Metheglin and apfelwein

Back on December 12 I wrote that my current batch of mead had pretty much fermented dry, and that I planned to let it sit for a week or two before racking. Well, on December 24 I took that step, and racked the dry mead into a three-gallon glass carboy. I have to say (and this was my experience with the old Mr. Beer fermenter as well) that having a spigot at the bottom of the vessel makes racking sooooo much easier than siphoning from the top of a carboy.

I placed the primary vessel on the raised level of the kitchen bar, and set the glass carboy in the sink, linking the two with a clear siphon hose. Needless to say, I sanitized the hose and carboy with bleach (and thoroughly rinsed) prior to this step. I removed the airlock from the primary and stuffed a wadded paper towel in the opening, so as to allow air to flow but limit other contaminants.

As the mead transferred itself to its new home via the miracle of gravity, I prepared my secret ingredients that will turn this somewhat bland wildflower honey wine into a spiffy-keen metheglin. First up: Vanilla beans. I used two Rodelle Madagascar vanilla beans, mainly because that was readily available at the local HEB Plus. No Mexican vanilla beans to be had, unfortunately. I split these beans in two and the pasty innards immediately began throwing off a rich, sweet vanilla scent. Very nice. The potency of these beans is significantly higher than the previous beans I used, as I remember, although that was three or four years back and my memory isn't always accurate.

Next up, Icewine Tea. We picked this up a few years ago on a brief visit to Vancouver, and it turned out to be an amazing addition to a previous metheglin. Essentially, it's tea infused with ice wine and/or the pre-fermented juice from grapes destined to become ice wine. Most icewine tea is black tea, and I'd assumed for a long time that's what this was. But now that I look at the label, I realize this is herbal tea, not black. The "herbal" ingredients include rooibos, rosehips and hibiscus. I'm not a huge fan of rooibos, but in hindsight the earthy/spicy notes that worked so well in the icewine tea metheglin I made before are directly attributable to that rooibos. Curious.

Into the three gallons of mead, I added the two split vanilla beans and six bags of icewine tea.

Here's a closer look. In the days since, dissolved CO2 in the mead has gradually worked its way out of solution and pushed the tea bags up into the neck of the carboy. This has resulted in some of the mead and bits of vanilla bean bubbling up through the airlock. Yeah, that's a little messy. I've punched it down, and it seems like we've finally reached a sort of equilibrium. Already, the vanilla notes are pretty strong in the samples I've tasted, but the tea isn't noticeable yet. I'll check again in another week to see how it's progressing.

Now, we're entering unknown territory. I harvested the leftover Wyeast 1388 from the primary by "washing" it. I added roughly a gallon of boiled (then cooled) water to the primary and sloshed the mixture around to suspend the yeast, then let it settle for half an hour or so to let the trub--dead yeast and other impurities--precipitate out. Then I decanted into a large jar, and let the process of settling out repeat itself. Then I siphoned off the light yeast water into smaller jars, leaving the heavier fermentation leftovers behind. The Wyeast 1388 Belgian strong ale strain seems to be an outstanding performer for mead, at any rate, that I want to perpetuate it for future use. I ended up with five pint jars, which I placed in the refrigerator of safe keeping.

Which brings us to the apfelwein segment of our show. I've made several batches of German-style apfelwein in the past using variations of Ed Wort's recipe, and I drank the last remaining 12-ounce bottle back in November. So I've been hankering to make some more. This time, however, I've decided to use the Wyeast 1388 rather than the recommended Montrachet wine yeast, because I suspect the 1388 might preserve more of the apple flavor and aroma, as well as perform better at higher fermentation temperatures. Which, in theory, would produce a drinkable product in a shorter period of time (technically, one isn't supposed to use second-generation yeast for fermentations differing from the initial pitch, ie this yeast is attuned to honey from the previous fermentation, so isn't optimized for cider or beer or wine. I'm not convinced such evolutionary adaptations will be apparent in the second generation, so that's a risk I'm willing to take). I picked up three gallons of plain apple juice from HEB--always check to make sure there are no preservatives other than ascorbic acid. Another variant to the basic recipe I'm trying is the addition of undiluted apple juice concentrate to the juice, to increase the sugar content whilst simultaneously increasing the apple-intensity. I'd originally planned on adding four cans of concentrate, but the kids took one to make some juice.

The specific gravity of the concentrate/juice mix at this point was 1.060, which would ferment out to a 7.8 percent alcohol content. Ph at this point was 3.6. I want a little higher content to increase its keeping and aging stability, so I added 14 ounces of cane sugar, bringing up the specific gravity to 1.070. That should ferment out to around 9.1 percent ABV, which is in the range of a good riesling wine. To bring the ph up to make the must more hospitable for the yeast, I added 1 tsp potassium bicarbonate. Also, adapting the BOMM process I used for the above-mentioned metheglin, I added 3/4 tsp yeast nutrient and 2.25 tsp yeast energizer to the must. This is different from the DAP and Fermaid K I added to the honey must last go-round, but apple juice has a lot more nutrients in it for yeast to thrive on than honey does, and the basic apfelwein recipe doesn't call for any additional nutrients at all. I suspect I'm safe.

So, how to mix all these additives together and effectively aerate the must? I'm glad you asked! I just happen to have a new toy that came in shortly before Christmas that I've been wanting to try out--a drill-mounted wine degasser. After sanitizing it, I tried it out.

