Okay, People...

wildoates · Oct 30, 2009

...I'm on leave and am consequently spending a lot more time in front of my computer than I usually do, but c'mon! You guys just aren't posting enough to keep me busy! I keep coming to GotMead and seeing "no unread posts" message, which clearly means everyone else is spending entirely too much time on real life and not enough time here, entertaining me with their brewing exploits. It's got to stop. I can spend only so much time on Facebook, ya know, so get posting.

;D

akueck · Oct 30, 2009

Facebook scrabble is quite fun.

You know, this is the perfect time to start planning a regional mead gathering. We could get one of those tasting kits for picking out the different flaws, and a components tasting, maybe a varietal honey tasting too. All sorts of logistics to work out. Chop chop!

wildoates · Oct 30, 2009

Hmmm...I've never done that before, but it sounds like fun!

Got a link for suggestions how to put it together?

Arcanum · Oct 30, 2009

Hey, if you've got so much free time on your hands, why aren't you doing more brewing and meadmaking?

wildoates · Oct 30, 2009

Well, I can't lift things at the moment (post surgery), and I need more honey.

I do have some tasting/racking to do as soon as I feel good enough to boss my daughter around to lift and step and fetch for me. Which will be soon...very soon.

socpsy · Oct 30, 2009

wildoates said:
...I'm on leave and am consequently spending a lot more time in front of my computer than I usually do, but c'mon! You guys just aren't posting enough to keep me busy! I keep coming to GotMead and seeing "no unread posts" message, which clearly means everyone else is spending entirely too much time on real life and not enough time here, entertaining me with their brewing exploits.

;D

I only have a couple of mead projects going right now and one of them is just a 1gal test.

How about a little softshoe for entertainment?

Displaced Hick · Oct 30, 2009

All I have going right now is bulk aging and one braggot that is probably going to be bottled this weekend. Which means I will have a 3 gal carboy free so I can start on my cider.

socpsy · Oct 30, 2009

Displaced Hick said:
All I have going right now is bulk aging and one braggot that is probably going to be bottled this weekend. Which means I will have a 3 gal carboy free so I can start on my cider.

My second project is also a braggot. Five gallons to be bottled tomorrow!

Kee · Oct 30, 2009

Wildoats, have you planned your next couple batches? It usually takes me a bit of time to do the research and decide on just 'the one' recipe I want. Or maybe you can start a small 1 gallon. Any airlock blipping away is better than most things on TV. Maybe you can plan a 'fantasy meadery' for when you win the Powerball - even if you don't actually play the lottery.

wildoates · Oct 30, 2009

Plan?

I have two pounds of chocolate nibs that I plan to use in a batch, but I need to get some more honey before I do. I also want to make a cyser for next fall.

That's about the extent of my "planning."

FayLee · Oct 30, 2009

Ooooh, cyser, that sounds good. I'll be getting a five gallon bucket of honey from when my dad still kept bees when I go back to Oregon for Christmas. I think I'll do two one gallons, one plain honey and one cyser.

Fisher kel Tath · Oct 30, 2009

I wish I could find an apple cider (not juice, can't stand apple juice) that doesn't contain preservatives...

Kee · Oct 30, 2009

wildoates said:
I have two pounds of chocolate nibs that I plan to use in a batch, but I need to get some more honey before I do. I also want to make a cyser for next fall.

Yum! Will it be a plain chocolate mead or will you make a make a combo? Chocolate-berry or chocolate-chili? What flavors do you want from the yeast? Maybe more of a nutty flavor? Something else?

wildoates · Oct 31, 2009

Not chili, for sure. Maybe some cinnamon, perhaps vanilla...but I haven't though it through yet.

wildaho · Oct 31, 2009

As long as it's about mead and not what brings attention to you, Let It Be! John said: "Speaking Words Of Wisdom, Let It Be...."

wildaho · Oct 31, 2009

Fisher kel Tath said:
I wish I could find an apple cider (not juice, can't stand apple juice) that doesn't contain preservatives...

