# My first attempt at MEAD



## ffemt128 (Jan 2, 2010)

I started a gallon batch of Joe Mattioli's Ancient Orange Mead using the recipe in the recipe section here tonight. I didn't have raisins so I added some cranberry, cherry, blueberry dried fruit in it's place(they are pretty tasty). I purchased the honey from Costco, forget the brand off the top of my head, it was a 5 lb jar and it was around $11-$12 dollars I believe. Its made in Lancaster, PA.

My initial sg was 1.148-1.152 which I thought was very high but I checked it twice to make sure. It's sitting on the kitchen counter until I move it to the closet tomorrow. I wanted to make sure the yeast didn't foam up too much before I put it away for the next two months like the recipe states to do.

Does anyone have an idea what sg this will ferment down to using baking yeast as the recipe calls for?

I'm looking forward to trying this and if it turns out okay we may try some different variations of it.


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## Wade E (Jan 2, 2010)

Did you use the whole 5 lbs of honey? How much fruit did you use? Thats awfully high an sg and will end up super sweet! You will end up with an sg of around 1.055!!!!!!!! You will need to doubel the water and add a little more honey and fruit to even this out making it a 2 gallon batch now.


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## Julie (Jan 3, 2010)

Hi ffemt128

How big of a batch did you make? I have made this a couple of times and I used 3 #s of honey per gallon. 

Also, are you sure you read your hydrometer right? That does seem awfully high. I didn't bother with taking any readings when I did the JAO because of all the fruit I had in it so maybe it is suppose to be like that. I made two the original way and two with Rasbberry and Blackberries. All four were sweet but not sickening sweet.

Julie


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## ffemt128 (Jan 3, 2010)

I made a gallon batch and used about 3 1/2 lbs of honey. After adding 2 small oranges and the small quantiy of other fruit I added a little more than 1/2 gallon of total water. Honey took up less than or about a quart of the gallon jar.


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## Julie (Jan 3, 2010)

That is probably where I was at with the water. Did you fill it up to the neck? The first I did this and it foamed out of the bottle. I then only filled to the curve of the bottle waited until the fermenting started to slow down and then added water up into the neck. 

I am going to have to open up a bottle of the Blackberry/Raspberry and do a hydrometer reading. I'll let you know what it is, this will at least give you a ballpark of where your mead should end up at.

Julie


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## ffemt128 (Jan 3, 2010)

Julie,

I filled it to about 3-3 1/2 inches from the top. It actually foamed up into the airlock a bit sometime last night then subsided. I filled up to within an inch of the bung with water today and re-checked the sg. The sg reading today was ~1.144 so I'm fairly confident in the readings yesterday. 

I used the Joe Mattioli's Ancient Orange Mead  recipe from here using the baking yeast. I may have a bit more fruit based on 2 small oranges vs 1 large but can't see where that would decrease my total amount of water all that much.

I placed it in my closet this afternoon and will check on it periodically. Looking forward to seeing what your reading ended up.


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## Julie (Jan 3, 2010)

Hi Doug,

Well I totally agree with your initial readings. I opened up my Black&Blue Mead and the reading was 1.100! I would say your initial reading was right on. Also, I just open this bottle and there was fizz and I like it better with fizz. It is VERY sweet tasting. 

Here was my recipe

6-04-09 - added 3# honey (I got mind from Walmart), 12 oz. of Blackberries, 4 oz. of Red Raspberries, 1 lemon (instead of oranges I didn't want an orange flavor with the berries) 30 white raspberries (I used white because that was what I had in the house) and I used a hold packet of Fleishman's yeast. Racked on 8/31/09 and bottled on 9/21/09

Hope this helps, and please post how yours turns out and if you liked it or not.

Julie


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## Midwest Vintner (Jan 4, 2010)

i'm going to agree with wade here. you need to add some water or this is going to be like syrup. even a 1.030 is really high for sg's of a finished wine.


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## ffemt128 (Jan 21, 2010)

I figured I would post an update since this was my first batch of mead. O started this on 1/2/2010. Mead has been residing in the upstairs bedroom since about day 3, I have the most stable temps there. Temperature in the room averages 72-74 degrees due to being upstairs. Mead still appears to have some fine fermentation going on, bubble about every 20-30 seconds. Nice layer of sediment on bottom of gallon jug and visible signs of the oranges breaking down due to sugars fermenting from meat of the orange. The upper most part of the mead where the fruit is appears almost clear with lower portions still dark in color. I think this will clear nicely. Looking forward to watching the progress of this.