Works pretty well, huh? I whipped the apple juice and such up into a pretty good froth. Afterwards I checked the ph and found it to be around 4.8, which should keep the yeast happy. Earlier, I'd taken one of those bottles of yeast from the fridge and, after letting it warm to room temperature, added it to a quart jar half-filled with apple juice and a teaspoon of Go Ferm yeast nutrient. After six hours, give or take, I pitched it to the apfelwein must.

Today, the fermentation is steady although not as aggressive as I'd expected. There's a donut ring of kreusen that's formed, and a significant amount of foam built up when I degassed, but overall this is a sedate, restrained fermentation. I'm going to keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn't stall out.

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Homebrew update

Time for an update on the 3-gallon batch of mead I began last week. The must hit the 1/3 sugar break (that means 1/3 of the total available sugars had been consumed by the yeast) on December 5 with a 1.054 specific gravity reading. Following the BOMM protocol, I gave nutrient additions of .75 tsp of DAP and 2.25 tsp of Fermaid K. For the record, I pitched the yeast December 2 around 11 p.m., so I hit the first sugar break at less than three days. I expected the ferment to progress a bit more slowly than it has, as I pitched the yeast directly from the packet rather than building up the yeast numbers via a starter colony, but the yeasties didn't seem to be phased in the slightest.

The temperature has read consistently around 70F. I degassed 3-4 times daily (shaking the fermentor vigorously to release dissolved CO2 from suspension), but no matter how long I shake there's always more CO2 blowing out. A strong yeast smell came from the airlock, and no off odors at that point.

By December 8, the sg reading was 1.020, meaning the must hit the 2/3 sugar break of 1.027 early that morning. I degassed and pitched .75 tsp of DAP (I was getting getting close to the 9 percent alcohol cutoff, at which point yeast cannot metabolized non-organic nitrogen, but not quite there yet) and 1.25 tsp Fermaid K rather than 2.25 tsp, because that's all that I had left. The temperature was around 69F. The ph reading was 3.6. I hoped the additional nutrients I pitched were enough to keep the yeast from stalling out, as the additions were well short of the recommended BOMM nutrients.

I took a taste, and even at that stage I could say this was shaping up to be the best mead I've ever made. It was very clean and smooth, no harsh fusel alcohols present at all (and I know from fusels). It was floral, lightly sweet with strong citrus overtones. It was somewhat effervescent despite the degassing, so I wonder if that contributed to the citrus?

On December 9, Less than 24 hours later, the sg reading was 1.004. The temperature of must was 69F. Citrus still predominated the taste, with some yeastyness creeping in. It was beginning to taste a little hot, with a faint hint of fusels present. I guess the Wyeast 1388 wasn't entirely happy with my skimping on the Fermaid K the last feeding. Fortunately, there was absolutely no sign of this one stalling out. It was the fastest ferment I've ever seen.

On December 10, sg reading hit 1.000, meaning all sugar had been consumed and fermentation was over. The flavor was dry, yeasty, with some moderate harshness from fusels, but not a tremendous amount. The citrus aspect was much diminished. The final alcohol levels were around 10.4 percent. I'd wanted it to be slightly higher, so I dissolved roughly 13 ounces of honey in about a cup and a half of warm water and pitched it into the mead. Renewed fermentation should bring the final alcohol levels up to around the 11.5 percent mark. I expect the renewed fermentation has already finished by December 12, but there remains dissolved CO2 coming out of solution that keeps the airlock bubbling regularly.

The plan now is to let it sit for a week or two and clear, with the suspended yeast and other particles settling out of the solution. Once it's fairly clear, I'll rack into a 3-gallon carboy and begin adding spices and such to turn it into a metheglin. At this point, I'm pretty optimistic I'll have a good, drinkable mead in just a few months. Fingers crossed.

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Return of the meadmaker

As I write this, it's been just over four years since I last started a batch of mead. I've made beer/ale since then, but not mead. Considering that batch is what gave me the ice wine metheglin that received favorable reviews at the 2014 Texas Mead Fest. What made that batch successful (at least the ice wine version--plum and pear didn't turn out so well) was the fact that I'd finally learned the need to degas the must daily to release all the dissolved CO2 that can become toxic and stress the yeasts, as well as keep the fermentation temperature low--below 70F at least. I'd gotten into homebrewing by making ales, which ferment normally at high temperatures using (duh) ale yeasts. Put wine yeasts in the same conditions, and they stress greatly, creating fusel alcohols and off-flavors. So it only took me a decade of making mediocre meads to learn this--what can I say? I'm a slow learner.

Now, however, I was ready to put that earned knowledge to work. One problem though--the big, 6-gallon Mr. Beer fermentor (pictured above) was no more. Back this summer, when I brewed up 12 gallons of "In-The-Buff Brown Ale" for my book release party, I discovered the entire bottom of my Mr. Beer was ringed with deep cracks. I learned this when I tried to sanitize it for the wort, and the water I poured in spewed out the bottom almost as quickly. Color me depressed. I had other fermentors for the beer, but the Mr. Beer was special. Follow: Back when The Wife and I were planning the whole wedding thing, I went with her to Target, JC Penney and Dillard's to do the whole bridal registry thing. There's a reason it's called a bridal registry and not a groom's registry. The entire day (it was a Sunday, if memory serves) consisted of her saying "What do you think about these bed sheets?" or "How do you think this silverware would go with the china?" To which my replay was a variation of "Whatever you want." Late in the day, being quite tired and more than a little disinterested, I turned a corner in Dillard's and there it was, a huge Mr. Beer display at the entrance to the Men's section. My eyes lit up. A choir of angels began to sing in the distance. The Wife-To-Be said "Absolutely not." It was a preemptive no before I could say anything but I was not deterred. "Look," I said, "our wedding registry has 597 items picked out on it, of which I've contributed zero. I think I'm entitled." So I took the little barcode scanner and added Mr. Beer to our registry.

