Experiment: Boil v. No Boil (Part 2)

pH as a function of time (hrs). Nutrients added at
roughly 24, and 82hrs.

It's data and conclusion time! (or partial conclusions)

Boil
OG: 1.1080 --> FG: 1.0025
pH 5.60 --> pH 3.56

No Boil
OG: 1.1080 --> FG: 1.0015
pH 5.33 --> pH 3.56

Both fermentations were held within 1C of 20C (both had peaks of 21C @ 92hrs from pitch, right around the pH stabilizing). Nutrient additions and aeration were determined by gravity reading, not time after pitch.

Specific gravity as a function of time. Nutrients
added at roughly 24, and 82hrs; aerated at
roughly 24, 44, 58, 68, and 82hrs.

Unfortunately, the data points were not as close as I would have liked, but life gets in the way of things.

Nutrients were added at roughly 24 and 82 hours after pitch, showing a slight change in slope in the gravity graph, and a 'bump' in the pH graph (the other 'bump' in the pH graph at ~44hrs seems to correlate to aeration).

It is clear that the yeast are active well before a drop in gravity, this is shown by the drop in pH before ~24hrs (when a drop in gravity was first detected). This corresponds to the acclimation period which yeast go through commonly called the 'lag phase'; it would seem that instead of active sugar metabolism, they are more concerned with making an adequate environment for themselves at this point.

As to the differences, it would seem that the boiled must had a higher pH throughout the process until the end of fermentation. This is contrary to common belief that boiling (and skimming) reduces the buffering capacity of mead musts, however, this may be an outlier as the honeys chosen for the must composition do naturally have higher mineral and ash contents than other honeys (avocado and lychee are particularly rich in both, the brazilian pepper had a very high pollen content, and the beach plants have a higher mineral concentration than average (White Jr)).
Also the boiled mead fermented a little faster (about 2 days, though the data is not accurate to the hour, hence it's non-inclusion in the graphs).

Both have been cold crashed for 2 weeks at 5C, and have been treated with sulfites (an addition of 1 campden (Kmeta) was added to each gallon container, this method was chosen for its prevalence throughout the mead and winemaking community). They will age for another 9mos before being racked and bottled. Bottle aging will be in 12oz beer bottles with O2 absorbing caps, and evaluation will be held at several points in their lifetimes (hopefully ~1yr, 2yr, and 3yr, but we'll see).

I'm going to start tweeting links to new posts; that way, instead of nobody checking to see if I have a new post up, no one can follow me on twitter to see if I have a new post up!  @BOB_1and_only is my twitter thing (I think it's a "handle"). If I sound like the robot from the hitchhikers guide than it's working; not that anyone cares. ;)

Mead: Etymology Part 1

I have a fascination with linguistics, particularly etymology. So instead of the standard "here is how to say mead in 20+ languages", I'd like to take you on a journey through the Indo-European language family via a single word: *med^hu.
First a quick note on some linguistic things. The * means that the word is reconstructed, meaning "we don't really know, but this is a very, very, very good guess that a few dozen people, with a few dozen letters following each of their names, have come up with using historical linguistic techniques (like comparative analysis, and internal reconstruction)". A proto language" is a hypothesized language that would account for similarities between several other languages; strictly speaking it is the youngest language that contains traits of several members of a language family or subfamily.
Proto-Indo-Eutopean (PIE) is the hypothetical language that led to all Indo-European languages; it was probably highly inflected, and would have had a considerable number of crossover words that could have meant the same (or similar) thing(s). Over time, PIE broke apart (probably into dialects which would later represent individual proto languages) and formed different branches of the Indo-European language family, which in turn broke into further classifications or became extinct.

This diagram represents the Centum languages in the Indo European language family; what one might consider the "european" groups. The gray/grey areas are proto-languages for which we have reconstructed words. The yellow/gold indicate languages for which the word listed means mead (or honeyed, sweet, alcoholic drink). Note that the Mycenaean language is in teal due to the fact that the liner B script used to write their language was borrowed (probably from the minoans) and does not fully account for the sounds of their language (ma-tu-wo could have been spoken as matuw, matwo, matuwo, or any number of variations). 

