Homebrew Recipes for our Meads
Aging: The Secret of the Ages
It’s So Clear!
Developing a Mead Recipe
The ground is almost thawed, which means I'm out to the woodpile getting ready for next year.
Welcome to Ask the Meadmaker, where I, Ricky the Meadmaker, answer your questions about mead making, mead drinking, mead brewing, and really any question you're willing to send to me.
Our first question this week comes from Alith Null, who wants to know if he can do anything with his lees, the yeast and other gunk at the bottom of his batch, other than just throwing it in the compost? And the answer is yes, you can use a small amount of it to bake bread. Maybe a tablespoon or two. Or, and this is my recommendation, you could make another batch of mead.
Several people want to know my thoughts on using fruit flavoring rather than fruit juice or concentrate or something else in their meads to reduce sediment. To me, reducing sediment is not a major goal of brewing, it's having the best tasting mead. So, if you think that fruit flavoring gives a better-tasting mead, I'm all for it.
Michael wants to know why some of our recipes online recommend degassing at one stage and the other ones don't mention it. There are several reasons. One, I probably forgot to put it in. Degassing is always an okay idea for any batch of mead. But if it's in a recipe, it's essential. Some meads create a lot of sulfur during production due to the very high fermentation temperatures, and that's something you're always going to want to degas.
Well, I do say I'll answer any question on one of these shows and I got a cider question. As far as I know, there's no Ricky the cider-maker out there answering these things, so I'll serve all communities equally. Josh has made cider in the past. Homebrewed. He finds that when he puts it in his fridge for a couple hours to cool down, it's fine. When he leaves it in for a few days, he prefers it dramatically more. It's much mellower. His concern is one: how does he do this without leaving it in there and having it turn to water; and two: what's going on? Well, the good news is, it will mellow to a certain point and no further. You're not going to end up with seltzer because you've left it in there for a couple weeks. As for what's going on, there are a lot of variables with all fermentations. All aging, chilling, etc. But the one thing I can guarantee is you have certain things that are in solution that are falling out of solution at those temperatures. That's probably one of the things you're noticing.
Our last question this week comes from the Pumpkin King. I hope your real-life name is Jack or else you stole someone else's handle. Anyway, he has an RODI filter, which I believe is a reverse osmosis deionizing filter which he has for his fish tanks. And he wants to know if you can use that water for brewing Mead. Now, RODI is basically distillation. And the problem is that mead wants things in the water. That's why we add nutrients and minerals back in, in addition to just tap water. But starting with a distilled water means you know exactly what is in the final batch. So, there's nothing wrong with using distilled water so long as you're adding salts, minerals, and vitamins back in.
That was our last question this week. I hope that one helps because we get a lot of filtration questions. Keep sending them and I'll get to them as soon as possible. Cheers.