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## ffemt128 (Jan 25, 2010)

23 Days into the Mead. Here's what it looks like.






I can't wait to give it a try.


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## ffemt128 (Feb 16, 2010)

Okay, I sho0uld have followed Wade's advice, even though I did follow the recipe as was written. My starting sg was 1.148-1.152 (very high) with 3 1/2 lbs of the honey I used. I just checked my SG now and it is coming in right around 1.042. It is super sweet. While this may be good if mixed with OJ and maybe some Wink. 

What can be done at this point to salvage this? Is it too late to mix back in with another batch of something in hopes of having something drinkable without tasting like syrup? 

The recipe states it's drinkable at 2 months which will be eom and I will wait to see how it tastes then, but I'm open for options to consider.


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## Wade E (Feb 20, 2010)

If you havent added ant sorbate then you can turn this into a bigger batch. I forget what size this started off as but I would modify this to fit into the next bigger carboy so if its a 1 gallon batch now maybe start another 2 gallon batch with a much lower starting gravity and once it gets going good slowly add this into that to ferment with it or you could keep them seperate until they are both done and use this wine to sweeten the other batch when combined.


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## ffemt128 (Feb 20, 2010)

Wade E said:


> If you havent added ant sorbate then you can turn this into a bigger batch. I forget what size this started off as but I would modify this to fit into the next bigger carboy so if its a 1 gallon batch now maybe start another 2 gallon batch with a much lower starting gravity and once it gets going good slowly add this into that to ferment with it or you could keep them seperate until they are both done and use this wine to sweeten the other batch when combined.



Thanks, that sounds like a plan. It initally started as a 1 gallon batch.


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## Julie (Feb 21, 2010)

ffemt128 said:


> Thanks, that sounds like a plan. It initally started as a 1 gallon batch.



Hi Doug,

Use wine yeast instead of the bread yeast. I have made three batches of this stuff and they all were very sweet.


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## Wade E (Feb 21, 2010)

I did so with wine yeast and it actually came out very dry and tasted nasty. I think this isn 1 batch that Bakers yeast is the ideal yeast but you have to follow the instructions to a "T" otherwise the sg will get to high and you end up too sweet.


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## ffemt128 (Feb 22, 2010)

Next time I'm at Costco I'll pick up another 5 lb of honey and start a 2 gallon batch to mix this in with. Maybe go for a change here and miz some berries in. I haven't added any Kmeta or sorbates to stabilize so as previoulsy stated I should be able to combine.


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## ffemt128 (Feb 28, 2010)

I decided against making another batch of this for now after my wife tasted the mead and she said it wasn't to bad as is. I bottled the JOAM Mead today and I ended up with 4 - 750 ml bottles of it. Even though the starting sg was 1.15 and the ending was 1.044 it is very tasty. Sweeter than I would have liked but you can definately taste the orange in it. I will make this again, probably try a variation with berries but it won't have the starting sg this one did. Maybe go with 2.5 lbs of honey per gallon and see where that gets me.


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## Wade E (Feb 28, 2010)

Glad it turned out not half bad.


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## ffemt128 (Feb 28, 2010)

Wade E said:


> Glad it turned out not half bad.



I was afraid it was going to be "nasty sweet" but all in all it's not tooo bad. It is very sweet but not to the point where it's not tolerable. ABV is likely around 14.5-15% which surprised me with the baking yeast. I will definately make another batch, maybe a 2 gallon batch using the 5 lbs of honey.

Any thoughts on that for a batch? Should I go with the fleichman's yeast again or use a wine yeast?


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## Wade E (Feb 28, 2010)

that is pretty high for a bakers yeast and luckily it did get that far or you would have had a nasty sweet wine. I wouldnt expect that high ofen though and believe you got lucky that it fermented that far. Im not suore great at figuring out what that would leave for an sg with the 5 lbs of honey so would go into our general wine making area/Calcs. and helpful tools where there is a calc for that.


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## ffemt128 (Feb 28, 2010)

Wade E said:


> that is pretty high for a bakers yeast and luckily it did get that far or you would have had a nasty sweet wine. I wouldnt expect that high ofen though and believe you got lucky that it fermented that far. Im not suore great at figuring out what that would leave for an sg with the 5 lbs of honey so would go into our general wine making area/Calcs. and helpful tools where there is a calc for that.