The next day, when I got home for work, that Mr. Beer was on the dining room table, waiting for me. Having it on our registry so mortified her that The Wife bought it for me just to keep it from the list. And I've been home brewing ever since. I particularly loved the Mr. Beer because it was clear, PET plastic, which let me watch the fermentation as it happens. That's not the case with opaque buckets. So when Midwestern Supplies had 6-gallon "Big Mouth Bubblers" on sale for Black Friday, including free shipping, I could not resist. These, like Mr. Beer, have a spigot, so there's no need to siphon. That makes racking and bottling very easy. It came in on Thursday. To get it ready, I needed to clean and sanitize it. Many homebrewers look down on using chlorine bleach for sanitizing, but I've had good success in the past. I capped the bung at the bottom with a borrowed spigot from a plastic bucket fermentor I have, and tossed all the other parts into the Big Mouth Bubbler, added a couple cups of bleach and filled up all the way with water in the walk-in shower. After that, I let it sit for the better part of a day.

I decided to put to use all my accumulated knowledge of meadmaking and approached this batch differently than in the past. I've learned a lot more about honey, for starters, and that a disturbing amount of bulk honey--even that labeled as North American sourced--is actually laundered from China and India, and contaminated with pesticides, antibiotics, etc. The way those countries get around bans on their contaminated product is by super-filtering to remove pollen. Honey's place of origin is determined by analyzing the unique pollen found therein, so if all the pollen is filtered out, there's no way to discover where it originated. In light of that, I went semi-local, and bought 7.5 pounds of Walker Honey Farm wildflower honey from HEB. They're based in Rogers, a town I know fairly well, and are the folks behind Dancing Bee Meadery, which produces some pretty decent meads. Also, I planned to make only 3 gallons this time. In the past I've always tried to make 6 gallon batches, and that's a lot of time and money gone to waste if it sucks. I figure 3 gallons is more manageable (one gallon batches are so small they're not really worth the effort).

First up, I had to dissolve the honey in water to make it fermentable. Honey is so dry, so to speak, that yeast and bacteria cannot survive in it. This is why honey is so resistant to spoilage. I heated a gallon or so of tap water on the stove to about 140F. Lots of homebrewers frown on using tap water, but I like New Braunfels tap water. Really, any place that gets its water from the Edwards Aquifer is going to have pleasantly-flavored water. Many meadmakers also frown on heating honey. I've long since passed the stage where I worried about contamination and pasteurized the honey for 30 minutes or more. I just heat the water because the honey dissolves so much more quickly that way. At 140F I cut the heat off, and as I stir in the honey, the temperature of the water drops quickly, so I'm not losing any significant flavors or aroma to boil-off.

Lots of stirring with a sanitized spoon to ensure it's all mixed in well. I keep intending to get a longer, plastic or metal spoon dedicated to homebrew, but have not yet gotten around to it. Again, some other brewers may look upon my use of a wooden spoon with horror, as it could be harboring all types of bacteria and wild yeasts, but it's fresh out of the dish washer and I've not had problems before.

In a tea kettle, I heated up some additional water to approximately 140F. This, I poured into the various jars of honey--now mostly empty--to recover as much honey as possible. There were some pretty thick layers of honey on the sides and bottoms of those jars.

After pouring in the hot water, I screwed the lid on tightly and shook like the dickens. You can see how much honey I recovered from those jars by the yellow hue the water took on. I poured this water in to the main pot and mixed everything together.

By this time, the honey-water mixture had cooled to below 110F, so I covered it and set it aside to continue cooling.

Now here's where things get interesting. The mead recipe I'm following this time is Bray's One Month Mead--known popularly as BOMM online. This did not exist the last time I made mead. It was invented by a fellow named Bray who experimented with using a bunch of different Belgian ale strains that had high gravity and high alcohol tolerances to find which ones might be useful for mead. Most beer yeast is stressed and/or killed by alcohol levels approaching that of wine, making them inappropriate for the most part. But Bray found that Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale produced a quality mead quickly at relatively high temperatures. The yeast's listed alcohol tolerance of 12 percent is solidly in the lower range of wine, so that's a plus. Until now, I'd only used dry yeasts--liquid was new for me. But I activated the packet as instructed and set it aside for six hours of so for the yeast to build up momentum.

I emptied the fermentor of the bleach water and rinsed it out thoroughly. You don't want to skimp on this part--bleach is not a good addition to mead or beer. Once everything was clean, I assembled the proper spigot in the bung and set up the airlock in the lid. With the honey-water must cooled, I poured that into the fermentor, then added cool water to bring the volume up to a shade over 3 gallons. To this, I added the additional ingredients as called for in Bray's recipe, tripling the dosage for my 3 gallons (his recipe was for 1 gallon): 3/4 tsp of diammonium phosphate (yeast nutrient) and 2-1/4 tsp of Fermaid K (different type of yeast nutrient). I then added 2-1/4 tsp of potassium bicarbonate. The original recipe calls for potassium carbonate, but that's not so easy to come by and I saw that most people online are successfully substituting the common bicarbonate with no ill effects. Shortly after this, I saw that Bray also has a 5-gallon version of his recipe up, which calls for 3/4 tsp of potassium bicarbonate--the same amount the one-gallon recipe called for, which I tripled. Oops. Will this negatively impact my mead? We'll find out. The immediate result was a ph reading of roughly 5 (the winemaking ph tester only went as high as 4.4, and it appears my color was slightly darker than 4.4) which is higher than honey's native acidity. Hopefully this will make the yeasts happy.