*méd^hu vs *mélid 

All three of these words could have been used to describe what one harvested from a beehive (honey).

*mélid  survived to specifically mean honey in many branches of the language family (greek, celtic languages,  italic languages, anatolian languages, and even germanic languages usually evolving into the word mildew (I have no f**king clue why!)). 

Mead/Wine/Drunk(eness/ard)

It is interesting to see that the etymological root word *méd^hu came to mean a number of things. In it's original form from PIE, it may have meant any drink made with, or having a honey-like flavor, but also could have specifically meant mead (I could describe sauternes as *méd^hu, but I would not call it that as it's name (adjective vs noun sort of idea)).

In hellenic languages it came to mean wine by the time of Old Ionic, and by modern it means drunkenness, and stands in ablaut relation to the word that means drunkard. It also stands as the root for the words that come to mean methanol, methylene, methyl, and methane.

Of very interesting note is the complete disappearance of this word from the italic languages, only for them to re-invent a word for it. I could list theories and cite shady evidence, but it does no good to do so. It is more interesting to see the word that the italic languages use for mead: 'water' + 'honey'. Note that I do not say 'water-honey' as a single idea, if that were the case Spanish, French, Portuguese and Catalan would all have similar phonology (sounds), instead of the obvious translation of 'water' + 'honey'. 

The Germanic and Celtic languages preserve this word and the meaning almost in its entirety. Mjothr, mid, mead, met, meede and medd all descend (rather obviously) form the same historical root, *méd^hu, and all preserve the meaning of fermented honey, regardless of how rare the term is, or how niche the word in their respective cultures (with the older ones probably retaining it's use more than the surviving ones).

Mead making rules

Here are some rules for the hobby of mead making. They're in no particular order, and don't take precedence over one another, with the exception of rules 1, 2, and 10 (with 10 being the most important).

1. You must talk about mead making. 
It is vital to spread the word about the hobby, and educate others about mead: the culture, art, taste, versatility, and general awesomeness. It is also very important to recruit other mead makers, not only to grow the hobby, but for your own education; by teaching others, we can learn more than by working in seclusion. A student can have a unique perspective that can induce our own creativity and break us from the binds of dogmatism.

2. You must talk about mead making! 
Just do it. Go to your homebrew club, join GotMead, or other forums. Go . . .  do!

3. Thoroughly clean and sanitize everything. 
Keep in mind that sanitizing is different than sterilizing; the goal of sanitizing is to reduce the cell concentration (CFU/mL) of potentially harmful microorganisms, not rid them entirely. There is a balancing act involved in this: if you don't pasteurize your must (boiling or lower temps), you have more CFU/mL than a must that was sanitized, and may want to be more diligent in your sanitation practices pre fermentation (longer contact times with sanitizer etc). Never think that your equipment is sterile, it's not, just think in terms of concentration of cells and you'll make the better judgements. Also, make sure everything is cleaned before sanitizing (and that the detergents used for cleaning are thoroughly rinsed or neutralized).

4. Patience is more than a virtue, it's a requirement! 
There are several ways to make a mead that is drinkable early in its life, but almost all mead benefits from some aging time. This is easy if you have a few cases in stock that are ready to drink, but to those who don't have that, utilize those quick mead recipes to quench your thirst while you wait for your other batches to age (or brew some beer, comparatively, it's much faster to drink). If you don't have patience mead making will teach it to you!

5. Mead making is not brewing, nor is it entirely wine making. 
There are principles that can be applied from both disciplines, but mead making is unique and breaks certain rules of brewing and winemaking.

6. Get in there, and be involved! 
Sensory analysis, that's what this rule is about. Taste and smell as often as possible: during fermentation, when your aerating, smell it; when you pull gravity samples, smell and taste; when you rack, smell and taste; during aging, every few months, smell and taste; when bottling, smell and taste; set some bottles aside (12oz work great) and preform a thorough tasting at 6, 12, 18, 24 months and longer.

