In which Ricky the Meadmaker answers questions about over-pitching, braggots, “Merican” cinnamon vs. true cinnamon, the use of brite tanks, and more!
I'm wearing a pith helmet and drinking a beer. So, you know it is going to be a great episode.
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.
First question is where is my baby this week? Don't worry. She's only like six feet away from me on the other side of the camera. As we mentioned in the last episode, she does not like to be put down. But our first real question is from David, wants to know my thoughts on making a braggot. Now, David, you have to remember that I cannot commercially make a braggot, and technically no one can but that's a different article and a different discussion, and this video does not have enough time for it, but I have made a lot of them as a homebrewer. The question is, I don't advocate boiling my honey, but beers are boiled. So what to do? Well, I actually advocate something that you asked in your email. I add the cold water and the honey at the same time to bring the temperature down. I add the honey when the beer is right around 160˚F, you are going get pasteurization of that honey. You're not going to have to worry about an infection in your brew, and it makes a heck of a braggot.
Joshua wants to know if I use 'Merican cinnamon or true cinnamon. The answer is, in winter warmer, I use 'Merican cinnamon, which is not its Latin name, believe it or not. In a lot of my homebrew batches, I like to play around with true cinnamon. I think it gives a different, more subtle flavor.
Greag wants to know if over-pitching yeast is a real thing. And I've taken some heat for this. In fact, pretty soon there's going to be an interview called Ricky the Meadmaker's Too Controversial. I don't find this super controversial. No, not really. In the commercial world, there is essentially no such thing as over-pitching. So, I don't know why there would be for a homebrewer.
Andrew has a great question, which is cool, because it's actually about the commercial side of brewing and not home brewing. I like to do both, but I spend most of my days dealing with commercial as you can imagine. So, the question is, do I transfer my mead to a bright tank before carbonating? In my current facility, I do not. I would love to. And the reason is this, when you force carbonate a volume that I'm looking at, about 1,000 gallons, a little more, that adds head pressure to a huge static mass. A huge amount of mead in this case, and when it is added the top to that whole liquid onto a cone, it presses down on the yeast. And if you don't can or keg fast enough, you do risk autolysis which is why in a lot of commercial breweries, they transfer to a bright tank before carbonating. Now at home, you are not dealing with that kind of liquid mass. Five gallons is heavy, but not as heavy as 1,000.
Our last question this week comes from Ashok Sharma. "He says it has been two months of my first batch of 40 litres of honey wine. Now, it is very sour in taste and cloudy. I want to ask why it is so sour and cloudy." The answer is something wasn't cleaned well enough. It's that simple. A brush, a hose, a siphon, a jug, a bucket. Something was dirty. So, what I recommend is going from one end to the other of your brewing practice and look at each step and say, is this cleaned? Is it sanitized? And you will almost certainly find what you didn't sanitize sufficiently.
That's our last question this week. I was going to send it over to Ricky with the Word of the Week, but he refused to do this one. So, I'm going to do it. This week's term is "rat holing." It's a real thing. It's called rat holing in the industry. When you have that huge, massive mead that I was talking about a minute ago, and you try to pull the yeast out, it sucks down through the cone, and it leaves a hole down the middle, and then there's yeast on the sides. So, no matter how careful you are, you still risk autolysis, which is a huge problem in the industry, but also, it's called rat holing, which kind of makes up for it. Anyway, rat holing. It's our Word of the Week and the end of our show.
Keep sending your questions and I'll get to them as soon as possible. Cheers.
