4 ms·

Mead also seems to be very uncommon these days and is featured in The Hobbit. I’ve only tried one homebrew attempt of mead, but it tastes a bit like Western-sty

Mead also seems to be very uncommon these days and is featured in The Hobbit. I’ve only tried one homebrew attempt of mead, but it tastes a bit like Western-style konbucha mixed with honey.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> I’ve only tried one homebrew attempt of mead, but it tastes a bit like Western-style konbucha mixed with honey. That sounds like pretty bad mead; most I've had has been more like brandy than kombucha.
mikekchar 8y ago
I've made mead a few times. I friend of mine was a really good mead maker. There are a couple of tricks. First, don't use yeast nutrient -- it affects the flavour. Also unless you are making a melomel, don't add and acid to balance it. Mead tastes best straight. Mead will ferment out completely dry, so if you want any residual sweetness, choose an OG and yeast so that the yeast will quit. For example, you can use a neutral ale yeast and an OG of 1070 or 1080 and you will get residual sweetness. If you use a champagne yeast, then you need a huge OG to get any residual sweetness (it will ferment out to 15%) so you need something like 1130 or higher. Honey has a surprisingly strong flavour, so start out with a lower gravity, sweeter version to start with. I've used the Wyeast sweet mead yeast before and it was really wonderful, but I seem to remember using 1056 and having it work out nicely as well. Sometimes because of the acid balance and lack of nutrients, the mead fermentation will stall or finish early. That's just the way it goes. Give it lots and lots of time. I had one that took 2 years to ferment out and even then it wasn't quite done. I ended up with a really wonderful (if serendipitous) sparkling sweet mead. Do a primary fermentation in a large vessel, but while it is still off gassing, transfer it to a smaller vessel with a small amount of headspace (a small carbouy or soda keg is perfect). If you have soda kegs, it's nice to presurise the tank a bit after racking, then bleed it off and finally put in an airlock. This will get rid of the oxygen. Do a bulk secondary for as long as you can (even 1 to 2 years is not unreasonable). Personally, I like a little bit of autolysis flavour in my mead -- a bit like good champagne. Mead ages very, very well. As long as the bottles don't have excess oxygen, you can age them for many years and they just get better over time. If you have a dry mead, you can bottle condition it to get a sparkling mead and I highly recommend it. I can kind of see the konbucha reference, but I suspect that you probably used a recipe with a lot of adjuncts. That's not bad, but I recommend trying a straight mead if you can. I love mead, but I have not once tried a commercial mead that was any good -- at least compared to what my friend used to make and a few good batches that I made with his advice. I'd love to make a mead here in Japan, but it illegal and also 500g of local honey costs between $10-$20! I think legally I'm allowed to make 1 liter, so I could probably afford that ;-)

Mead also seems to be very uncommon these days and is featured in The Hobbit. I’ve only tried one homebrew attempt of mead, but it tastes a bit like Western-style konbucha mixed with honey.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> I’ve only tried one homebrew attempt of mead, but it tastes a bit like Western-style konbucha mixed with honey. That sounds like pretty bad mead; most I've had has been more like brandy than kombucha.

mikekchar 8y ago

I've made mead a few times. I friend of mine was a really good mead maker. There are a couple of tricks. First, don't use yeast nutrient -- it affects the flavour. Also unless you are making a melomel, don't add and acid to balance it. Mead tastes best straight. Mead will ferment out completely dry, so if you want any residual sweetness, choose an OG and yeast so that the yeast will quit. For example, you can use a neutral ale yeast and an OG of 1070 or 1080 and you will get residual sweetness. If you use a champagne yeast, then you need a huge OG to get any residual sweetness (it will ferment out to 15%) so you need something like 1130 or higher. Honey has a surprisingly strong flavour, so start out with a lower gravity, sweeter version to start with. I've used the Wyeast sweet mead yeast before and it was really wonderful, but I seem to remember using 1056 and having it work out nicely as well. Sometimes because of the acid balance and lack of nutrients, the mead fermentation will stall or finish early. That's just the way it goes. Give it lots and lots of time. I had one that took 2 years to ferment out and even then it wasn't quite done. I ended up with a really wonderful (if serendipitous) sparkling sweet mead. Do a primary fermentation in a large vessel, but while it is still off gassing, transfer it to a smaller vessel with a small amount of headspace (a small carbouy or soda keg is perfect). If you have soda kegs, it's nice to presurise the tank a bit after racking, then bleed it off and finally put in an airlock. This will get rid of the oxygen. Do a bulk secondary for as long as you can (even 1 to 2 years is not unreasonable). Personally, I like a little bit of autolysis flavour in my mead -- a bit like good champagne. Mead ages very, very well. As long as the bottles don't have excess oxygen, you can age them for many years and they just get better over time. If you have a dry mead, you can bottle condition it to get a sparkling mead and I highly recommend it. I can kind of see the konbucha reference, but I suspect that you probably used a recipe with a lot of adjuncts. That's not bad, but I recommend trying a straight mead if you can. I love mead, but I have not once tried a commercial mead that was any good -- at least compared to what my friend used to make and a few good batches that I made with his advice. I'd love to make a mead here in Japan, but it illegal and also 500g of local honey costs between $10-$20! I think legally I'm allowed to make 1 liter, so I could probably afford that ;-)