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Gotmead Live is back!!

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pain

GotMead Owner
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Sorry for going dead air on y'all. JD and I parted ways, and I've been getting a new setup going in the last few weeks, and it ended up taking longer than I planned due to work and some health issues.

I want to thank you for your patience while I dealt with the twin projects of dealing with the breathing crap that laid me low, and getting re-tooled with new software after our changes. Y'all have been great!

GotMead Live will be back on March 15, 9PM EST.

We were planning to go back on the air after the Mazer Cup, since I would have been prepping to leave that week, but since I'm grounded from flying, (some health issues, don't worry I'm ok) I figured why not start early!!

AJ and I will be back with a vengeance to talk mead, and bring in some of the top folks in the mead world to talk about mead.

We're planning on having the next episode be around unique approaches to mead making. Tell me what you want to learn more about, sour mead, brett mead, mead with ale yeast, BOMM, or whatever new/unique thing you're interested in. I'll get some folks online to talk in detail about what we decide on (and don't worry, there will be other shows to grab onto the things we don't get in this one!!) and lets dig into the frontiers of meadmaking!

I'll be posting the updates with all the details here: http://gotmead.com/blog/gotmead-live-radio-show/

Please note that we also have a new phone number, (803) 443-MEAD (6323)!

Stay tuned for more announcements, and bear with me as I get all the tweaking done. See you on the radio!
 

zpeckler

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 7, 2014
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Personally, I'd like to hear more info on Brett, lactobacillus, and pediococcus. A mixed fermentation is my current project, and there isn't a whole lot of info out there on how to use these microbes in meadmaking. Most of the info I got had to be extrapolated from beer brewing with a ton of guesswork.

It would also be interesting to get Oskaar's take on the issues discussed in the big "Are We Overfeeding" thread from a month back.
 

Stasis

Honey Master
Registered Member
Jan 10, 2014
1,123
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Malta
+1 on feedback for the 'I think common practice is over feeding our little ones!" thread. Which reminds me I have another post I'd like to add there...
Link to that thread: http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showth...mmon-practice-is-over-feeding-our-little-ones!

Personally, I am somewhat interested in wild ferments, although I don't think it is worth the risk trying a wild ferment with all these yeast strains available.
What might be more relevant is mixed ferments in general. Why are there so few recipes which call for mixed yeast ferments? How does BM4x4 fit into this (A pack of yeast containing 4 different strains already mixed). Sur lie aging is also very rare in recipes...

Btw, who's the new show host then? ;)
 

Squatchy

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I would like to hear Oskaar's take as well. And not to disregard his experience, but I think it would be just fabulous to have Dr Kohn (SP) and /or his other counterparts, and other yeast wizards as guest on the show. I am continuing to reread a book called "Yeast: The practical Guide to Beer Fermentation" By Chris White (White Labs) and Jamil Zainasheff. Yes, it's a beer book but I'm sure I have read info in there that will make my Meads turn out better. I think Chris White would be a great guest. I'm sure there are people at Mondavi/UCDavis that could also weigh in. I bet Wyeast staff is also loaded with likely guest yeast guru's.

If some of the wizards don't know specifically in regards to Mead, surely they should know enough to refute some things we hold fast as truth. I've been rereading the "fermentation" chapter to find and write down questions I have specifically for the reason to try and speak with Chris White to get more specific answers, or ones my brain can get ahold of and utilize :)
 

pain

GotMead Owner
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Honestly, I need someone who is wiki-wise and can help me set it up and organize it and help me decide what all we want to put in there, and who might also want to help get the large pile of data I got from Golden Coast on sour meads up there and sorted.

Anyone a wiki-wizard around here and has time to work on it? I'm going to be tied up calling and setting up shows for a whole bunch of folks, including all the folks Squatchy mentioned (you read my mind, many of these are on my radar), and people like Charlie Papazian and some others I've got in mind.

Plus writing up a bunch of articles on my pile of things to do to post on GM and mining here to put all the recipes into the new recipe manager (if someone is interested in that, I could use help there too, mainly in copying and pasting all the recipe info into the new format on the site). The new recipe manager is one you can download and save recipes, favorite, share, etc. so it will be a lot more flexible than they are in the forum.

We need an update on the mead wiki! And how we can contribute!
 

gunit00

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 19, 2015
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It's good to hear that Gotmead Live is back! Thank you for educating and entertaining the mead community.