7. Be creative. 
Try new things, and see how they work. Make a to-brew list, but be warned that you will never work your way through it (and if you do, you aren't being creative enough).
8. Avail yourself of local resources.
This is a hard one for me as I love berries and they don't grow well here in south florida; even though I have access to hundreds of varieties of mangos, and rare fruits that most have never heard of, I would love to have access to truly fresh blackberries and raspberries. Take advantage of unique honey varietals (avocado, saw palm, Brazilian pepper, mangrove, and mango in my case), that are local, or unique fruits (or herbs) that are grown in your region.

9. It's your mead, make what you like! 
If you like your mead to be full of mercaptan thiols and disulfides, who am I to argue. I won't have a glass, but it's not my mead. Once you have tasted other meads (via rules 1 and 2), you'll begin to understand what you like in a mead, and if it's something that others don't like, oh well; but do not think that your mead is the pinnacle of mead making if you have such strange tastes, be aware that others may not like what you do.

10. Have fun! 
Find what you enjoy most about the hobby, and guide yourself to doing that the most. If you really like experimenting, experiment; if it's the process of fermentation, get in there and enjoy it; if it's tasting, utilize rule 6 a lot. Just have fun and enjoy the hobby.

Some Brix Curves

 Here. . . have some brix curves. The ones to the right show three different musts fermented with the same yeast. I can't draw very much from these because they are single data sets; I wish I had them in triplicate to see if there are any trends, but I don't. Also note that I don't have data for the final parts of fermentation (<6*Bx), but they all slow compared to the main part, without dragging on for ever.

Below we have 5 ferments, 2 palm, 2 orange blossom, and 1 brazilian pepper (AKA Christmasberry). The original plan was to have 2 of each kind of honey, one with a control yeast (D21 here), and the other a different yeast, but life gets in the way, and I needed some honey for a bochet in a pinch (the brazilian pepper worked nicely).

All 5 have the exact same recipe except for the honeys and yeasts: same additives, nutrient schedule, fermentation temps, pitching rates, gravity (original and final), etc.. They are all getting some sur lie treatment right now and should be coming into their own by next winter.

These aren't perfect data sets, and can't tell much, but they do show the general shape of a healthy ferment. Some have faster drops, others slower, some have longer lag phases, and some finish fast and others slow (though none were too prolonged).

The recipe can be found on this GotMead thread, but it does require Patron status on GotMead (which any serious meadmaker should have anyways!).

Mead Recipes for NewBees

Hah, see what I did there? NewBee, because it's mead, . . . get it?
Ok, enough humor back to work.
Here are 3 recipes that can be made as your first mead. Hopefully you are aware of the cleaning and sanitizing involved, but here is a reminder:
Anything that touches the mead needs to be clean (no dirt, or anything else)
Anything that touches the mead needs to be sanitized
Anything that touches anything that will touch the mead needs to be sanitized
Once sanitized, don't put objects down, unless you want to resanitize them
Don't rinse after sanitizing (unless the water is sanitized, read boiled)
Dry things by hanging them upside down for a few minutes, but they really don't need to be too dry
Sanitize everything
Sanitize again
And sanitize again

Once you get that in your head, it's time to choose a recipe. There are many, but these present good starting points, each with a unique person in mind.

JAOM
Joe's ancient orange mead/melomel/methaglyn
This has been around for a while, and is the recipe many meadmakers first use to get into the hobby. Developed by Joe Mattioli as a simple, tasty recipe that new meadmakers can make and enjoy without much effort or equipment.


Recipe:
3.5lbs honey (whatever you want, even store bought, ultra filtered junk)
1 orange (not navel)
1 stick of cinnamon
1-2 cloves
25 raisins (a handful, more or less)
1 tsp fleismanns bread yeast (not old, make sure their still alive: try baking some bread with it)
Put honey in glass 1gal jug and dissolve with some warm water
Cut orange into pieces (including rind, pith and everything else), and put in jug
Add spices and raisins
Fill with water leaving 3 inches for foam
Shake the heck out of it
When room temp, add yeast
Airlock and keep in dark, warmish (70-80F) place (cabinets work well)
Don't touch it at all! No feeding, racking, shaking, don't even look at it cross!
It's done when the fruit drops to the bottom and there is a clear layer of mead on top (9-12 weeks)

