Mead

captainshooch

I have only messed around with mead once. I was very disappointed at first, but it has been a while and I just tasted it and my oh my what a difference. Anybody ever make it, what type honey you used and how long before it was palatable. This was made with tupelo honey back in June 21, 2013. @Kapea, how about your opinion on mead?

startrk

I have a orange clover mead with a couple of vanilla beans thrown in. Mead is one of those things that needs at least 6 months to a year to even start to taste good.

Kapea

You cannot be in a hurry with mead. Make it and forget about it. Keep doing that on a regular basis and after a few years you will have a 1:1 thing going. Drink one, lay down a replacement.

It's kind of like whiskey that way - only oak barrels are optional.

That jug of mead is crystal clear @captainshooch!

CothermanDistilling

google: basic brewing radio david myers

listen to all the interviews... you can dramatically speed up the process without sacrificing quality by paying attention to nutrient requirements of the yeast during the ferment...

bonus one of the most widely enjoyed of my meads to date is from this process- google: basic brewing radio wine kit pyment

Kapea

Melomels (general name for all fruit containing meads) ferment out faster because most fruit contains plenty of yeast nutrients. It's the clearing and aging out of immature flavors that takes a while to accomplish. If you boil the fruit and set the pectin in high-pectin containing fruit, it may never clear.

Pineapple juice is high in natural pectinase (pectin reducing enzyme). A little fresh pineapple juice added to the ferment will reduce pectin haze.

Of course distilling is a great clarifier. No need to wait months to run mead brandy from a mead base.

CothermanDistilling

Pineapple... a friend with some serious brewing and meadmaking skills made Tepache one time... just chop a fresh one up and let it ferment in a sealed container...... tasty...

FloridaCracker

@CothermanDistilling said: Pineapple... a friend with some serious brewing and meadmaking skills made Tepache one time... just chop a fresh one up and let it ferment in a sealed container...... tasty...

These weren't fermented quite like that but they WILL be good. They are on sale now for just $2 each around here. Couldn't help but grab a few. Guess which ones were done first.

Kapea

Around here we call fermented pineapple juice "spike." Pineapples grow like weeds here. Pau Maui Vodka is made from pineapples.

Papayas have a shitload of pectin in them. One time I juiced up 50L of papaya juice and then realized that I had run out of pectinase. (If you don't add pectinase to papaya juice it will harden right up overnight.) A friend recommended fresh pineapple juice as a substitute. I have a pineapple patch, so I juiced one up, poured it in and it worked really well. Better than store-bought pectinase. Now I just use pineapple juice instead.

CothermanDistilling

that is an awesome nugget of information!