Further Reading:
The Good Thing About Pollen
How Do You Pick a Yeast Strain?
Chaos Cyser Recipe
Episode Transcript
I have a really big announcement this week.
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 me.
I am not going to bury the lead. Our amazing announcement is we are rolling out in a few states direct shipment of our mead. So, if you can't buy it through a distributor, there are a handful of places starting this week that you can buy it through bev.com. There will be a link in the doobly-doo below.
Our first question this week comes from John, and I'm going to answer John's question first because he's the old guy from last time who was afraid that he would die before I got to his question. He's still alive, doing great, and he ran the bee pollen experiment. And he said it was wonderful and even after filtering his mead, there was still yellow around the neck of every bottle. But, when you shook it up, it went away. So, there you have it, folks. Don't know what you have. But that's it.
Our next question comes from Ed, who is from the Midwest, and that doesn't really matter, except that I know him from my time in Iowa. And he sent a very nice email. He made Chaos Cyser at home and was very impressed with it. All of his friends loved it, and then he found out that we don't even produce it anymore. And why not? The answer is, it was everybody's second favorite Mead. If Valkyrie's Choice was your first favorite, Chaos Cyser was your second. If Nordic Farmhouse was your first, Chaos Cyser was your second. And you’ve got to be drinking a lot of mead to be buying your second favorite.
Our next question is a reader because it's a list and someone loaded it onto my phone for me.
“Hello from Bonny Scotland. something something something ran out of D47. I am hoping to brew really soon and I have these four yeasts around, which would you recommend? He has Bayanus G995, Young's - not young - Young's Bordeaux red, EC 1118, and Gervin GV4, and which would I recommend? And the answer is I actually do have an opinion on this. And I didn't think I was going to when I saw the list. But, with the exception of Young's, the Bordeaux red, they're all really high proof wine strains, which means that though we love our product dry, champagne style strains will often strip the flavor in an attempt to just rocket the alcohol content up, so depending on what you're trying to make, if you're in the craft direction, like what we make, something that leaves a little bit of flavor behind, like the Youngs would be the way to go.
Our last question this week comes from Lord Niles and he actually sent me two questions, and one of them was about whether I was going to be at this upcoming event. And then I figured out that that upcoming event happened 11 months ago. So, I'm sorry I didn't get to your question sooner.
Anywho, his question is, "they say we drink with our eyes, as in what you see influences the way you taste things." And he is absolutely correct. There have been tons and tons and tons of experiments that have shown this. They just changed the color of sprite bottles slightly, and people thought they changed the formula. So being able to see the beverage you're drinking really does change it. They've also shown that being able to feel with your hand whether it's hot or cold or room temperature changes the way you experience it. Not just the experience, but the actual flavor that people describe.
So, I guess the answer is yes, it changes it. Yes, I've experienced that. And the number of times that I've been drinking mead out of a coffee mug so people don't know that I'm drinking mead at a morning meeting probably gives me more data than the average person. So, not sure what the question was, except to answer it. Yes, it does affect it. And you should experiment at home as often as your liver will allow.
That was our last question. Keep sending them, and I'll get to them as soon as possible. Cheers.