After pitching the yeast, I measured the specific gravity at 1.080, adjusted for temperature at 70F. If this is accurate (and it should be--reading a triple scale hydrometer is pretty straightforward--the mead should finish up around 10.4 percent ABV. This is a little lower than I'd intended. I the past, I've used 3 pounds of honey or more in my mead, and they tended to run closer to 14 percent ABV. Using the ale Wyeast 1388, I used just 2.5 pounds per gallon, shooting for a final ABV around 11-11.5. Depending on how the primary ferment goes, I may add a bit more honey in the secondary to boost that some. We'll see. The important thing is, the yeasts are happily fermenting away, and just a short while ago I shook the fermentor vigorously to release any built-up CO2, and was rewarded by a huge foaming eruption. Fortunately, the fermentor being only half-capacity allowed plenty of space for the degassing to rage. Fingers crossed that this one will be a winner.

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David G. Hartwell (1941-?)

This morning I woke up to terrible news about David Hartwell, the editor who's been involved in pretty much all facets of science fiction publishing for much of the previous half-century. He suffered severe brain-bleeding and a fall down the stairs yesterday (I'm unsure of what order) and has been reported to be near death or passed on multiple times already. He is not expected to recover.

Hartwell was known for--apart from the many excellent authors he published--garish ties and spectacularly questionable fashion choices he wore at the many conventions he attended. My selection of colorful vests worn at such events is influenced at least in part by Hartwell. I've attended numerous conventions he was a guest at, but unfortunately I don't seem to have many photos of him. This shot with Peter Beagle from the World Fantasy Convention in 2006, which were happier times for all concerned.

I'll leave it to others to lay out his career and contributions. I didn't know him that well, or ever work with him professionally, but he was always friendly to me. My one good David Hartwell story also took place at that 2006 World Fantasy Con. I'd produced a big batch of homebrew beer for Mark Finn to celebrate the release of his Robert E. Howard biography, Blood & Thunder. I'd also recently started dabbling in mead, and brought several bottles of that along as well. I had some hot jalapeno metheglin with me, I believe, along with several bottles of "Holiday Spice Metheglin," which had ginger and cinnamon and nutmeg and who knows what else in it. Let me be clear that whilst I am a competent enough homebrewer where beer and ale are concerned, my mead making skills are far inferior--especially back then, when I had no clue what I was doing. So, late one evening I find myself in one of the room parties (or perhaps the con suite) giving out samples of my mead, and Hartwell walks in. During the ensuing conversation, he takes a cup of my holiday spice, says something vaguely nice about it, and sits down to continue whatever conversation was ongoing. At some point, he asks for a refill. Knowing full well who he is, and my very low position in the genre publishing food chain, I apologize for the poor quality of my mead and offer to get him something else.

He looks at me, laughs and says, "I drank more than my share of terrible mead in the SCA. Believe me, this is much better stuff." I swelled up a little with this. I can't ever say I sold him any of my work, but I can say I served him mead that wasn't nearly as bad as stuff he'd willingly consumed in the past, and that's something nobody can take away.

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Texas Mead Fest 2015 report

Back from Texas Mead Fest held in Gruene/New Braunfels today and thought I'd give a quick Cliff's Notes version of the day. I forgot my camera, alas, so I won't have any cool photos to share this year.

I had a good time, which isn't terribly surprising, as I've been to three of these now and always enjoy myself. It was held at Rockin R, which is a river tubing outfitter maybe 10 minutes from my house, making it *real* convenient to attend this year. Meaderies in attendance were Meridian Hive, Dancing Bee, Enchanted Manor, Texas Mead Works, Rohan Meadery and Griffin Meadery. There were supposed to be eight meaderies in attendance, but apparently two didn't show up.

The Wife and I ordered ahead of time, online, so we got eight tasting tickets for $20 plus a Mead Fest tasting wine glass. That's a pretty good deal in comparison to other wine festivals. Between my eight and The Wife's eight, we only came across one mead that we actively disliked. Rather than go down everything I tried (I wasn't taking any notes) I'll just list a handful that stood out for me:

Griffin's "Scarlet" was a semi-sweet black currant melomel that had a very wine-like profile, with a nice balance of tart and tannin and a big, bold currant profile that was reminiscent of dark plums.

Meridian's "Frontier" is a semi-sweet dry-hopped session mead. I'm not a fan of hops in mead but this one really surprised me. Light, crisp and citrusy. Slightly sweet, but that was secondary to the flavors. After sampling The Wife's, I went back and got my own glass.

Texas Mead Works had a "Desert Pear Pomegranate" made with prickly pear fruit that was light, crisp and refreshing, with just enough pomegranate to give it good color and an edge to the flavor. The showstopper, though--and I heard other meaderies talking about it--was Texas Mead Works' "Necromancer." It's not what you'd expect with a name like that. They explained to me that it's triple oaked in distinct barrels to give it a specific flavor profile. And wow, does it ever. It tastes for all the world like a liquid banana bread/ginger/vanilla fusion that is heavenly. And I say that as someone who doesn't even like banana bread. Have you ever walked into a pastry bakery? You know that essence of dessert that's in the air? This is like putting that in your mouth. It's definitely a sweet mead, but by no means cloying and the 16.5% alcohol is not obvious at all. The Wife and I discussed this as the perfect mead to spring on unsuspecting guests after Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. It's an amazing dessert wine and I expect them to sell many, many bottles of the stuff over the coming years.