I would like to hear more discussions on the basics of mead making. The basics of mead making, i.e. nutrient additions, nutrient types, yeasts, acidity management, fermentation protocols, stopping fermentation, aging protocols, and keys to consistency, are constantly evolving and need to be revisited.

I think if we delve into mastery of the basics of mead and making, before attempting complicated and funky meads, better meads will be created.

The current state of commercial mead, from my personal experience, is that most people don't know what it is, the stuff you buy on the shelves is most likely not exceptional, and it's hard to find in stores.

In addition, I think the current approach of gentle criticism of fellow meaderies is doing a disservice to the industry. If a mead sucks you have to tell the people it sucks and why it sucks vs "it's not the best mead I have had". I think honest criticism of mead is essential for higher quality meads.
I found http://www.ratebeer.com/findbeer.asp to be highly helpful in gauging the public consensus on if a mead is tasty or not. I think it is essential to poll the public about what tastes good and what doesn't. My point is that if mead is to take off nationally, the public will cast it's vote with their wallets, we need to give them what they want and not what we want.

Keep up the good work!
 

bernardsmith

Got Mead? Patron
GotMead Patron
Sep 1, 2013
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Saratoga Springs , NY
I teach in the evenings and was unable to catch the program on Tuesday but I cannot find it uploaded on Sound Cloud or itunes... is there a long lag time between the streaming and the recording or is it just me who cannot locate the date 3/15 on any site associated with the name Gotmead?
 

pain

GotMead Owner
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Hey Bernard,

I haven't had time to sit and clean up the recorded broadcast, but if you go to the show page, you'll see the player and you can play what Spreaker got when we did the live feed. It's a bit bumpy, but it's mostly there. I hope to have the offline recording cleaned up tomorrow morning, work kind of got busy this week and I didn't have a 2 hour block to work on it. Once I do that, Soundcloud will pick it up automatically.

Itunes is currently in transition, I had to cancel the previous show, and re-do it, and there's a gap, Apple is apparently fairly slow with this stuff. But I'll notify you guys when it's live again.
 

bernardsmith

Got Mead? Patron
GotMead Patron
Sep 1, 2013
1,611
32
48
Saratoga Springs , NY
Vicky - many thanks for your quick response. I thought the problem was my inability to locate the recording (SoundCloud seems to organize Gotmead podcasts randomly - certainly not by date - and "hunting" is not a pass time I engage in... I totally understand what it is to juggle so many balls at one time.. I take my hat off to you. When the recording is ready it will be ready. Again, many thanks for the update.
 

Chevette Girl

All around BAD EXAMPLE
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Thanks for all the good suggestions, folks.

Since Oskaar is so busy, Vickiy was thinking about an "Ask AJ" segment where I could try to answer some of the questions that we see again and again (and again and again) in the forum, on our facebook page and the other mead facebook pages, and very likely any other winemaking or brewing forum where people ask questions.

But gunit00 brought up a very good point that Oskaar has mentioned many times before, about becoming consistent before you go off madly experimenting in all directions, so I think I'm going to start by going through the basics of meadmaking. All of us can can probably benefit from revisiting the basics, even when we're all caught up in discussing sour bugs and different nutrient regimes and stuff that's maybe a bit too much for the starting meadmaker to be worrying about.

I am a really good bad example, as I've done just about everything backwards and/or without good grounding in the basics, so I should be able to save everyone a lot of time, effort and ingredients by sharing my mistakes and letting you know how I SHOULD have done it. And maybe I'll become more consistent myself and start setting a good example rather than being the bad one!

Vicky and I will have to discuss how we're going to implement this segment so I'm not sure when we'll get started with it, but stay tuned! We'll get there!
 

zpeckler

NewBee
Registered Member
Mar 7, 2014
519
3
0
Newark, De
You make an excellent point, AJ! We all need to re-examine our fundamentals periodically. It's easy to get really excited about a fun new experiment, and equally easy for even highly competent meadmakers to gloss over the basic best-practices of meadmaking. Sometimes you don't even realize you've been doing something basic less-optimal for years!

I for one would be really excited about an "Ask AJ and/or Vicky" segment when Oskaar is busy. And, of course, sharing one's meadmaking misadventures and what you learned from it can help the rest of us avoid trouble before it starts.

Thanks for all your efforts!
 
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