I agree, was probably lucky. PA at start acording to the hrdrometer was around 20 and ended at about 5%. Luck was on my side I quess.

I'll have to try the double batch and see where the starting SG would be. How would this turn out with wine yeast and a little age vs the bakers yeast. I was considering bulk mixing the honey and water then taking one gallon recipe using this again and possibly the a the second gallon with berries. Maybe do both with berries haven't decided.


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## Wade E (Feb 28, 2010)

Well like I stated I used the wine yeast on my JAOM and it came out nasty although I havent tried it in about 1 1/2 yeatrs so maybe I should try it again. This is made to come out with RS and mine went super dry using wine yeast and that could be the reason even though I did sweeten back.


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## xxplod (May 17, 2010)

very nice color! looks tasty.


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## Mud (May 17, 2010)

How do you get the oranges out of the bottle?


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## ffemt128 (May 17, 2010)

I cut mine much smaller than they suggested. They came out with a little shaking after everything was racked off. This batch for me was overly sweet, but it makes a good after dinner drink, just can't have too much. My son made a batch and if his is dry we'll use mine to back sweeten.


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## fatbloke (May 23, 2010)

Hey all,

Ok, so part of this is my POV, opinion and thinking about the development of the recipe...

So, the fruit (raisins), would seem to be there to give some body to the product - plus some nutrient.

The orange is for flavour and acidity - and nutrient.

The spices to give it a bit of "interest", though also to help counteract the orange.

The honey is pretty irrelevant - as it's there to give a generic honey taste and to provide the sugar for the alcohol.

Now, if you think about it, given the sugar in the honey and fruit, it's gonna be a reasonably high gravity mix anyway. The use of bread yeast, would almost definitely be to make sure that there's some residual sugar. As has already been posted (and I've found through experiment) the use of wine yeast will ferment this dry and it's not very nice dry........

The use of a whole orange cut/sliced it probably to give it a sort of "English Marmalade" hint as that would give a little bitterness to counteract the sweetness.

Now as ffemt128 pointed out, it still finishes quite high. Let me tell you, most of the commercial meads available here (traditional type style) seem to be dessert meads. I tried and tested 4 different ones (year before last). To see what the difference in taste was, the pH and gravity reading were an extra bit of data. They were all about the 3.2 to 3.6 pH and the gravities were all between 1035 and 1045 (finished - those were the numbers from the retail bottle packaging). Much too sweet for my taste - I like mine about the 1010 mark.

Now it's not surprising that ffemt128 only got 4 bottles from a gallon - you do tend to get a lot of lees and being bread yeast it's vvv fluffy and doesn't flocculate down well - not forgetting the volume taken up by the fruit.

Oh, one bonus is that it can be watered down, but with high % alcohol. Doing that will tend to give it an "alcohol hot" flavour, but that does age out brilliantly.

This recipe doesn't respond well to modification. Even if it's just changing the fruit from orange to lemon or lime. They tend to come out pretty "bleargh!"

So if the wife's not that keen ffemt128, just bottle it an store it away for a year or two.....


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## Wade E (May 23, 2010)

Yeah, I tried the wine yeast thing once and take my word that Fatbloke is right on the money with this!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## ffemt128 (May 23, 2010)

The remaining 2 bottles are nicely tucked away at this point. We will likely open one when my son comes home from Afghanistan as he wants to try it but the other one may just sit in hiding.

On another note, I gave a coworker this recipe and his FIL has has made 2 small batches and currently has a 6 gallon batch of this going. He likes it that much.


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## fatbloke (May 23, 2010)

ffemt128 said:


> The remaining 2 bottles are nicely tucked away at this point. We will likely open one when my son comes home from Afghanistan as he wants to try it but the other one may just sit in hiding.
> 
> On another note, I gave a coworker this recipe and his FIL has has made 2 small batches and currently has a 6 gallon batch of this going. He likes it that much.


It does seem that if the recipe is adhered to religiously, it does make a very palatable drop of splosh!

Me? I just make it as per, then I let it down to the desired sweetness with vodka then it gets aged for at least 6 months (usually 12) before I even entertain bottling.

