I wanted other folks' input before I PM a moderator.
AToE and I were commenting that maybe we need a way to indicate that the yeast is perhaps the most important part of what makes a mead Joe's Ancient Orange and there are WAY too many posts in the one thread with the recipe to expect everyone to have read and remember all of it and the search tool won't take you to which one of the 50 pages you want, some quick references might be a nice thing to do since it's such an awesome recipe, and if I see something I can fix, I try to helo... and the other day someone asked, "What is JAO?" because of course it won't show up on the searches because it's only three letters. So I checked the glossary and it's not there either.
I noticed that the FAQ from the NewBee guide , which we still recommend to everyone, doesn't appear to match the FAQ if I click on the white FAQ heading from the forums... maybe the Newbee Guide FAQ should be redirected to the forum FAQ?
I found a reference to JAO in the Newbee FAQ asking if bread machine yeast would work but nothing about "what happens if I use wine yeast instead of bread yeast in JAO" but a search in the forum FAQ on "Joe's Ancient yeast" yielded nothing.
I'd like to suggest 1) that we make an entry in the glossary for JAO/Joe's Ancient Orange Mead which refers directly to the recipe, not the impossibly long thread...
and 2) that we have an entry in the FAQ that explains why changing the yeast makes so much of a difference. My proposed text:
Q "Can I use wine yeast instead of Fleischmann's bread yeast in Joe's Ancient Orange Mead (JAO or JAOM)?"
A "If you use a wine yeast, you are not making Joe's Ancient Orange Mead (JAO or JAOM), you are making a spiced orange melomel. There are two big differences between the bread yeast and most wine yeasts - the wine yeasts will take this must closer to dry while the bread yeast will poop out at 10-12% alcohol and leave residual sugar, and the bread yeast is well-suited to pitching dry into a high-gravity (very sweet) must, whereas wine yeasts don't tolerate this as well.
The Joe's Ancient Orange Mead recipe is based on the balance of sweetness from honey to acidity from the orange juice and fermentation byproducts, and bitterness from the pith, and most have found that though it's very nice early when it's sweet, it's not very nice if it's gone too dry, either from skimping on honey or using a yeast with a higher alcohol tolerance than bread yeast. This is why changing the yeast is the most significant way to "void the warranty".
Or perhaps alternately, we could put a new sticky JAO recipe thread that's got its own FAQ on various substitutions (maybe a post for each ingredient?) but is otherwise closed and maybe has a link to the impossibly long one.
Comments, thoughts, admonishments? ;D
AToE and I were commenting that maybe we need a way to indicate that the yeast is perhaps the most important part of what makes a mead Joe's Ancient Orange and there are WAY too many posts in the one thread with the recipe to expect everyone to have read and remember all of it and the search tool won't take you to which one of the 50 pages you want, some quick references might be a nice thing to do since it's such an awesome recipe, and if I see something I can fix, I try to helo... and the other day someone asked, "What is JAO?" because of course it won't show up on the searches because it's only three letters. So I checked the glossary and it's not there either.
I noticed that the FAQ from the NewBee guide , which we still recommend to everyone, doesn't appear to match the FAQ if I click on the white FAQ heading from the forums... maybe the Newbee Guide FAQ should be redirected to the forum FAQ?
I found a reference to JAO in the Newbee FAQ asking if bread machine yeast would work but nothing about "what happens if I use wine yeast instead of bread yeast in JAO" but a search in the forum FAQ on "Joe's Ancient yeast" yielded nothing.
I'd like to suggest 1) that we make an entry in the glossary for JAO/Joe's Ancient Orange Mead which refers directly to the recipe, not the impossibly long thread...
and 2) that we have an entry in the FAQ that explains why changing the yeast makes so much of a difference. My proposed text:
Q "Can I use wine yeast instead of Fleischmann's bread yeast in Joe's Ancient Orange Mead (JAO or JAOM)?"
A "If you use a wine yeast, you are not making Joe's Ancient Orange Mead (JAO or JAOM), you are making a spiced orange melomel. There are two big differences between the bread yeast and most wine yeasts - the wine yeasts will take this must closer to dry while the bread yeast will poop out at 10-12% alcohol and leave residual sugar, and the bread yeast is well-suited to pitching dry into a high-gravity (very sweet) must, whereas wine yeasts don't tolerate this as well.
The Joe's Ancient Orange Mead recipe is based on the balance of sweetness from honey to acidity from the orange juice and fermentation byproducts, and bitterness from the pith, and most have found that though it's very nice early when it's sweet, it's not very nice if it's gone too dry, either from skimping on honey or using a yeast with a higher alcohol tolerance than bread yeast. This is why changing the yeast is the most significant way to "void the warranty".
Or perhaps alternately, we could put a new sticky JAO recipe thread that's got its own FAQ on various substitutions (maybe a post for each ingredient?) but is otherwise closed and maybe has a link to the impossibly long one.
Comments, thoughts, admonishments? ;D