Hello Everyone!
Apologies in advance for my long post. Apparently my internet searching skills are not up to the task of finding information I seek. I might just be technologically inept! My interest is a bit of "harvest" fermentation. Be it meads, "country wine", cider, perry, etc. My background is significant experience in the world of beer. I have been brewing beer both at home and commercially for sometime. I am confident in my ability to brew excellent beer. I enjoy wine and ciders of the dryer varietals, and I am looking to branch out for the sake of my own curiosity.
I am interested in drawing some parallels between what I know about beer, hopefully into some delightful beverages of a different sort. So here goes:
Beer is over 90% water. It is common in beer to "build" water profiles that favor certain flavors in a final product, and to introduce certain components that may be lacking in common city or well sources. Some components are considered undesirable in large quantities. Bicarbonate and sodium, for example. Others, such as Calcium are great for yeast health. The other thing, which I particularly love to toy with is chloride to sulfate ratios. In general, sulfates tend favor and accentuate hops, while chloride tends to accentuate "maltiness". Given that mead is essentially a dilution of honey, and water is the impact of said water composition something to take into consideration for the final product? I haven't done any hard calculations for what percentage of water mead represents, but is anyone familiar with how much of an impact a water profile would make?
Beer can be brewed to a variety of strengths, from sessionable small beers to double digit alcohol by volume. I realize much of the preservative abilities of mead are it's higher presence of alcohol. What are the primary inhibitors for making small meads? Is it a bacterial or other infection risk? For beer the hops are obviously used for it's anti-microbial properties, but why is mead more at risk than say a 6.5% cider? I was thinking to experiment with abv ranges so that I could keep different sorts in rotation. Perhaps playing small meads and melomels.
Choosing yeast - I realize that wine yeast is generally chosen for the home production of mead. I am assuming that has to do with their higher tolerance for the presence of alcohol. Do wine yeasts produce interesting ester and phenolic compounds that are considered desirable for added complexity? Can this also be applied to ale yeasts? Many Belgian and English yeasts introduce all kinds of interesting flavors, do they "show" in meads?
Chemical additions to mead... Fermaid K, DAP, acids, tannins, etc. Are there additions that can be added from natural sources to make up for that? Raisins, currants, cider apples, etc. Mostly just curious about this for future play with maybe some spontaneous fermentation fun, I actually rather dig funky, sour, farmhouse style beers. Rather curious if those principles can be applied to honey fermentation as well. And actually produce something drinkable.
Lastly flavor expectations. I know rough expectations from the wine and beer world. When one speaks of different styles. Mead I've had limited exposure to. A few commercial varieties. All of which were "still", what outcomes can one expect on the pallet, potentially that are different (or even the same) as wine or beer?
Sorry for all the crazy questions, had I thought about this more, I'm sure there's something I am forgetting. I imagine the rabbit hole goes deep with mead, and I am looking forward to tooling around with it!
Cheers,
Sully
Apologies in advance for my long post. Apparently my internet searching skills are not up to the task of finding information I seek. I might just be technologically inept! My interest is a bit of "harvest" fermentation. Be it meads, "country wine", cider, perry, etc. My background is significant experience in the world of beer. I have been brewing beer both at home and commercially for sometime. I am confident in my ability to brew excellent beer. I enjoy wine and ciders of the dryer varietals, and I am looking to branch out for the sake of my own curiosity.
I am interested in drawing some parallels between what I know about beer, hopefully into some delightful beverages of a different sort. So here goes:
Beer is over 90% water. It is common in beer to "build" water profiles that favor certain flavors in a final product, and to introduce certain components that may be lacking in common city or well sources. Some components are considered undesirable in large quantities. Bicarbonate and sodium, for example. Others, such as Calcium are great for yeast health. The other thing, which I particularly love to toy with is chloride to sulfate ratios. In general, sulfates tend favor and accentuate hops, while chloride tends to accentuate "maltiness". Given that mead is essentially a dilution of honey, and water is the impact of said water composition something to take into consideration for the final product? I haven't done any hard calculations for what percentage of water mead represents, but is anyone familiar with how much of an impact a water profile would make?
Beer can be brewed to a variety of strengths, from sessionable small beers to double digit alcohol by volume. I realize much of the preservative abilities of mead are it's higher presence of alcohol. What are the primary inhibitors for making small meads? Is it a bacterial or other infection risk? For beer the hops are obviously used for it's anti-microbial properties, but why is mead more at risk than say a 6.5% cider? I was thinking to experiment with abv ranges so that I could keep different sorts in rotation. Perhaps playing small meads and melomels.
Choosing yeast - I realize that wine yeast is generally chosen for the home production of mead. I am assuming that has to do with their higher tolerance for the presence of alcohol. Do wine yeasts produce interesting ester and phenolic compounds that are considered desirable for added complexity? Can this also be applied to ale yeasts? Many Belgian and English yeasts introduce all kinds of interesting flavors, do they "show" in meads?
Chemical additions to mead... Fermaid K, DAP, acids, tannins, etc. Are there additions that can be added from natural sources to make up for that? Raisins, currants, cider apples, etc. Mostly just curious about this for future play with maybe some spontaneous fermentation fun, I actually rather dig funky, sour, farmhouse style beers. Rather curious if those principles can be applied to honey fermentation as well. And actually produce something drinkable.
Lastly flavor expectations. I know rough expectations from the wine and beer world. When one speaks of different styles. Mead I've had limited exposure to. A few commercial varieties. All of which were "still", what outcomes can one expect on the pallet, potentially that are different (or even the same) as wine or beer?
Sorry for all the crazy questions, had I thought about this more, I'm sure there's something I am forgetting. I imagine the rabbit hole goes deep with mead, and I am looking forward to tooling around with it!
Cheers,
Sully