Ask the Meadmaker EP. 103 – Nog Proportions

Happy Christmas. It's that time of year for eggnog and I learned this year, 2017, that apparently I've been doing my eggnog in reverse ratios of most people. It seems most people pour eggnog and then add a little bit of rum or brandy to it, whereas I did the exact opposite ratio. And so, having tried it the traditional way, I can tell you all you've been doing it wrong.

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 is from Mikey. Mikey wants to get into mead making. Good choice. He wants to know if there's a good mead recipe for trying different honeys out to get a flavor profile for them. He asked if Joe's Agent Orange was a good one or any number of the other ones he's found online. Nothing wrong with Joe's Agent Orange, but you do lose some of the honey flavors because of the other things in it. I would recommend going to our website, groennfell.com, and going to the recipe section where we have all the recipes for our meads available and starting with Valkyrie's choice and just experimenting with different honeys. 

Brianne wants to start making mead and it's all in the family because her husband already makes mead but his are 15%, which is a little higher in the alcohol than she wants. She wants to be closer to 10% she wanted to know how to make very flavorful meads without having to have all that alcohol and all that honey initially. Now, the good news is at 10%, you still have a lot of honey in there, a lot of the honey flavor will come through. When you start getting down into the 5-6% alcohol range, it is tough to maintain the honey profile. At 10%, a straight mead should be just fine. She wants to know how to make a flavorful mead with spices that lets the honey shine through. And I would say try making a mead without any spices and then if you don't love it, if there's not enough going on, throw in something like a few cinnamon sticks. 

Mark wants to know if you can use Costco yeast, ostensibly, in his mead. Sure.

It's time for a reader. Cecile writes. A very long time ago. I'm really behind on these things. "I always enjoy watching your videos." Good. someone should. "Here is my current question," which I really like, because I don't want her past question. I want her to ask the question she's asking right now. "I've been looking into yeast nutrients and trying to find the best one. "I had heard that bee pollen is the perfect yeast nutrient. Is bee pollen the best yeast nutrient for mead? Thanks." 

Empth responded. "I've been talking with Ricky the Meadmaker a lot about this to figure out exactly which nutrient blend works well blah blah blah. Fermaid K, DAP, nutrient trials. Currently I'm getting great results and quick turnover, less than a month, with the wyeast winemakers blend," the one that I have recommended in the past. She uses go firm for starters. There's also a correlation she's found between pH level and nutrient absorption. She's looking into ways to test this. So, no one nutrient is the best. But Sage also recommends the Wyeast nutrient blend. This is an excellent answer. And the only thing I would add to it is bee pollen is probably a good nutrient. We have a whole article about that that will be linked in the doobly doo. It's very expensive. And if you want to go big, might not be your best choice.

Just a side note, I am conversational in five languages. And in addition to that, I can read internet speak so I know that “empth” is supposed to be pronounced “empath.” I just won't.

I have in my hand our last question of the week. I was going to try to summarize this question from Al. But I've decided to do it verbatim. "Hi, Ricky. I'm making my first mead, an apple cyser at one gallon, and my wife and teenage children are wondering what the horrible smell is coming from the basement. I see the airlock bubbling and I smell nothing but goodness. My son says it's making his hockey equipment smell. Now, as you may or may not know, hockey equipment has a unique stink of its own. Is it possible there is something wrong with my mead?”

So, cysers traditionally have a highly sulfurous fermentation. They're not super pleasant. I once did a cider with malt in it and a wheat beer yeast that smelled so bad that I didn't invite anyone over to my house for a week during fermentation and a week after fermentation. That said, I think If I say anything more in response to this, I'm wading into a domestic dispute that I shouldn't touch with a 10-foot hockey stick. So, thank you for your question. Tell your son to wash his equipment. It does go through the laundry. 

That's our last question of the week. And I'm going to do a word of the week because I'm an etymology nut. And I wanted to know where the term eggnog came from. And the answer is it comes from "egg," You know, the fruit that falls out of a chicken, and “nog,” which means a strong alcohol. Why "nog" means strong alcohol is anyone's guess. We know that “nog” was a strong beer from one of the Anglias, let us call it the East one. I could be wrong about that. And no one knows why. Maybe it's related to noggin, a wooden bowl used for drinking. Your guess is as good as mine. That's our last question this week. Happy Holidays. See you in the New Year.