Apart from your hydrometer, with mead making, the other most important thing is patience (damned hard sometimes though).

regards

fatbloke


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## winechuck (Jun 25, 2010)

It would be better to go with a higher grade yeast - baking yeast should be your last resort


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## winechuck (Jun 25, 2010)

even though the recipe called for baking yeast.


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## winechuck (Jun 25, 2010)

Looks like it's time to get D..R..U..N..K!!!!!


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## fatbloke (Jun 26, 2010)

winechuck said:


> It would be better to go with a higher grade yeast - baking yeast should be your last resort


Erm, no, I'd have to disagree completely there winechuck.

I've thought about this a lot as well as made about 10 or 12 variations.

Just changing the yeast just ferments it dry and even ageing the modified version didn't make much of a difference. Plus the increased fermentation activity seem to remove more of the orange and spices notes from such a batch.

I suspect that Joe was very considered when he put the recipe together. For instance, the use of a whole orange when it's known that the white pith of an orange gives some bitterness. Though using bread yeast (in an unmanaged way) leaves enough residual sugar/sweetness to counteract much of the bitterness that maybe derived from the orang pith. Giving more of a hint of "English marmalade" that does go quite well with the limited spicing that's recommended. I have made one with too many cloves and Joes guidance is spot on about that.

It does seem that it's a very carefully crafted recipe - I can't say for certain if that was the intent (I don't know Joe Mattiolli) but adherence to the recipe does seem to give a more than acceptable result just usung easily available, grocery store ingredients.

Which would also offer the maker a "benchmark" to compare more complicated recipes/brews/results too.........

It might just be that you prefer yours drier! Personally I didn't yet find a modified version that I enjoyed, compared to the original recipe version

regards

Fatbloke


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## Daisy (Oct 12, 2010)

I never tried for the Mead yet,I read the above post and came to know about the recipe given by Doug and he describe in such a way that it seem to be very tasty.At some point I am not agree with winechuck.
If you want to know more about the wines then you refer to winegrowersdirect.com.au.


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## Midwest Vintner (Oct 12, 2010)

i just made some mead and used some lalvin d47. will only go to 14% abv or so, which is good because starting gravity was 1.120. i don't want to go above the 15% mark. this way, there should be enough residual sugars to be semi-sweet. atleast i'm hoping that's where i'll be. 

i've read good things about the d47 in mead, so i'm hoping it's good. the honey was really good. my aunt has hives and they're pulling from natural prairies. the aroma is very nice.


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## Racinready300ex (Oct 12, 2010)

I'm getting ready to try this recipe as my 1st mead. One question, I don't see any mention of sulfite or sorbate prior to bottling. Is that not needed? Or did he just leave that out of the instructions? 

It just says when it's clear it's ready.

I'm going to go pick up a smaller carboy after work, then all I need are the oranges and rasins and I'm ready to go.


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## fatbloke (Oct 12, 2010)

Racinready300ex said:


> I'm getting ready to try this recipe as my 1st mead. One question, I don't see any mention of sulfite or sorbate prior to bottling. Is that not needed? Or did he just leave that out of the instructions?
> 
> It just says when it's clear it's ready.
> 
> I'm going to go pick up a smaller carboy after work, then all I need are the oranges and rasins and I'm ready to go.


No, there's no sulphite or sorbate in the recipe. You might rack it and then sulphite, but there's no need for sorbate - the yeast will have pooped out with the alcohol and the only reason to sulphite would be if you were worried about shelf life and/or have poor bottles/stoppers that might allow some ingress of air.

I sorbate/sulphite if I'm likely to need some further sugar addition to a mead i.e. fruit, juice or pulp to make something more fruity tasting/smelling, or if it's being back sweetened with fermentable sugars (honey or table sugar). 

JAO doesn't really need that at all. With the bread yeast it finishes sweet (maybe a little less sweet here, as I use all his numbers for reference, but of course I make it to an imperial gallon (4.55 litres) not a US gallon (3.78 litres) hence I use nearly 3/4's of a litre more water - it still comes out brilliantly.....

regards

fatbloke


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## xxplod (Oct 31, 2010)

well my fist batch turnd out a tad bitter -im not sure if useing two extra oranges than it called for was the reason lol probably , but hopefully age will mellow that out. oh yea -i added 5 lb honey to try and chill out the bitter taste and to sweeten it up a bit and it did not start fermataion again. hmmm?