Fisher, I can go to my local grocery store and pick up both cider and juice (commercially, there is no difference). As long as there are no sulfites or sorbates, go ahead and use them. Most apple juices are pasteurized but very damned few of them have preservatives. You might find some Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) but little else. The Ascorbic Acid is there to enhance the tartness. It won't get in the way of your mead though.

Try this: pick up a bottle of both juice and cider from the same manufacturer. They name them different just because of the same bias that you have mentioned. They are still the same juice, just different names. As long as you don't see the words "sulfite" or "sorbate" in the ingredients list, you are golden.

:cheers:
Wade

akueck · Oct 31, 2009

wildaho said:
As long as you don't see the words "sulfite" or "sorbate" in the ingredients list, you are golden.

To that list add "benzoate".

And yes, cider and juice are the same thing (in the US)--squeezed apples. You can thank the temperance movement for screwing that up for us. In the rest of the world, "cider" denotes a fermented beverage. Personally I have adopted that convention. Only 300 million more people to convince and then we can fix the labeling in the supermarkets.

Fun story. In college I took my gf (now wife) out to a fancy dinner (in an old psych hospital now turned apt building...we had to be buzzed into the restaurant. weird!). We saw "French sparkling cider" on the wine list and being only 20 at the time figured that would be fun and thought it would be like French Martinelli's. They didn't card us but we were surprised to find that it did contain alcohol (about 2.5%). It was very good!

Fisher kel Tath · Oct 31, 2009

I disagree there is a texture and mouth feel difference between Cider(US) and Apple Juice.

akueck · Oct 31, 2009

wildoates said:
Hmmm...I've never done that before, but it sounds like fun!

Got a link for suggestions how to put it together?

Link? Ah, no. In my head I was thinking of something like "find a bottle of mead at BevMo or otherwise, and/or bring some varietal honey" and get some folks together and taste stuff. Who and when and how and where is your job.

Components tasting....in my wine class in college the first day we tasted two-component solutions like alcohol-water, sugar-water, tannin-water, acid-water, etc with typical concentrations of each non-water thing. Kind of like deconstructed wine. This way you can figure out the different perceptions of each thing so you can taste a real wine and say "ahh, that tingle comes from the acid component" or "this feels like tannin". Easy to do with mead too, you can pick several components that make up mead and mix up solutions for each. In fact you could probably use the same ones, though the acid blend for wine isn't quite right it will still give you an idea. You can also spike some wine/mead with flaws--add vinegar, let it oxidize overnight, etc and learn to identify those flaws when you know that is the only thing that should be wrong with them. You can buy kits to add things like acetaldehyde too. Fusels you could probably add if you spike it with some airlock-quality vodka, hehe.

akueck · Oct 31, 2009

Fisher kel Tath said:
I disagree there is a texture and mouth feel difference between Cider(US) and Apple Juice.

Certainly some manufacturers choose to include more of the "bits" in the stuff they label "cider" and keep the "juice" brilliantly clear. The problem is that this is not a standardized definition, and I personally have seen cloudy juice called "juice" and clear juice called "cider" though it usually is the other way around. As far as suitability for fermentation goes, both are equivalent with the exception that yeast are fond of turbidity so the bits usually found in "cider" may give you some benefit in terms of kinetics.

I just like to keep the term cider for the fermented beverage so that we can all agree that what comes out of a fruit when you squeeze it is "juice". Add yeast (or let it go on its own) and now we call it something else, like "cider" for apples, "perry" for pears, "wine" for grapes, etc. Ideally we would come up with another word for the cloudy juice vs. the clear juice, which for now I'll call "juice" and "clarified juice", respectively. Kind of clumsy, but I'm an engineer and we don't do clever names very well. I realize that this flies in the face of the last 100 years of fruit-squeezing nomenclature in the US, but hey I'm trying to start a revolution here.

Okay, People...

NewBee

Certified Mead Mentor

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

NewBee

Got Mead? Patron

Got Mead? Patron

Certified Mead Mentor

NewBee

Certified Mead Mentor

Certified Mead Mentor