In which Ricky the Meadmaker answers questions about brewing with agave nectar, head-space in carboys, fermentation temperature for Psychopomp, and his necklace, plus a “just about anything you are willing to send me” question!
So, I've been complaining for years about doing this show and I just found out I can pre-record these. I don't have to just in this chair waiting to act out every single episode whenever you guys want to watch it on YouTube. What an innovation.
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 Chris, who wants to know whether he can put agave in his mead and still call it a mead? Well, one camp says that anything that is 50% honey or more is a mead. Another camp has figured out fancy ways to spell the word mead and sell white wine and beers and a bunch of other things as mead. So, who knows?
Here's another one of those mead makers who are overthinking it. Christopher B is making his very first batch of mead and he started with a five-gallon fermentation bucket, 15.75 lbs of honey, goes on and on and on and on. Then he had a couple one-glass carboys and now he's worried that he's leaving three gallons in the five gallon glass carboy. Is that too much oxygen? Is he going to spoil it? He has all these questions and no, it's probably not three gallons in five gallons. As long as you're not aging for years, it's probably fine. He ends with "Do you have somewhere I can send a picture of my first mead?" Great question, man! Social media is full of people taking photos of pointless foods and beverages and saying, I'm eating this. If you make something, put it on social media. It's like 95 times better than saying, "A waiter brought this to me."
Our next question has come from many people over the years. They want to know what this necklace is, if it's a religious thing, and the answer is no, it's not. It's actually from the village that my brother is from in Brazil.
So, this next one I'm going to answer Stefan style. So, many people may not know that the famous SNL character Stefan, played by Bill Hader, Bill Hader had not heard the words he was supposed to say ahead of time and had to sort of improv as he went. So, this one was handed to me by the boss and it reads in the just-about-anything-you're-willing-to-send-me category. I opened the door. "When mead gets mentioned, my sweetie invariably says, "Mead kicks my butt." This, from a campout where much mead was imbibed, after much beer was imbibed. There's that scientific-sounding rhyme, "Beer before wine, you're doing fine. Wine before beer, the end is near." Admittedly, I've never heard that rhyme before. "Is there a rhyme for mead?" So, I had not read this until the boss just handed it to me. I'm gonna see if I can come up with one on the spot. "You need a rhyme for mead. You're a nerd indeed."*
Our last question this week comes from Jules, who's making Psychopomp and saw that it says that it needs to be fermented at 30˚C to make our version of Psychopomp. But this seems awfully hot for D47. Can it be done at 21˚C? The answer is, yeah, sure. Said it a million times. Make the mead you want to make. Our recipes are just what we make. If you're worried about it tasting bad, do it at a colder temperature, but we sell about 6,000 gallons of it a year fermented at 30˚C.
Anyway, that was our last question. Keep sending them and I'll get to them as soon as possible. Cheers.
