Ok what a day.
Recently a local pagan group I've been visiting mensioned a Mead making workshop and that it didn't have a site for it to take place...
So I thought "Sure, I'm a rookie mazer, but I've just moved into a bigger place I have a huge kitchen no problem, all nice folk come on in and invade my home...."
as well as "I can get some more opinions on my mead and learn a few more things from someone who's been doing it for a while."
So they all came over, sat through a presentation and we made a batch, of I kid you not, "Xxxx's Death Head Mead" (repace xx's with name of presenter) consisting of honey water lemon and yeast. For the group to use for rites and imbibe at celibrations ect.
Well the event went well. the people were nice. my kitchen is fine... or will be once i run the diswasher... But the presentation. Oh . My . Gods.
Um not to bash tooo hard but a lot of things concerned me. Especialy considering that this fellow was brought in as an "expert" let me know if im being unreasonable.
First off (yes a list is required)
1. He swears by using bread yeast and only bread yeast... ok fine, your mead man.
I've made joes ancient orange. It's good, so i only have a few warnig bells at this point
2. then he is greatly supprised when a few of us in the room let him know that bread yeasts have a % of alcahol that they can ferment out to/tollerate and that, eh .. if its doing well you might get 15, but not likely 20% which is how he described his brew... ( no hydrometers here, the guy does not use them) So he's gauging his bread yeast mead's alcahol content by taste and effect. The saga continues...
3. He brews in the 10l / 2 gal water jugs and bottles into emptied water bottles! Out of preferance ! (no air locks either only a ballon with pin holes in it.)
4. and realy this is a quote and not out of context... i was asking about sterilization of his plastics.
"It just needs to be clean... not sterilized"
5. He honestly believes and would not be convinced otherwise that honey is basic, thats why all the recipies (he saw) call for lemon juice. "to boost the acid so that the yeast can survive"
6. that if there is ANY head space that molds and funk will set in and imediatly ruin your mead... and he means ruin! He went on about it for a while beacuse the recipie he gave them was for a 4 gal and I hava 5 gal (i figured to top up to 2" clearance with sanitized marbles or talk the group into purchasing more honey. The latter is what happened after his rant)
but for cripes sake imediate mold may be miraculasly cancieved by his unsanitzed funky plastic bottles but for real Honey is hydroscopic (sp) it turns most most any bacteria or mold into dried dead husks... any infection is something you added, or allowed to be added through your process.
It might oxidized but...
7. He advises drinking at 3 months to be good. so i guess oxidising is not a problem
8. And finaly he states that racking is fussing and that meads are better cloudy and murky. That's the way they Should be... And he's never known any one to be sick from it so it's just fine that way. (i have but I'm not sure it was cuz of the murk or quantities imbibed)
the worst of all this, is that I couldn't really argue with him because they had invited him to present and the lore ect was interesting and good but his lack of basic knowlage is staggering. So i simply sudgested that any interested parties do research of thier own. So that they'll be comfortable when they make thier own batches. I really hope they do because it could be unsafe or simply a waste of money otherwise.
Am I off base?...Should I let this group's board of directors know what's going on?
Is any one at risk, following his directions... I mean other than wasting money.
Or am i randomly venting?
Shaded.
Recently a local pagan group I've been visiting mensioned a Mead making workshop and that it didn't have a site for it to take place...
So I thought "Sure, I'm a rookie mazer, but I've just moved into a bigger place I have a huge kitchen no problem, all nice folk come on in and invade my home...."
as well as "I can get some more opinions on my mead and learn a few more things from someone who's been doing it for a while."
So they all came over, sat through a presentation and we made a batch, of I kid you not, "Xxxx's Death Head Mead" (repace xx's with name of presenter) consisting of honey water lemon and yeast. For the group to use for rites and imbibe at celibrations ect.
Well the event went well. the people were nice. my kitchen is fine... or will be once i run the diswasher... But the presentation. Oh . My . Gods.
Um not to bash tooo hard but a lot of things concerned me. Especialy considering that this fellow was brought in as an "expert" let me know if im being unreasonable.
First off (yes a list is required)
1. He swears by using bread yeast and only bread yeast... ok fine, your mead man.
I've made joes ancient orange. It's good, so i only have a few warnig bells at this point
2. then he is greatly supprised when a few of us in the room let him know that bread yeasts have a % of alcahol that they can ferment out to/tollerate and that, eh .. if its doing well you might get 15, but not likely 20% which is how he described his brew... ( no hydrometers here, the guy does not use them) So he's gauging his bread yeast mead's alcahol content by taste and effect. The saga continues...
3. He brews in the 10l / 2 gal water jugs and bottles into emptied water bottles! Out of preferance ! (no air locks either only a ballon with pin holes in it.)
4. and realy this is a quote and not out of context... i was asking about sterilization of his plastics.
"It just needs to be clean... not sterilized"
5. He honestly believes and would not be convinced otherwise that honey is basic, thats why all the recipies (he saw) call for lemon juice. "to boost the acid so that the yeast can survive"
6. that if there is ANY head space that molds and funk will set in and imediatly ruin your mead... and he means ruin! He went on about it for a while beacuse the recipie he gave them was for a 4 gal and I hava 5 gal (i figured to top up to 2" clearance with sanitized marbles or talk the group into purchasing more honey. The latter is what happened after his rant)
but for cripes sake imediate mold may be miraculasly cancieved by his unsanitzed funky plastic bottles but for real Honey is hydroscopic (sp) it turns most most any bacteria or mold into dried dead husks... any infection is something you added, or allowed to be added through your process.
It might oxidized but...
7. He advises drinking at 3 months to be good. so i guess oxidising is not a problem
8. And finaly he states that racking is fussing and that meads are better cloudy and murky. That's the way they Should be... And he's never known any one to be sick from it so it's just fine that way. (i have but I'm not sure it was cuz of the murk or quantities imbibed)
the worst of all this, is that I couldn't really argue with him because they had invited him to present and the lore ect was interesting and good but his lack of basic knowlage is staggering. So i simply sudgested that any interested parties do research of thier own. So that they'll be comfortable when they make thier own batches. I really hope they do because it could be unsafe or simply a waste of money otherwise.
Am I off base?...Should I let this group's board of directors know what's going on?
Is any one at risk, following his directions... I mean other than wasting money.
Or am i randomly venting?
Shaded.