orange Pekoe teabag per gallon) it comes out sounding a little more sensible instead of completely pointless.

New Improved recipe sounds good!
 
It's fermenting!

Mixed it all up and pitched the yeast yesterday evening. It's fermenting nicely this morning. ;D

I did goof up a bit. Last night I got a SG of 1.09. This morning it's 1.097. Opps, this newbee didn't mix in honey well enough. I thought at the time I might be putting too much in. I have about 1 1/3 gal. of must. That includes 6 cups of orange juice. I added about 8 lbs 4 oz of honey (Just now weighed what was leftover). After doing some math and making a rather uneducated guess, I'm thinking I started about 1.100ish and am looking at an ABV of 13.21ish.

Oh well, not going to lose sleep over it. Guess it will be a little stronger than planned. ;D
 
Slow Fermentation

This is fermenting pretty slow. I'm having to put my fermenter in a sink of warm water to keep it going.

Last night we broke down and opened a bottle of JAO Mead. It was so good! Still a little bitter aftertaste, but it's starting to fade. ;D We only have three more bottles :( So, I hope this turns out good!

(Note to self: no more gallon batches)

Connie M.
 
I checked the specific gravity earlier this evening and it was 1.051 and the temp was 74 degrees F. Yesterday at the same time the SG was 1.061.

A couple of days ago it seemed like it stalled at 1.070, so I've been warming it up a little the last couple of days. And of course I forgot to check the temperature before I warmed it up.
 
Just checked it (12:30 pm) - SG = 1.046, temp = 68. Not warming it today.

I made couple of batches of wine over the summer and they fermented blazing fast! This just seems real slow. But, I will try to be a little more patient.

Thanks!

Connie M.
 
Update, and a Question

Specific gravity is at 1.022. Fermenting nice and slow. I hope to transfer it from my fermenting bucket to a carboy in a couple of days (need my bucket!).

I do have a question about adding the cinnamon, spices and orange peal. I hope this isn't too stupid of a question - do I need to sanitize the spices and peal? If so how? Dip in K-meta solution?

Thanks!

Connie M
 
Medsen Fey - Thank-you :) I probably won't worry too much about sanitizing them.

I could leave the mead in the bucket until its dry, but it doesn't have an airlock. With the few wines (3) I've made I've left it in my 5 gal. bucket till the SG was about 1.015-1.010 and then transferred it to a carboy.

Would it be okay in the bucket to finish fermenting? The lid is resting on top of it, and not closed (It's a pain to close). The lid isn't set up to have an airlock.

A larger fermenter with a proper lid is on this weeks shopping list. ;D
 
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