That said, there were some issues with this year's Texas Mead Fest. First, a couple of minor peeves. Almost all the mead available was sweet or semi-sweet. In that heat, the sweetness did not sit well and we were actively seeking dry. I think there were maybe four dry meads total, and two were at Meridian Hive. Last year in La Grange I recall there being significantly more. No way can you convince newcomers to mead that it doesn't always have to be sweet if all you have to offer are sweet meads. My other peeve was no bee keepers. The advance in the paper promised bee keepers, and as I am seriously considering installing a couple of hives on my property, I'd looked forward to talking and making some personal connections with area bee keepers. They had some for the first fest in La Grange three years ago, so this was disappointing, but sometimes these things happen.

Of far more serious concern was the venue. We've attended numerous festival-type events at Rocking R. It can be a good venue. There's a lot of asphalt parking, but also areas heavily shaded by trees. Most festivals are set up under the trees, but for some reason, Mead Fest was set up adjacent to the parking lot. Zero shade. Direct sun. Temperatures in the mid-90s with the asphalt radiating nearby. It was not a good combination--I normally stay for the homebrew competition results, but we were both wiped out quickly and dragged ourselves home to try and cool off. I don't know if Rockin R made Mead Fest set up there or the festival organizers thought that location would be more convenient, but it was a very, very bad location. To make matters worse, there was only one food trailer present (not multiple trailers, as indicated in the local paper's advance write-up) and they didn't have anything to drink. They informed us they were instructed to not bring water bottles to sell. Between the alcohol and sweating in the sun, we were feeling dehydrated before we'd finished four drink tickets. So we left the festival and walked up the hill to Gruene proper to get something to drink and cool off in air conditioning at Rio Cantina. Again, I don't know who made that decision, but it was a terrible one.

Finally, Texas Mead Association stages this event to promote the mead industry in Texas, but they've simply got to do a better job marketing and getting the word out. An advance ran in yesterday's Herald-Zeitung, and that's it. Nothing in the weekly TX Citizen, and nothing on area radio that I'm aware of. I understand the association doesn't a have a large advertising budget (if there is any budget at all) but there are low-cost ways to get the word out. There are banners available over the main thoroughfares in town. They use these with the Gruene Wine & Music Fest as well as the NB Wine & Saenger Fest, so the Texas Mead Fest shouldn't be any different. Several locals in Gruene stopped us to ask where we got the cool wine glasses. We told them about the mead fest down the hill and they were shocked--"We hadn't heard anything about it." Heck, when I posted here about going a month ago, most replies were from folks who had never heard of it. The association should have a presence on the Homebrew Talk Forums--not a hard-sell, used car salesman presence--but there are a bunch of there who homebrew their own mead, and they are the target audience for the homebrew mead competition. If they have any ad budget at all, they should run a few spots here and over at Got Mead, etc. Partnering with local establishments--I know the Grapevine carries mead from a handful of those meaderies present today--to increase awareness locally. That's what it's all about, right?

Like I said, I had a good time but there were definitely some rough edges that need to be given serious thought when they start planning the 2016 event.

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Texas Mead Fest 2014

Last Saturday, after completing my Chicken Ranch presentation to the Red Hat ladies, I went by the 3rd Annual Texas Mead Fest, held at Rohan Meadery just outside La Grange. The Wife and I went two years ago, when it was also held at Rohan Meadery, and had a great time. Last year it was in our back yard, at Texas Mead Works in Seguin, but we missed it because of a wedding.

I was flying solo this time, so it wasn't nearly so much fun. But I wanted to go since I'd entered two bottles of my homebrew mead in their mazer competition, and wanted to see what my scores were. My plum melomel had some issues--an unpleasant nose for one--and I knew it wouldn't do great, but my vanilla ice wine tea metheglin was very good and I really wanted to see what the judges thought. So to bide my time until they announced the contest results, I did tastings. And I've gotta say, there were some mighty impressive meads to be had here (a few less-than-stellar ones as well, but luckily I only sampled two that were disappointing). First up was Rhapsody (below), a semi-sweet blackberry melomel from Meridian Hive Meadery out of Austin. I've never heard of them before, but they had interesting meads listed on their blackboard. I had to give them a try. The mead had a nice reddish color and had a nice, fruity bounce in the mouth, like a good sangria, only lighter. Honey notes were subdued, and with an alcohol content of just 6.7 percent, it would appeal to anyone from the 80s who went nuts for wine coolers. And I don't mean that as an insult. This is a nice, easily drinkable mead that's perfect for a hot summer day when a higher alcohol content is a liability.

Next up was a bochet, or "burnt mead" from Enchanted Manor Winery, the folks who supply the official Texas Renaissance Festival mead. I confess I've had this before, and knew what to expect. Bochet is made by cooking the honey until it turns almost black--it's reduced and carmelized--and the result is a sweet, robust body with a creamy mouthfeel and rich, complex flavor. I've toyed with the idea of attempting one on my own, but fear of botching things has made me reluctant to take the plunge. Maybe this winter I'll work up the nerve...

