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Gruit Mead Question

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loveofrose

loveofrose

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Nov 9, 2012
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loveofrose said:
My previous attempt to make a honey bug resulted in mold only. How do I know? I streaked the culture on plates selective for yeast and grew no yeast. Success is only met after much failure. I repeat: Success is only met after much failure.

So what went wrong? Maybe too much honey. Honey is a hostile environment, so let's cut it back a bit. Also, maybe there was no viable yeast in the honey I chose. I can increase my chances by using multiple honey sources. Hopefully, at least one will have yeast. Let's try this again:

1. To a jar add the following:
-1/5 cup of honey from a mixture of summer Berry, OB, Meadowfoam, Acacia, and Tupelo varietals.
-4/5 cup ozarka spring water

I also made another ginger bug using only summer Berry honey as above plus a 2" price of ginger sliced thinly with the skin on.


Better brewing through science!

See my brewing site at www.denardbrewing.com

See my Current Mead Making Techniques article here:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html
Click to expand...

Update to "Honey Bug". I allowed this to sit in a dark place loosely capped until the mead cleared. That's right. I said the mead.

At this point, there was a nasty looking mat of filamentous fungi on top; however, the bottom had a fluffy layer of yeast. I pulled the top layer off to the side and got a loop of yeast for plating:
7255506ed75b2c91aa5b473ea242b2d5.jpg

You can see filamentous patches and round white colonies here. The white colonies are yeasties. I've re-streaked one of the well isolated colonies to obtain a pure culture. Can't wait to make some mead with the pure strain!

Ginger bug also worked:
978e0e03a1488797da15d55b9a5fcd62.jpg

Streaked a single clone of this as well.
 
zpeckler

zpeckler

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Mar 7, 2014
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Newark, De
Eagerly following these honey bug-related posts. I'm hoping to use your technique to get a starter growing to augment the microbial diversity of my lambic meads.

I had some older crystallized raw honey lying around, and played with this a bit. I mixed up four different bugs with 1, 2, 3, and 4tbs honey and water to 1 cup volume. I let them go a couple of weeks, but never saw signs of fermentation. I pitched them when they started growing mold, but apparently I should have just let them keep going!
 
loveofrose

loveofrose

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Nov 9, 2012
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I'm on passage 3 of purifying the honey yeast. It seems to be pure, so I inoculated a 1 cup starter as follows:
1 ounce honey
4 ounces water
1 tsp Fermaid O
One loop of yeast from a single colony

Let's see if the isolate has good characteristics before we go all out.



Better brewing through science!

See my brewing site at www.denardbrewing.com

See my Current Mead Making Techniques article here:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html
 
S

Sadcheese

NewBee
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Nov 20, 2015
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The ginger bug looks pretty straightforward. Out of curiosity, why leave it under cheesecloth instead of under an airlock if the yeast that you are aiming to cultivate lives on the ginger? Is the goal to catch bugs in the air as well?



loveofrose said:
I've compiled all the info I have at my site here:
https://denardbrewing.com/blog/post/gruit-mead/

It is a work in progress, so expect updates. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome. I want an easy guide for anyone to make Gruit mead.

I still haven't received my Gruit herbs to start testing. I've started a ginger bug (how I did it on the site) to begin testing wild ferments. The idea is to split up the problems. First, get the herb concentration/mix right in a BOMM. In parallel, get a decent wild yeast strain. After both are accomplished, combine them. Cheers!


Better brewing through science!

See my brewing site at www.denardbrewing.com

See my Current Mead Making Techniques article here:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html
Click to expand...
 
loveofrose

loveofrose

Got Mead? Patron
GotMead Patron
Nov 9, 2012
2,582
21
38
Texas
The starter of my honey yeast isolate is bone dry. I decided to taste it to see if it was worth going forward to ABV tolerance testing.

Keep in mind this starter had an SG of 1.09 and now it's dry. Most meads at this point would be very thin in body and light in flavor.

Not this mead. It's the thickest mouthfeel I've ever felt in any yeast. It's dessert liquor thick with massive honey aroma. You would swear it was raw honey, but then you realize it's bone dry on the finish. I think I hit the gold mine on this one.

I hope the characteristics last through aging. Crazy good and extremely different. I think I have a true mead yeast!


Better brewing through science!

See my brewing site at www.denardbrewing.com

See my Current Mead Making Techniques article here:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html
 
loveofrose

loveofrose

Got Mead? Patron
GotMead Patron
Nov 9, 2012
2,582
21
38
Texas
Month 3
My first go at Gruit Mead is a massive success. It is stupid easy to drink a liter of this by yourself....which I've done. Twice.

It has this wonderful wintergreen flavor that has a cooling effect. I can't wait to make this with my wild yeast!


Better brewing through science!

See my brewing site at www.denardbrewing.com

See my Current Mead Making Techniques article here:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/current-mead-making-techniques.html
 
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