This recipe follows a sort of warranty: if you mess with it, change anything, give it too much attention, anything, and it didn't work . . . I'll quote joe "If it didn't work out then take up another hobby. Mead is not for you. It is too complicated."
With that being said, a few people (myself included) don't care for the flavor of this mead. It's sweet, phenolic, pithy, and just no my thing; however, it is a technically good mead, it has some balance, no off overt flavors, and complexity. It's similar to white Zinfandel: you may like it or not, but it is (usually) made OK, it's just not your thing.
Warranty aside, there are many variations of this mead that do work.
You can swap the fruit:
12oz frozen blackberries
2 tangelos
Lemon (zest and pulp only)
Dates instead of raisins
2lbs frozen blueberries

Or you could change the spices:
2-4 allspice berries
A pinch of nutmeg
A sliver of ginger
1 Vanilla bean
1 star anise

You could try different honeys as well, but their flavors tend to get covered.
This should give you some ideas for making JAO style meads. If JAOM is something you really like, you can spend years working out different variations of it and build quite a collection.

BOMM
Bray's one month mead
This was developed by GotMead member loveofrose (Bray) over several trials to attain a simple, traditional mead recipe that was easy, and reproducible. It uses some of the techniques that a regular traditional uses (SNA, multiple aerations, sample taking), but is a more forgiving mead than the average traditional; it also ages faster. This follows the same warranty idea as JAOM: if you deviate from the recipe, don't complain about bad results. The thing that sets this mead apart from the average traditional is the yeast; after several tests to find a suitable yeast, Bray settled on wyeast 1388, a belgian ale yeast. This may seem strange as most meads are made with wine yeast, except the few brewers who use beer yeast, but belgian strains are POF+ (meaning they produce phenolics) as are most wine yeast, and they produce more esters than most other beer yeast. In fact, belgian yeast strains seem to be closer to wine yeast than normal brewers yeast (except for their ability to ferment maltotriose and easily ferment maltose which is lost in the isolation process of wine yeast), but they don't require as much age as the average wine yeast will.
This is the recipe I suggest for most people starting out as it is easy, fast drinking (and quite tasty), but will teach you some techniques that will be used throughout the hobby.


Recipe:
Start with a gallon of spring water
Remove 1/2 cup (to compensate for the volume of the smack pack)
Draw a line on the jug at this water level
Remove 3.2 cups (757mL) of water
Add honey back to line (~2.4lbs)
Add 1/4 tsp (1.225g) DAP and 1/2 tsp (2.3g) Fermaid K
-Add these nutrients again when the gravity is at 1.064, and 1.032.
Add 1/4 tsp (0.825g) potassium bicarbonate
Shake mixture until homogenous
Add activated Wyeast 1388 smack pack (left for >2hr to swell)
Cover loosely
Shake daily until done (1 week)
Add airlock after fermentation is complete (1 week)
Allow to clear (3-4 weeks)
Rack, then decide: drink, age, backsweeten, what ever you wish to do.
Don't worry about the weight of the additives unless you are scaling up the recipe, volume measure work fine for small batches.
There are some variations that Bray and a few other mead makers have been working on, and I'll probably do a separate post for modified BOMMs.

Standard Traditional
This is not as easy as JAOM or BOMM, but if you have experience making wine or brewing it is not that difficult. The benefit with starting with a traditional like this is that it will teach you all the right things to do so you don't have to unlearn things (like with JAOM). It is designed to be a dry mead, but you can backsweeten if you'd like. You can also split it into separate containers after some aging and spice them differently, or add fruit, or oak or what ever.


Recipe:
3lbs honey per gallon of must (18lbs for 6gal batch)
Dissolve all honey in some water (stick blenders work miracles)
Then add water to make SG of ~1.108
Add 1g/gal potassium carbonate (6g for 6gal batch)
Add 0.2g/gal tannin FT blanc soft
Add rehydrated yeast at 1g/gal (6g for 6gal batch)
Keep temp below 74F
Seal with airlock, and wait for bubbles
When it bubbles, uncover and see what it looks like (this will get you familiar with the appearance so you don't have to look for bubbles in the future to see when the lag phase is over)
Add 2g/gal fermaid K and 1g/gal DAP
Do not seal the lid (or you can leave the airlock dry if using a carboy)
Stir as often as you can (every 12-24 hours is ok)
When the gravity drops to 1.090 add 1g/gal fermaid K and 1g/gal DAP
When the gravity drops to 1.072 add 1g/gal fermaid K
Seal lid and affix airlock
Wait
When bubbling slows, check gravity
When you have the same gravity reading for 3 consecutive days it's done (gravity should be 0.99X)
Rack, add sulfite (50ppm) and age for 3 months
Rack again (at this point you can split it for experimentation or just leave it) age for 6 months
If left alone add sulfites and bottle

