Originally posted by fatbloke
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Honey supplies and cost
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To most people solutions mean answers. To chemists solutions are things that are mixed up.
A fine wine is a fine wine, 1st time may be by accident, 2nd time is by design - that's why you keep notes.
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Originally posted by fatbloke View Postmaking a basic mead is a doddle. Whether it'll taste Ok is a different matter.....
regards
jtfb“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana!”
Groucho Marx
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That's the problem. Years ago I attended one of those medieval nights at an old house [big house] as a guest of the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post. I was given a drink that was called mead. Not sure if this liquid came up to J's standards. To me it was just a sickly, sweet beverage that I could well have done without - me, questioning alcohol ... oh dear.
You can imagine, this drink coloured my views somewhat.
When I see J blog so passionately about mead I just want to try it. Where do I begin? I have no benchmarks besides that night in Chester; one minute they called me 'my Lord', the next I thought they were trying to poison me.
I love honey. Just like ms67, the honey has a hard job getting past me and into a primary fermentation bucket.
I'd love to like mead; especially with my interests in the history of alcohol in the UK and Europe - and in the history of America [Canada and the USA] before the colonisation by Europeans.
I just wouldn't have anything to judge/compare it by/with - aside from whether I like it or not.Last edited by wisp; 21-03-2010, 10:58 AM.“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana!”
Groucho Marx
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Originally posted by wisp View PostTo me it was just a sickly, sweet beverage that I could well have done without - me, questioning alcohol ... oh dear.
You can imagine, this drink coloured my views somewhat.
As with all wines - you can make a dry version.
I have meads of varying degrees of sweetnes/dryness and they are all good. At least to me and mineLast edited by lockwood1956; 29-03-2010, 09:24 PM.Let's party
AKA Brunehilda - Last of the Valkaries
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Originally posted by wisp View PostThat's the problem. Years ago I attended one of those medieval nights at an old house [big house] as a guest of the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post. I was given a drink that was called mead. Not sure if this liquid came up to J's standards. To me it was just a sickly, sweet beverage that I could well have done without - me, questioning alcohol ... oh dear.
You can imagine, this drink coloured my views somewhat.
When I see J blog so passionately about mead I just want to try it. Where do I begin? I have no benchmarks besides that night in Chester; one minute they called me 'my Lord', the next I thought they were trying to poison me.
I love honey. Just like ms67, the honey has a hard job getting past me and into a primary fermentation bucket.
I'd love to like mead; especially with my interests in the history of alcohol in the UK and Europe - and in the history of America [Canada and the USA] before the colonisation by Europeans.
I just wouldn't have anything to judge/compare it by/with - aside from whether I like it or not.
If you dug through my blog, you might come across the rather un-scientific test I did on 4 different commercially made meads.
Apart from the one from Lindisfarne, the others were all just vineyards who obviously made meads on the side.
They were all, incredibly sweet, high gravity, "dessert" meads - I think the lowest one measured about 1035 and the highest was about 1045. They were all labelled as being 14% ABV.
So all you can really conclude, was that they were made quickly, and strong. To allow for heavy back sweetening to cover the medicinal alcohol hot flavour that is frequent from meads made like that.
Yes, it's fair to admit, I like my meads as medium i.e. about the 1010-1015 mark. Dry meads are very much an "acquired" taste IMO.
Then you only have to read over at gotmead to see what the differing techniques that are being used. Generally calculating gravity to allow for residual sugars/sweetness. Then mixing up to a very high gravity and then managing the ferment with aeration (up to and including the bubbling of pure O2 through an air stone) and staged addition of nutrients.
Then there's stuff like making one of the higher honey content Polish meads and if you're keeping the faith, ageing it as laid down in the Polish Government requirements etc - one of the types needs to be aged for something like 10 years.
Then if you factor in Cysers, Pyments, Melomels, Methyglins, etc etc etc you realise that mead practically died out here, because it can't be made as quickly as beer and most commercial type wines.
So it'd depend on what it is that you actually are expecting from a Mead.
As Jan pointed out, "if you like it, then it's good".
To work out what it is that you really like, you have to make some. allowing for different levels of honey and/or other ingredients. Just make a couple of gallons a year and make sure that it's rotated for it's racking/clearing/fining etc and once it gets there. Just stopper the DJ and put it somewhere safe/dark/cool/out of sight, out of mind etc for at least 12 months - or longer if you can.
As I said, dry meads are "acquired". Personally they've never done it for me. Though I might just be too impatient with them.......
regards
jtfb
p.s. You could always try that eastern European thing that's been floating around for a while..... vodka but flavoured with honey, then you get to get hammered while eating/drinking various honeys - the world in your oyster and only as varied as the number of different honeys your nearest decent honey dealer keeps......Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
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