Only works if you can be sure that no chloramine is being used as well.As extra precaution I always boil my tap water the day before brew day. It boils off the chlorines and the bicarbonate settles out as it cools.
Only works if you can be sure that no chloramine is being used as well.As extra precaution I always boil my tap water the day before brew day. It boils off the chlorines and the bicarbonate settles out as it cools.
I can vouch for this as well. It has been a fun journey of flavor changes since I made mine 2+ years ago.After 1.5 years, this mead turned into something delicious. Well worth the wait.
I'll probably start another batch soon!I can vouch for this as well. It has been a fun journey of flavor changes since I made mine 2+ years ago.
Same here....I'm down to my last three 16 oz bottlesI'll probably start another batch soon!
Soooo, not JAOMI think I will bastardize this recipe and leave out the orange, replace the water with apple juice and only use cinamon and ginger of the spices.
Sooo, does that become a cyser? (or something)Soooo, not JAOM
Although, that does sound like an interesting flavor profile![]()
I would wait longer. this is not clear. Clear means clear.How clear is clear, JAOM started on 12/8/22 exactly per the recipe. Today 2/10/23 most of the raisins and orange have dropped to the bottom, let it sit some more ?
Ok back in the closet it goes.I would wait longer. this is not clear. Clear means clear.
Hi everybody, I'm new to the whole world of beer and mead, but this seems so easy to pull that I think it's a good one to start with.
My question is, I have an 8 gallon glass carboy what someone gifted me.
How do I know how much more ingredients to put in to compensate for the far bigger amount of water I'll have to use?
Given that cloves and cinnamon and these kind of ingredients tend to be very potent, I'm not sure how much to put in there.
Thanks
I am lucky there's beekeepers in my family so I'm alright with that.Given the price of honey, I would not make a large batch for my very first time.
I agree. Save your carboy for later.Given the price of honey, I would not make a large batch for my very first time.
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation!I agree. Save your carboy for later.
I have been making mead and beer for 10 years and would never make 8 gallons of something. How boaring to have to drink EXCTLY the same thing for a year or two.
Get a jug of water from the grocery store and TRY making mead first. Or start with a 4 litre/pint jug first.
Learn to walk before you commit to running a marathon.
There are some skills you need to master first.
Unless you like having to drink rocket fuel for the next year or two.
JOAM IS easy.
Use ale yeast, orange zest/pulp and throw away the white part of the orange. Use the proportions of water to honey in the recipe and scale up or down as needed.
Put a bubbler half full of vodka on top and put it in a warm dark cupboard for a month. Ignore it. Don’t touch it. Peeking is fine.
Take out and taste it (it will taste like orange rocket fuel). Learning how it progresses is part of the fun,,
Look at it. If it isn’t completely clear, replace the bubbler and put it back in the dark cupboard. Ensure the bubbler is half full.
Wait a month and repeat
And agin
And again
about 4 months after starting you will notice a really nice flavour change.
If it is completely clear, pour off the good stuff and discard the fruit and glunk at the bottom of the jug. Put it into another sterile jug and wait until the 4 month mark (or 6 month mark, tasting every month) (time is very flexible)
When it is smooth and tasty, let your friends try it.
When THEY think it is tasty it is time to bottle. But it is also probably gone by now, so try another batch
How much was the average alcohol content?Ancient Orange Mead (by Joe Mattioli)
1 gallon batch
3 1/2 lbs Clover or your choice honey or blend (will finish sweet)
1 Large orange (later cut in eights or smaller rind and all)
1 small handful of raisins (25 if you count but more or less ok)
1 stick of cinnamon
1 whole clove ( or 2 if you like - these are potent critters)
optional (a pinch of nutmeg and allspice )( very small )
1 teaspoon of Fleishmanns bread yeast ( now don't get holy on me--- after all this is an ancient mead and that's all we had back then)
Balance water to one gallon
Process:
Use a clean 1 gallon carboy
Dissolve honey in some warm water and put in carboy
Wash orange well to remove any pesticides and slice in eights --add orange (you can push em through opening big boy -- rinds included -- its ok for this mead -- take my word for it -- ignore the experts)
Put in raisins, clove, cinnamon stick, any optional ingredients and fill to 3 inches from the top with cold water. ( need room for some foam -- you can top off with more water after the first few day frenzy)
Shake the heck out of the jug with top on, of course. This is your sophisticated aeration process.
