[Fwd: hist-brewing: MEAD]

[brokk]

brokk wrote:

> Greetings Ninkasi and welcome to the list.....
> About the passage on bread yeast in your message, where you say it
> will ferment meads but not give a good alcohol content....what would
> that mean ?  8% ? 13% ?  I know it all boils down to taste when final
> judgement comes but I'm curious since I've made all my mead batches
> with bread yeast and never had any trouble getting them into the
> 13-15% range, but I must confess that I mostly go for slightly lower,
> 8-10% or so.
>
> However, I have come across the problem with them clouding up the
> meads and it sure takes a long time to get out, but I try to let my
> meads mature for at least 9 monts or so (i'm not a very patient man).
>
> One final question....Has anyone matured a mead in an oak barrel ?  I
> can get hold of a 1.5 UK gallon one for a good price but since I
> hardly ever make any wine I'm not sure it's worth it.
> Any opinions out there ?  (silly question, I know)
>
> Angus MacIomhair.
>
> judy wrote:
>
>>   Hello all,     I am new to this list and I'm not quite sure how to
>> use this form.  My Name is Ninkasi (the one that brews)  mka
>> Judy.    I am a wine and beer Judge.  I have also won many gold
>> medals, blue ribbons and trophys for my meads.  So I just figured I
>> put my 2 cents in.  Temperature has alot to do with how fast your
>> mead will ferment.   At hot temps it ferments fast.  Cold temps it
>> ferments slow.  sometimes to cold of a temp will stop the
>> fermentation,  I know I've done it. colder temps also take much
>> longer to ferment.  Hot temps on the other hand will ferment real
>> fast.  I"ve learned over the 20 something years that I've been
>> making wine and meads you don't want a high temp, it gives the mead
>> a funny taste to it. Almost a sherry taste. Also yeast does make the
>> diffrence.  Wild yeast you take a chance of a vinegar spore taking
>> over, bread yeast will ferment but you don't get a good alchohol
>> content and it will cloud up your mead and will have a yeasty taste
>> to it and it will be sweet.  beer yeast, well it only ferments to
>> about 9% before the alcohol will kill off the yeast.  Wine yeast
>> will ferment your mead dry up to 20%  of course you can't preserve a
>> 9% as long as a 20% mead.   I also believe mead had a lower alcohol
>> content and was sweeter in the 1500,  Lack of specialized yeast.
>> They used bread yeast and also wild yeast.  I hope this has helped
>> some.Ninkasi/Judy http://users.southeast.net/~judyjudy@leading.net
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.pbm.com/pipermail/hist-brewing/attachments/19990708/fb7e50c6/attachment-0002.htm