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## fatbloke (Nov 1, 2010)

xxplod said:


> well my fist batch turnd out a tad bitter -im not sure if useing two extra oranges than it called for was the reason lol probably , but hopefully age will mellow that out. oh yea -i added 5 lb honey to try and chill out the bitter taste and to sweeten it up a bit and it did not start fermataion again. hmmm?


Yes and yes....

I'm guessing that because the recipe is easy/straight forward/basic, it's simple to conclude that there's not much thought gone into it - plus wine makers with some experience also can't necessarily appreciate the cleverness of it, as they see some of the ingredients and think it's a total non-starter.

Ok, so basically honey, water, some raisins, would be fine, but they don't like it when he says about using a whole orange cut into segments. The baulk at the thought of the pith being part of the recipe, as they "know" that can cause bitterness, so when they taste the finished thing they focus of that.

Well, if you take breakfast marmalade, then you get some sweetness, the orange flavour and some bitterness to balance the sweet. I'm presuming that's the same as JAO.

Then when "they" see bread yeast, well that just about wipes them out.

The whole point would seem that Joe uses bread yeast in the recipe, because it doesn't seem to require much in the way of nutrient, which the recipe doesn't have. It also has a lower tolerance for alcohol, so it will poop out earlier than wine yeast might do. Which logic would dictate, that there will be some residual sweetness, given the honey and the sugar in the fruit etc. So it should never get to the point of being "alcohol hot".

Additionally the small amount of bitterness imparted from the skin/pith of 1 orange is enough to add some to balance the sweetness some yet shouldn't be enough to display as a defect in it.

His excellent guidance/suggestions regarding spices are also very well thought out.......

So in there xxplod, you'd see that if you made a 1 gallon batch, 2 extra oranges will have almost definitely caused the detectable bitterness - only a certain amount of that can be covered up, and I'm doubting the wisdom/benefit of trying the 5lb of honey thing (5lb extra or a total of 5lb, so 1 and 1/2 lb extra ????).

It's pretty much why, I suspect, that Joe included such strictures as don't aerate, don't stir, don't mix, don't rack etc etc etc. 

Of course, phrases like "medium" or "large" when referring to the orange might not be accurate for some people, but any reasonable guess isn't likely to make a massive difference - Well I shouldn't have thought it would anyway.....

regards

fatbloke


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## xxplod (Nov 1, 2010)

fatbloke said:


> Yes and yes....
> 
> I'm guessing that because the recipe is easy/straight forward/basic, it's simple to conclude that there's not much thought gone into it - plus wine makers with some experience also can't necessarily appreciate the cleverness of it, as they see some of the ingredients and think it's a total non-starter.
> 
> ...


oh i forgot-- i made a 5 gal batch not a 1 gal


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## closetwine (Nov 1, 2010)

I would think that if you cut the pith off the extra oranges you would get the extra flavoe but not the bitterness. However that adds acid, and I have no exp. w/ this recipe so this is all speculation.


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## fatbloke (Nov 3, 2010)

xxplod said:


> oh i forgot-- i made a 5 gal batch not a 1 gal


Well I'd have thought it still feasible for the extra oranges to have increased the bitterness some......

It's probably one of those hard to calculate things.......

For instance, with normal scaling up, logic would dictate that you'd just multiply by 5, except if you were using wine yeast, 1 pack is (according to the instructions) enough for up to 5 gallons. The same might apply to the orange - I mean, how much of an influence is the orange flavour relative to the amount of acid in an orange - is the X 5 thing too much ?

I don't know, as I usually stick to making 1 gallon batches.

There's some threads etc that I've read where the maker has tried to eliminate the bitterness completely, by using a filleting knife to peel the skin off the orange carefully, then the pith is removed by hand, the orange then split into segments and any pips and the inner skin carefully removed. Then the only parts added to the brew are the outer skin and the segmented flesh.

Now to make a benchmark version, you'd surely have to follow the recipe verbatim, but if the consequent scaling up of 5 oranges seems to add too much bitterness, maybe you could just use 2 whole oranges, and then the zest/outer skin and segmented flesh......

That's one variation that I hadn't thought of trying......

After all, it's your brew so any mods that are done, are of your choosing. Though if it comes out well, then post the results so others can give it a try.....


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