When at room temperature in your kitchen, put in 1 teaspoon of bread yeast. ( No you don't have to rehydrate it first-- the ancients didn't even have that word in their vocabulary-- just put it in and give it a gentle swirl or not)(The yeast can fight for their own territory)
Install water airlock. Put in dark place. It will start working immediately or in an hour. (Don't use grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away in the 90's)( Wait 3 hours before you panic or call me) After major foaming stops in a few days add some water and then keep your hands off of it. (Don't shake it! Don't mess with them yeastees! Let them alone except its okay to open your cabinet to smell every once in a while.
Racking --- Don't you dare
additional feeding --- NO NO
More stirring or shaking -- Your not listening, don't touch
After 2 months and maybe a few days it will slow down to a stop and clear all by itself. (How about that) (You are not so important after all) Then you can put a hose in with a small cloth filter on the end into the clear part and siphon off the golden nectar. If you wait long enough even the oranges will sink to the bottom but I never waited that long. If it is clear it is ready. You don't need a cold basement. It does better in a kitchen in the dark. (Like in a cabinet) likes a little heat (70-80). If it didn't work out... you screwed up and didn't read my instructions (or used grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away) . If it didn't work out then take up another hobby. Mead is not for you. It is too complicated.
If you were successful, which I am 99% certain you will be, then enjoy your mead. When you get ready to make different mead you will probably have to unlearn some of these practices I have taught you, but hey--- This recipe and procedure works with these ingredients so don't knock it. It was your first mead. It was my tenth. Sometimes, even the experts can forget all they know and make good ancient mead.
Hey, what type of gallon, US or Imperial?Just made a 1 gallon batch of this. I've never had mead before, so I'm excited to try it in 2 months. Thanks Yooper!
Welcome to our forums!Hey, what type of gallon, US or Imperial?
Ancient Orange Mead (by Joe Mattioli)
1 gallon batch
As a beer brewer I'm loath to open my fermentation vessel in the middle of fermentation so:"After major foaming stops in a few days add some water and then keep your hands off of it."
1) to eliminate the head spaceOkay, I have a question. I've never made mead. I've never even tasted mead. I just stumbled across this and thought it would be a fun diversion while I was off for the Christmas holidays. The one thing I wonder about is that in the OP, it says:
As a beer brewer I'm loath to open my fermentation vessel in the middle of fermentation so:
1) why do I need to add water?
2) how much water am i supposed to add (I assume top off the carboy)?
3) is oxidization not a problem with mead?
I would add,1) to eliminate the head space
2) as much as needed to eliminate the headspace
3) it is, but it is still fermenting so every introduced oxygen is scrubbed by the yeast.
I have lost mead through oxidation, so better just don't leave it in half filled bottles. However, it takes more time than with beer to be detectable.I would add,
Mead (when compared to beer and wine) is much more resistant to oxidation. I have left half filled meads on the counter for a month or two without signs of oxidation.
When allowing a wine/mead to settle out over an extended period of time, replace headspace with liquid is net gain.
Thanks. Yeah, that's what I was thinking - I followed the recipe quantities pretty closely, right down to using the Fleischmann's bread yeast, so I figure it should have a similar OG to anyone else's who did the same. The recipe didn't mention an expected OG though.It looks good. You would need to know the original gravity to calculate the abv. However you can come up with a good estimate going by the quantity on honey to water and type of yeast used.
Thanks! Really helpful - I appreciate it. Based on those estimates my OG was somewhere around 1.105, leaving me with an ABV of 14.5%. It actually tastes pretty good - much better than I expected. I bottled it and will let it sit for 3 months or so and see how it is then.If you know the ingredients and you know the starting volume, then it is easy to estimate your starting gravity. Here's the rule of thumb: one pound of honey dissolved in water to make 1 US gallon of must will increase the gravity of the water by 35 points - and so give you reading of 1.035. Two pounds to make that same volume will double that to 1.070 etc etc. A handful of fruit will add no significant amount of sugar or liquid.
Never tried to make JOAM so I honestly have no good idea of what the other ingredients are, except for an orange which is there perhaps to increase the bitterness (the pith) and the acidity if the JOAM finishes sweet. Yours is brut dry at .994.
You may want to taste it and see if you want to back sweeten, but to do that you may need to stabilize the mead to prevent the yeast from refermenting any sugars you add. I have the feeling that the original JOAM recipe assumed that it would finish with unfermented sugars.
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