After the semi-sweet blackberry and bochet, I wanted something drier, so I returned to Meridian Hive to try their dry black button sage metheglin. This was a mead that really stood out. I could tell its well-balanced quality. There were notes of honey and sage, yes, but also butterscotch (non-sweet, which took me a while to identify) and a very distinct undertone of liquorice. I despise liquorice, so obviously I did not like this mead. Be that as it may, I could still appreciate its well-constructed nature. People who like absinthe will find this a likeable, low-key alternative. After that, I tried Meridian Hive's oaked tupelo honey (below), a 7 percent semi-sweet traditional mead, mainly because I've never had tupelo honey before, let alone a mead made from it. It was very pale and crystal clear in the glass, almost straw-colored. And it was easily the lightest, most delicate mead I've ever tasted. It reminded me of a good pinot grigio, it had that quality to it, and was just barely sweet. It was crisp and bright, and it impressed me a good deal. I was disappointed The Wife wasn't with me, because this was a mead she would love.

About this time they announced the homebrew competition winners. The contest has become a lot more formalized since that first one two years ago, with entries being due weeks before the festival and all sorts of beer/wine/mead judging regulations. In 2012 you just showed up with a bottle and gave it to them. This way is better, for no other reason than the fact we didn't have to wait around forever as the overwhelmed judging staff worked its way through hundreds of bottles. Cutting to the chase, I didn't win. I didn't place. My plum melomel was hurt badly by the off scent it gives off ("vegetable" was the official description on the score sheet) and its acid was too high, but despite that it finished higher than my prickly pear and fig melomels I entered before. My vanilla ice wine tea metheglin, though, that's what I was eager to see. And even though it didn't place, it scored 38 out of 50 possible points, by far the best showing I've ever had. The judge wrote "A nice, very drinkable mead. It looks like you achieved what you were after." Yay! My initial impression is vindicated. The only downside is that I made this as a one-gallon test batch, and it's almost all gone. I will tweak the recipe and try to improve (more tannin and a touch more acid) once this infernal move is completed. But still, I'm very happy with this result.

After that, I had one ticket left, so I threw caution to the wind and tried Meridian Hive's raspberry chipotle mead. I've made jalapeno mead before, and know how difficult it is to get the right balance of sweet and heat in this type of mead. And raspberries can either be sublime or awful--there seems to be no middle ground in drinks. So even though I love raspberries and chipotle, I was wary. But holy moly, this stuff was fantastic! Easily my favorite mead of the day. The raspberry gave it an up-front fruity profile, but it didn't scream "RASPBERRY!" It was more subdued, less sharp, more like dewberries maybe. I found that very interesting. Even more interesting was the smoky chipotle heat--more heat than I was expecting with chipotle, but a restrained, disciplined heat. It reminded me for all the world of the pleasant burn you feel in the throat when drinking a good brandy. Folks, I savored this mead. I would've taken home several bottles, were it not for the fact that this was an experimental batch and they didn't have it in bottles--only growlers that cost $45 a pop. I couldn't swing that. But seriously, I hope they put this into production. It's that great.

So yeah, if you get the chance, check out the Texas Mead Fest. Or check out Dancing Bee (our favorite from 2012), Griffin Meadery, Darcy's Vineyard or Thorin's Viking Mead (actually, Thorin was a no-show as far as I can tell, but we'll give 'em some love anyway). Mead is fun. It's historical. It has all the diversity of wine, if not moreso, and I suspect meaderies are becoming the new boutique hobby that wineries were a decade ago. And I can't say I can complain.

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What's Jayme drinking?

So today The Wife and drove over to Texas Mead Works in Seguin to drop off my entries for the Texas Mead Fest homebrew competition. I entered two meads--my plum melomel (which, as an aside, I have to say turned out better than my review indicated. The bottle I reviewed was not entirely full, being the last of the batch. I don't know if excess oxygen was the culprit behind the off-putting odor, but upon opening a new bottle, the bouquet was inoffensive. Yay!) and a vanilla ice wine metheglin.

Now I know what you're thinking--"Jayme, you fool! Ice wine is a specialty wine, made from frozen, late-season grapes! What you've got is a pyment, not a metheglin!" And normally, you'd be right. But I didn't use any grapes--frozen or otherwise. Follow: I started this particular mead by adding two split vanilla bean pods to the secondary fermentation. I was hoping for a mellow vanilla taste, but the mead was dry and vanilla by itself is awkward and uninspiring. Vanilla tends to enhance other flavors very well in mead, but doesn't fly solo well. I back-sweetened with additional honey, and while this improved it some, the drink as a whole was still lacking. So on a whim, I added a bag of Ice Wine Tea (black tea infused with ice wine for the curious) which we'd picked up on our vacation trip to Vancouver back in June. I steeped it in the vanilla mead for a month and hoped the flavors would play well together. They did. Ergo, this mead is a metheglin, as I added various "spices" as opposed to grapes.

How did it turn out? Fantastic! This is, without a doubt, my best mead ever. The Wife liked it, and she rarely likes my meads (with good reason--they're usually not very good!). It pours a pale, lemon-yellow. The aroma is a mix of honey and floral notes, with a slightly spicy undertone--I want to say rosemary, but that's not quite it. Mouthfeel is lightly viscous, a bit thicker than the color and scent would lead one to believe.

Taste is medium-sweet. We're not talking sack mead or port here, but more along the lines of a moscato. The tannins and acid blend I added during the fermentation process add just the right amount of counterbalance to the honey sweetness. And the honey flavor definitely comes through. Honey is the first taste that hits the tongue, followed by a tumbled rush of orange citrus, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, all held together within a floral riesling embrace. Then the honey reasserts itself, darker and more muscular than those initial honeyed flavors. This is when the alcohol makes itself known, with a distinct warming sensation in the back of the mouth and throat. I have to admit I overshot the mark on this one--I was aiming for around 11 percent alcohol, but didn't neutralized the yeast effectively when I back sweetened with more honey, and fermentation started again. I don't have an accurate measurement, but I'm guessing the final alcohol content is pretty close to 13 percent.

