hist-brewing: more newbie questions :-)

[Kirsty Pollock]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-hist-brewing at rt.com [mailto:owner-hist-brewing at rt.com]On
> Behalf Of Lakey, Jeremy
> Sent: 25 October 1999 10:39
> To: hist-brewing at pbm.com
> Subject: hist-brewing: more newbie questions :-) 
> 
> 
> hehe tell me to shut up if I get too annoying here.. 
> 
> 1)  Irish Moss.  I like the idea of having something in there 
> to help my
> mead clear out, but since I don't see everyone using it, is 
> there a downside
> to using irish moss?


Never used it in mead, but then again I have never had mead-clearing
problems (so far!). I use it in beer and it seems to do 'what it says on the
tin' except you should maybe use a bit more than suggested, particularly for
small quantities (apparently you can't scale linearly from commercial
brewery quantities).

> 2)  Grolsch-style bottles.   Will these bottles take the pressure of a
> sparkling mead?

OOh, I'd like to know if you can use these - I have boxes and boxes of them
from somewhere...

> 3)  Sparkling vs Still Mead.  Is sparkling mead any better 
> than still, or is
> this just a personal preference type issue.   I don't care 
> for champagne
> over wine, but I do like my beer carbonated.   I guess the 
> question here is,
> is mead to be thought of as more a wine type beverage or a beer type
> beverage?

Personally, I had never even heard of sparkling mead (and I've been a
mead-drinker for 10 years) until searching fo new recipes on the 'net and
getting some american ones. I can't think of a commercially available
sparkling mead in the uk (though somebody will undoubtedly correct me) -
they are all wine strength and still.

Historically, there is some evidence that the preference has varied - I
recall a piece on why late Viking mead was likely to be the 'beer strength'
stuff for economic reasons.

I don't know anyone who actually likes sparkling mead, though this may be
just down to the weakness of the recipes.

KP

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