Mead and Cider (and Peary too) Mmmmm

[jkane]

The honey is collected for the year. The cherries and raspberries have been collected and were stored in the freezer. Apples are almost all picked. Pears are also picked. The cranberries are ready for fermentation too.

No, this is not a fruit salad! It is time to ferment the year's harvests. :-)

Everyone likely knows what Cider is, so no details. It is fermented apple juice.

Mead is what you get when ferment honey. It is the traditional drink of the Norse Gods. It is also the tradition that created the concept of a honey moon. For the first "moon" (28 days) of a marriage, the couple is to drink mead (made from honey) and copulate each day. This ensures that the first born will be strong and healthy! It also helps to relax new bride sometimes. ;)

Cyser is a mix of honey and apple juice!

Peary is a mix of honey and pear juice. This is a new one to us. I learned a lesson. I hate pressing pears! They are so soft and slimy, it took 2 hours to get just 15 gallons of pear juice! In the next 2 hours we pressed 65 gallons of apple juice! Much faster. Now I know why it is so hard to find farm fresh pressed pear juice.

Here is what I have fermenting in the carboys (glass containers like 5 gallon water jugs).

Peary - 4.5 gallons of pear juice and 8 lbs of clover-thistle honey
Cyser - 4.5 gallons of apple juice and 8 lbs of clover honey
Black Raspberry Cider - 5 gallons of apple juice and 9 lbs of black raspberries
Sweet Sac Mead - 4 gallons of water and 22 lbs of "pine tree" honey
I plan to add wormwood, anise, and fennel after it is done fermenting.
Like an absinthe flavored mead.
Cherry Mead - 14 lbs sour cherries, 15 lbs of cranberry blossom honey, and 3.5 gallons of water

Some 1 gallon experiments with different honey's.
Raw Mead - 3 lbs of the "pine" honey and 3 quarts of water
The pine honey was made when the bees were very busy in the pine trees.
It is very caramely in flavor.
Black Locust Mead - 3 lbs of black locust honey and 3 quarts of water
Cranberry Blossom Mead - 3 lbs of cranberry blossom honey and 3 qts of water
Agave "Mead" 3 lbs of Agave Syrup and 3 quarts of water
Technically not a mead without honey, but a test to see what it tastes like.
Agave is what Tequila is made from if it were distilled.

Our big 10 gallon fruit fermenter is busy with the cherry mead starting right now. After that, in a week or 2, we will start the cranberry.

Cranberry Mead - 20 lbs of cranberries 15 lbs black locust honey and 4 gallons of water

The house smells wonderful with the yeasty aroma's. :-)

Fruit meads like the cherry and cranberry are called Melomels. A Sac mead is very high in alcohol. A spiced or herbed one, which the Sac will be when it's done, is called a Metheglin. (End of today's mead lesson.)

Every year in September, we join a bunch of others (at least 4 of us are kilted) and drink last year's meads, which we each make and share. We drink out of a "mead horn". It is passed around and each person drinks while standing in a circle. After they drink, they toast to the Norse Gods with by raising the horn high and yelling Yo-Ho in what every tone they feel fits their level of satisfaction for that particular mead sample.

There is one more tradition ... the women are in charge of the mead circle. They are tasked with keeping people in a nice round circle. They are required to taste every time the horn goes around also. The last woman standing, at what ever time it is the next day, after everyone else is passed out, gets crowned and the title of Mead Horn Queen. My wife has held that title for about 6 years in a row now. She even tried to give it away this year, but the other women were either giving up while still able to stand before midnight, or passed out by 1 AM. She's my gal! I love her.

We did start a new wine too, but that doesn't count. It is a Merlot. Like the bad stepchild, it is not allowed near all the meads and ciders! ;)

[Heming]

Mmm... I'm drooling now..

What's tour yeast source? I'm having trouble finding good yeast stems for mead...

[NewGuise]

Sounds like far too much for a single household. Please ship one or two of those carboys of mead to me a soon as possible (unless of course you'd rather just ship the final product - I'm easy).

[jkane]

Wyeast is a company in the US. The past couple of years I have been using their liquid smack packs. They have a dry and a sweet mead yeast. I didn't find a difference in them yet. They also have a cider yeast we are trying out this year.

Not sure if they would ship out of the US. I have used Northern Brewer and Midwest Homebrewing Supplies. Both ship to me pretty quickly. I am in Wisconsin which is the next state away from them.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewin...weet-mead.html
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/produ...x?SubCat=11123

Many people use dry yeasts and are happy with them. EC1118, BM45, and 71B are popular ones. I think it was the 71B I used in the past.

[Heming]

We do get wyeast over here, mostly ale yeast though. I had one pack of the dry mead one and haven't found another in years. Did make for excellent mead, though. And potent, too.

[GMan]

Sounds wonderful!

[NewEnglander]

Excellent, sir. I plan on picking up some fresh apple cider at the farmers' market this weekend and see if I can ferment it. I tried a cyser last year and ended up with a thin, sour beverage. I'm hoping that a year of homebrewing under my kilt belt will help me come through with a decent cider. Recipes welcome...

[jkane]

Fresh cider is important. I mean no more than a couple days since pressing. If you can get it the same day even better! Wild yeast and or bacteria also love to eat the sugar, so you want to start your yeast going soon. Pasteurized will effect the flavor. Get some that is treated with UV instead of pasteurization. Better yet, find a farmer, and get some before he does anything to it!

Make sure you have a good yeast starter. If using liquid yeast, have it going for a couple days before you get the juice. If you are using dry yeast, do the proof on it by adding warm water and seeing it start to bubble. If it does not bubble, then add another pack until it does.

A good yeast starter will ensure the right yeast does the fermentation. That is the key to preventing sourness. So is using sweet apples, and not sour ones. (DUH!) A good blend of apples make a better cider.

Body is tough in cider. I have not done much with body in a cider. I doubt something like maltodextrin is "allowed", but you could add it and not tell anyone you did. Someone told me to use D-47 or CY3079 yeast and stir weekly in the secondary to create glycerin for more body. I have not tried that yet.

Cider is so easy! No real recipe. Just a container with unfiltered and unpasteurized apple cider in it (the very definition of cider versus apple juice is the filtering), and add some yeast. Make sure you have a decent wine, mead, or cider yeast. Don't use beer or bread yeasts. I always add a little tannin and of course some yeast nutrient and energizer to make it happier. That's really it. My only problem is the alcohol is too low with just apple juice. I can't bring myself to add sugar, so have to just live with a dry finish and low alcohol (5-8%). Cyser is much preferred where I can add honey to kick the original gravity (potential for alcohol) up a little.

[lethearen]

That's an impressive undertaking! I never made more than 10 gallons of mead at a time... I can't imagine how much room this operation is taking!

Wyeast was what I used, too. The only difference I've noted in the dry vs sweet mead yeast is that the dry has a higher alcohol tolerance - meaning it'll ferment down further than the sweet will (eating more sugar, making it "drier"). Alcohol kills yeast, so if the fermentation finishes sooner, the mead will theoretically be sweeter.

The sweet mead has a alcohol tolerance of like 11%, and the dry has a tolerance around 18%, IIRC. The sweet mead is also supposed to impart a fruitier flavour, but I've never compared the two side-by-side with identical batches, so I couldn't say.

[lethearen]

Oh, and I've heard of people using champagne yeast (either Wyeast or Red Star) to good results.