Ask the Meadmaker EP. 98 – After the Barrow Wights

So, last night was the third annual Tom Bombadil party at the Mead Hall and due to unforeseen circumstances, I spent the night in the hill of a Barrow-Wight. I am nursing what can only be described as a hangover of Morgoth proportions. So, people have asked in the past if I have a hangover remedy. I almost never get these, as I am a professional drinker, but I have a perfect trick. I take a mug, fill it up with whiskey and then heat it in the microwave.

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 comes from William and I have two answers to it. He wants to make a pumpkin mead, and he wants to know if I have any advice and the answer is no, I don't. I will not make a pumpkin mead, and it's not for the reason you were thinking, unless you've read my article about why I will never make a pumpkin mead. The reason is not that I dislike pumpkin beers. I actually, don't mind them. There are two that I really like that are very good. One of them is a sour from hermit thrush, go find it. It's that I grew up in Delaware, where punkin chunkin’ is from and I, for reasons that aren't worth getting into, had to watch a 15-minute video that included the punkin chunkin’ song over 400 times in three weeks once. So no, I don't personally have any advice, but he wants to make a beverage that has harvest spices in it, which I do have advice about. Go check out our recipe online and we have a whole article about using spices in mead. 

Our next question comes from MonkeyTree, A.K.A. Jeremy, and he wants to know how much honey I recommend per gallon to use as priming sugar. And the answer is I don't recommend using honey as priming sugar, not because it's too complicated, it's that honey has a variable sugar content per pound. Water to sugar ratio is what affects this. So, one year you may get massively over-carbonated beverages, and the next year you might get massively under-carbonated beverages. So, I recommend using honey for primary fermentation, back-sweetening, but use priming sugar for bottle and keg conditioning. 

Our next question is one of those ones that I'm kind of sorry that I didn't answer nine months ago when he sent it. It's from Siko. He put a whole vanilla bean in one of his batches of mead but he didn't scrape first to get those seeds out. He wanted to know, will it be gross? The answer is I don't know. You've had lots of time to test it. Please write in and tell me if it is. 

So, I don't know if you've heard her already in the episode, but this is our new cinematographer. She's been behind the camera the whole time. So, she has lots of comments to make about our shooting style.

Evan wants to know how I made a 22% alcohol mead. I've referenced this in past episodes and the answer is I will tell you, so long as you use your powers for good. The trick is degassing, lots of nutrients and stepping your yeast types. What you need to do is start with the strain you want to give it flavor, beer yeast or D47, and work your way up through multiple editions of champagne yeast. I'm going to write an entire article about this, but please, don't weaponize it. 

Our last question this week comes from John Stevenson. And it's more than a question. It's a mystery. In fact, it starts out with I have a bit of a mystery for you. Last weekend, I bottled a cyser that was about five months old. In the carboy, it was not as clear as I would have liked and had only a thin layer of milky sediment on the bottom. I cold-shocked it for 24 hours which brought a little more sediment out and it was mostly clear, but I would say a little below average the clarity I normally have. The mead tasted good, so I racked it into my bottling bucket and back-sweetened. Recipe was included. You guys don't need this. And then bottled it. After about two hours, every bottle had about a half inch thick layer of sediment at the bottom. The rest of the bottle was very clear, probably the clearest batch I have ever made. The clear mead tastes great, and even the milky sediment, when drunk, isn't half bad. Why didn't sentiment fall out of solution before? Did the sweetening act as a clarifying agent somehow? Is this evidence that I should use a clarifying agent from John from Georgia? The answer is there is a chance that your honey acted as a clarifying agent and the reason for this is all different honeys have different levels of protein. Protein has a certain charge and particulates left in solution have a different charge. Theoretically, adding the complex bundle of chemicals that is honey could bond them together. Because this is essentially how clarifying agents work. Some have a negative charge, some have a positive charge, and they zip together. Because they're heavier than water, they grab on to your hazy bits and pull them out of solution. So, probably, that sediment that didn't taste half bad is some of the best parts of honey. So, there you go, it is a chance, or it could have been dumb luck, or it could have been any number of other things. 

But that is our last question this week, because our cinematographer just had a meltdown on the set and Ricky, Word of the Week Ricky, is off taking care of her again. God, he's so good with babies. 

Anyway. That's our last question. Keep sending them and I'll get to them as soon as possible. Cheers.