As you can see, this recipe is a little more technical than the others and may scare some new meadmakers off. Not to mention the others are drinkable in 2-3 months and this one really shouldn't be touched before the 1 year mark (though it is "drinkable" before that).
I'd recommend a lighter honey unless you've had darker honey meads before, as they can be an acquired taste. As for yeast, D21 is my go to, it is temp tolerant, gives some acid which mead is lacking, and has a nice flavor; K1V would be my suggestion if you can't get D21, it's still temp tolerant so it's a good newbee yeast. You'll note that JAOM and BOMM can be made in the high 70s to low 80sF, where this one is better below 74 (below 72 if you can manage it), this is a property of the yeast and recipe (being dry and higher alcohol).
Acid may need to be added to this (or BOMM), just taste and start with 1g/gal tartaric (or your preferred acid) and let it sit for a month before deciding if more is needed. If using tartaric acid, cold stabilization is recommended as potassium bitartrate crystals may precipitate if there is potassium present. The reason I suggest tartaric acid is because it will add acidity, but when cold crashed the pH will lower (if it is below 3.6, which it should be) resulting in a more acid taste without additional acid.
Some prefer to add tannin to balance flavors instead of acid. This is a matter of preference, and small amounts should be used to slowly work up to the desired level of tannin.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. For the beer brewer, I highly recommend BOMM; for the completely new zymurgist, I'd say JAOM or BOMM; and for the wine maker, the traditional or BOMM.


If you are familiar with white winemaking, then the traditional is pretty much a white wine recipe (similar in techniques and processes), and it will get you on the track to make very good traditional meads. There are a few things you have to leave in winemaking world (TA measuring and adjusting, and complete anaerobic fermentation), but it should be very close to your other winemaking experiences. You can also split it into several jugs if making a larger batch and spice them, add different fruits or backsweeten a portion leaving you several opportunities to make a few different meads from a single fermentation.
I cannot recommend BOMM enough, it is very easy, very fast, and very tasty. It will teach you a lot of the processes for making meads, but doesn't require as much patience. There are also many ways to treat it post ferment: spicing, sweetening, carbonating, adding fruit, etc.
JAOM is an old standby for many mead makers, and a very simple recipe for the newbee. It's charm is in it's simplicity: no samples needed, no temp issues, no messing with it; but, some people tend not to like it for its pithy, phenolic taste.

Beer Anyone?

No one will probably read this, it may have something to do with being a new blog, or the esoteric nature of this blog (please feel free to correct me in the comments section, anyone? Beuller?), but I felt it necessary to post about this. (and it's my damn blog, so I'll do as I please!)

If anyone here is a brewer, I highly recommend Ron Pattinson's newest book, The Homebrewers Guide to Vintage Beer; actually, I recommend most of his books (especially Bitter!, Mild! Plus, Porter!, and Strong!), but this is a good place to start. If you ever thought you knew something about beer history, and wanted some actual recipes, this is what you want. It is impeccably well researched, informative, and concise.
He also maintains a blog, Shut Up About Barclay Perkins, that shows his many hours in the catacombs of archives firmly places him at the pinnacle of historical beer research. Full of wit, facts, brewlogs, stats, more stats, techniques, even more stats, and anything else concerning the history and development of many English beers, and a few continental styles as well, his blog is a great place to check before you go bragging about your beer history knowledge.
So, if you think that IPA was high in alcohol to survive the journey, or that porter was smoky, or that grodziskie was sour, you may wish to pull your head out of your @$$ and buy some of his books and read his blog.