This is a deceptively light, easily drinkable mead that packs a stealthy punch. It is not syrupy, but definitely sweet. The spicy flavors are easy to pick out individually, but collectively they're disconcerting (in a good way). I really, really like this one, and need to work on standardizing the recipe so I can 1) replicate this beverage reliably and 2) make a larger batch next time.

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What's Jayme drinking?

Got a little something different tonight: Plum melomel. For the uninitiated, that is mead (honey wine) made with plums. I made it myself. It's been in the works for quite a long time, the initial honey fermentation starting back in November 2012, keeping the fermentation cool by sitting the carboy in a water bath filled with ice and wet towels draped over it. This had the effect of slowing fermentation to prevent the formation of yucky fusel alcohols. I added the crushed plum juice to start secondary fermentation in June 2013, and finally bottled it in April of this year. That's a long time to invest in something to drink.

I have to say, though, the aging and cool fermentation has proven worth it. The mead pours a clear, light amber in the glass. No carbonation. The mead is not terribly viscous in the glass, not clinging to the sides when I swirl it around. The bouquet... well, that leaves something to be desired. The scent of rubber, dry wood and licorice hits my nose, along with some faintly sour esters and tired honey that give a slight chemical tinge. The traditional "Listerine" profile that marks the presence of those nasty fusels flashes through my mind. After a cautious sip, those worries are dispelled. There's a bright, cheerfulness on the surface here, light cherries, apricot, raspberries and, yes, plum. There's a light, demi-sweetness at work here, not quite comparable to a white zinfandel, but close. It's not cloying. It is, in fact, almost exactly the balance I was hoping for. The mild acidity balances the light sweetness very well, and the tannins give it just the right amount of body to ensure a robust mouthfeel. There's a heavier after taste of dark cherries, stronger plum and maybe currants. There's also an earthy undertone I'm struggling to place. It's almost woody, but not oak. Finally, the alcohol is not obvious in the mouth, but once swallowed there's a definite heat in the throat. The original alcohol potential of the honey was right at 11 percent, but with the addition of the plum and a little additional honey for back sweetening (fermentation hadn't quite been knocked out at that point) I'm guessing the final alcohol content is closer to 13 percent. That's a little higher than I'd intended, but certainly within the realm of acceptability.

I have to say that while imperfect, this batch of plum melomel is among of the best I've made since I started experimenting with mead. The scent is truly unfortunate, as it is quite off-putting, but getting past that it's quite a nice drink. I've got about two cases laid up, so I'll be able to enjoy this vintage for quite some time to come.

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Meadmaking redux

So, yeah. Despite having a grand old time at the inaugural Texas Mead Festival, I haven't actually made any mead in more than a year. In fact, the only homebrew I've done in quite a while is a dark ale about 8 months ago (which is aging quite nicely, thankyouverymuch). Overall, not a great track record when I'm trying to refine my skills to make libations that taste more like the professional beverages I sampled at the Mead Fest and less like rocket fuel or sour mash.

So anyway, I started a new batch of mead on Sunday. I took 11 pounds of clover/wildflower honey (pretty generic stuff) and dissolved it in hot water on the stove (never actually bringing it to boiling, mind you). I added two teaspoons of yeast nutrient, then poured the honey and enough cold water to make five total gallons in my 6-gallon fermentation vessel.

While that was going on, I had my yeast starter warming up. The yeast I pitched is Lalvin D47, also known as the wine yeast Cotes du Rhone. I've never tried this strain before, but it's supposedly good for medium and dry meads, and as I'm shooting for a semi-dry/demi-sweet batch this time out, it will hopefully fit the bill. I started it in a glass of apple juice with an extra spoonful of sugar, and it took off very quickly. By the time the must in the vessel had cooled enough to pitch the yeast, I had a very active glass of yeast. I stirred the must vigorously to oxygenate it, then let the yeasts do their thing.

After taking a sample of the must and running it through my hydrometer, I got a specific gravity reading of 1.085, which should give me a final alcohol content of approximately 11.1 percent. Of course, that's going to change slightly, because I'm not making a traditional mead. Once the primary fermentation tapers off, I'll rack the mead and separate into smaller containers. I've got about 15 pounds of pears from my moonglow pear tree in the back yard that are ripened and frozen in the deep freeze. I plan on crushing them and adding the nectar to make a type of perry/cyser. The moonglow are considered a dessert pear, but the do have a stronger flavor than any store-bought pear I've ever tasted, so we'll see how they work. I also still have some frozen plums from earlier in the year for one of the smaller batches, and plum mead has traditionally been one of my more successful meads (even if I've failed miserably at plum wine every time I've attempted it).

Right now it's a case of hurry up and wait for the yeast to finish it's job. Since this is Texas and it's relative warm even in the fall and winter, I've got the fermentation vessel in a shallow tub filled with two inches of water. I keep the vessel wrapped with moist towels and the ceiling fan blowing to cool the must and reduce the amount of undesirable fusel alcohols generated. I also agitate the vessel regularly, to release dissolved CO2 (there's a lot of it!) that builds up in the liquid and can contribute to stressed fermentation. So yeah, I know enough about this stuff to be dangerous, but not enough to actually produce an unequivocally "good" vintage of mead. Maybe this time...

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365 / 10: Yeast is Yeast (and Ywest is Ywest)

Doing a little homebrew tonight. Currently dissolving 11 pounds of honey into a pot full of water with which to make honey wine, otherwise know as mead, the beverage of choice for discerning vikings everywhere. My photo today is dedicated to yeast, those miracle plants without which the magic of fermentation could not take place!

Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Canon EF 100mm 2.8 macro

Lisa On Location Photography

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Texas Mead Fest 2012

Last Saturday I went with The Wife to La Grange. Believe it or not, we didn't go to conduct additional Chicken Ranch research. Instead, we went to Rohan Meadery to partake in the inaugural Texas Mead Fest.

The fact that there's such a thing as Texas Mead Fest, sponsored by the recently-formed Texas Mead Association, is a pretty nifty thing in and of itself. I started homebrewing my own mead quite a few years ago, and since then I've had several good batches of flavored mead--prickly pear, blueberry, plum and spiced--along with a few that were wretched (the muscadine experiment did not turn out well at all). The fact that honey wine (I've found many people think you're saying "meat" when first discussing mead) has reached the point of popularity where it can support boutique meaderies and an actual festival in Texas impresses the heck out of me. The mead makers behind the TMA and the festival are the afore-mentioned Rohan Meadery outside of La Grange, Dancing Bee Winery in Rogers and Enchanted Manor Winery in Magnolia--just down the road from the Texas Renaissance Festival. Apparently, there was a fourth meadery that was supposed to take part, but they backed out at the last minute.

I have to say, I was blown away by how many people turned out for the event. Mead, being a relatively obscure beverage, wouldn't attract a tremendous number of folks. Or so I thought. People were coming and going all day, with the crowds probably pushing 200 at any one time. Total attendance easily topped 300. There were a number of vendors set up in little tent pavilions like you'll see at any fair. Most of these were related to wine or honey or the like. One booth had amazing leaves from a tree that grows in Mexico with artistic scenes carved into them. Another sold flattened wine bottle cheese trays. There was a bee keeper there, with custom designed bee hives--one of which had a swarm of bees within we could watch through a glass window. One woman got close to take a photo, then freaked out when a few bees flew out the bottom, as she'd thought they were sealed up inside the hive. There was one food vendor, Texas Pizza Wagon, that made excellent brick oven gourmet pizzas. There was also a free bouncy castle for kids. My only suggestion for next year would be to perhaps move the vendors back into the open oak woods surrounding the winery, because even though they were covered, the open field was still hot and the shade of the trees would be quite comfortable. And at least one additional food vendor would be nice, because as good as Texas Pizza Wagon is, they still only offer pizza.

One of the big reasons I went was to enter in their homebrew contest. I've been making mead for a while, but unlike beer, mead is a lot more challenging to get right. I wanted some expert opinions on my efforts, so I took along a bottle of my fig mead, and another of my recent vintage prickly pear. Apparently, a lot more Texas brew mead than I thought, because once the dust had settled, they had 79 entries! The folks running the competition were overwhelmed by the participation, and one told me they'd expected maybe 30--if turnout was good. The judges took their task very seriously, and I watched some animated discussions take place. I didn't medal, but my fig mead ended up reaching the second round of judging (needs some back sweetening and a bit too much alcohol up front were the key takeaways on that one). It took more than four hours for the judges to work their way through two rounds of evaluations. The great thing was that after the end, everyone got to uncork their bottles and sample the others' brews. I tasted one very nice blueberry, and another made with chocolate nibs that had a very dry, dark-chocolate bite to it. Quite interesting and unexpected in a mead. The winners, pictured below, were "Booty Vino," the moniker of a family (pictured below) that took its meadmaking seriously. They had half a dozen entries and I believe they medaled in every category as well as winning the silver "best of show" cup. They were quite celebratory about it as well!

And there was musical entertainment as well. During the afternoon, a guitar-oriented classic rock trio performed, with a larger zydeco band taking over later in the day. Both were good, but I have to say the zydeco band was a lot more fun to watch.

Really, the whole day was great fun. The Wife and I took our tickets to the various booths and sampled a great variety of meads. Some were good, some not so much. From Rohan, their cranberry mead and sweet, Czech-style honeymoon mead were very good. Enchanted Manor had a complex, intriguing bochet, a sparkling pear and a spiced mead that we both enjoyed. Dancing Bee, however, stole the show. Every single mead they offered had fantastic flavor and balance. Their dry raspberry really stood out for me, with a bold, fruit-at-the-forefront taste and a dry, crisp finish. Goodness, it was good--not syrupy like so many raspberry meads can be. I talked with them a bit, and it became clear they're about as close to a ringer in mead making as you can get--Dancing Bee is 100 percent owned by Walker Honey, a long time honey producer in Central Texas. A few years ago they realized they were selling a lot of wholesale honey to mead makers and asked "Why aren't we doing this?" They're first-class all the way, from their product design to their promotional copy to the outstanding quality of their meads. Yes, they have a lot of sweet meads, as that's what the public expects, but to their credit they have more dry meads than any other Texas meaderies. That shows they've done their homework and plan to expand their market base and appeal to the palates of wine drinkers as well. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they've pretty much nailed every type of mead they've attempted (although they admitted to me that they've botched a batch or two in the learning process--those never see the light of day).

While waiting for the judging results, The Wife and I bought a bottle of Dancing Bee's apple cyser mead and split it between the two of us, lounging on a blanket in the shade of the oak trees on the property. It was a lazy, relaxing afternoon. A breeze kicked up every so often to keep things comfortable. The cyser, heavy on the apple and just a bit this side of "slightly" sweet, was cool, refreshing and went down very, very easily. It was the most fun she and I had doing nothing in a very long time. The Texas Mead Fest has definitely earned a regular spot on my calendar. Highly recommended.

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