Making Mead at Home – An Incredibly Contentious Article
TRANSCRIPT
So, I don't know much about the internet but it's possible that if I shoot this episode of Ask the Meadmaker in a slightly different part of the brewhouse every single week, you guys could do a map and figure out exactly the shape and the size of our facility. Or you could just send me the question and I could tell you.
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. The first thing that was sent I'm going to call a question because it had a question mark at the end, but it's one of those things where it's just a sentence, and then someone tacked on a question mark, but I'm responding anyway. Tyler says, “I thought distilled mead was called Midas?” And... huh. I didn't.
Our next question is a question and it comes from Sebastian. He wants to know if I've ever thought of using royal jelly in one of my meads. He says it gives it an acidic flavor. And I'm going to answer this question with a question. Should I?
Our next question comes from a different Tyler and he wants to know if he should scale up yeast nutrient for higher gravity meads? If he puts in more honey, does he need more yeast nutrient? I've answered this before, but in a slightly different way. The amount of nutrient we recommend is so much higher than is normally recommended that we're really at the threshold right below where you can start to taste it. It's possible if you have a huge starter colony of yeast, they will uptake all those amino acids and minerals. But if you don't have that much yeast to start, the amount of honey you put in won't really make a difference there.
Dan wants to know if I have any recipes for a yuletide or winter mead and I do! It's called Winter Warmer. It's available, like all of our recipes, on groennfell.com.
Our last question comes from Scott and it's a reader. “Hey Ricky, I'm wondering what your technique is for degassing mead before packaging. I've heard that you need to pump CO2 through the mead to drive the sulfur out. Right now, I have CO2 being pumped through the liquid out line on a five-gallon corny keg. So, the CO2 is entering the mead at the bottom of the keg and exiting through the gas line to a bucket of sanitizer, just like a blow off tube for a fermenter. Is this a good idea? How long should I have the CO2 on for?”
That's a brilliant idea. That's an amazing idea. I never thought to do that. The way I used to do it, I kid you not, is that I would start carbonating my mead and then I would drink a little bit. Then I'd be like, "Oh there's still too much sulfur," and then I'd shake my corny keg and degas it. Your way is brilliant. Also, in response to your "How long should I do it for?" He sent me this question on February 24. So, I hope you've stopped by now. But I guess really until you're not smelling any sulfur anymore. That is like the cleverest thing that's been said to me in ages. So, thank you for that. And keep sending your questions and we'll get to them as soon as possible. Cheers.
