Mead-Brewing Questions

[Kneenibble]

Ahhhhhh, I see. Less a chemical issue, and more like it's going through the lifetime of a soda, and becoming flat on the other side. Interesting. Is there a way to preserve more gas without risking explosion? Some kinda valve?

I am not sure why one would want to preserve the gas. I think there are some commercial setups that capture it for use in forced carbonation. If you're thinking about the lost aromatics, just use more of the herb or spice, or add it after fermentation is complete.

@Kneenibble:

My background is industrial brewing and distilling. That pretty much shapes and informs my approach when it comes to all things alcohol-related. My focus is not on the basics of how things work, but rather on creating a controlled environment, working in a clean way and creating processes that will lead to stable and repeatable results. We're using a 5 vessel 20HL setup for production, so the tips I give are based on replicating this on a level that is doable for a home-brewer.

I am definitely on the same page with you in theory. Controlled and clean environment with repeatable results.

Ok, for the particulars:

- You are correct that honey is roughly 80% straight glucose-fructose. What matters are the target ABV and "Sweetness" of the final product, tho.

- Solaris actually wrote the right thing there: Denaturalizing the honey by caramelizing will have a huge effect on the whole process. We can discuss this in detail if you want.

Almost the entirety of honey is fermentable, even the majority of its higher sugars. The only way to have sweetness in a mead is through inhibiting the yeast (with heat, chemicals, or filtration) and backsweetening, or by exhausting the alcohol tolerance of the yeast to leave residual sugar. Solaris's recipe for a bochet is not ideal when showcasing a unique or delicate monofloral honey, as the process destroys any varietal character. Orange blossom is one of the most desirable honeys in the US for mead, for example, and it seems a waste to use it in a bochet when a cheap wildflower honey would give you the same result. Also, from what I have read, cooking the honey (at least with the equipment one typically has at home) produces Maillard reactions with very little true caramelization, so the amount of higher unfermentable sugars is still minimal.

- Your yeast pitch matters, especially when you don't have a fully controlled environment. If you don't use a ZKT with coolers or somehow have the ability to steady the temperature of your fermentation tanks, you should generally aim to pitch at the lowest level possible. That also means that any adjunct with anti-bacterial effects should be avoided, or rather delayed, from the fermentation to the lagering Process as the only net result you have is a higher pitch rate, which is both unnecessary and uncontrollable.

This seems to be an example of the commercial scale not translating to the homebrew scale. I'm sure precise temperature control is critical with the exothermicity in a massive 20HL tank, but the 4 to 23 litre sized-batches that a homebrewer is typically working with will at most rise 2 or 3 degrees above ambient temperature no matter the pitch rate. In a mead, at a homebrew scale at least, you definitely want to pitch a robust amount of yeast and treat them well -- increasingly so the higher the starting gravity. They will be sluggish and smelly otherwise, and may stall. I suppose the other piece here is that lager yeasts are fairly rare in mead-making; wine yeasts are the most common, and ale yeasts to a lesser degree, which mostly do not require the colder temperatures.

- Boiling, or mostly sterilizing/pasteurization is more of a matter of knowing the source product and handling bacteria besides the yeast strains chosen for fermentation. The closer you come to using natural-organic products as a base, the more this will become a problem.

This may be another example of scale, where the risk to 20HL of product is too great to bear. Honey is innately antibiotic right up until it gets diluted, and the yeast will very quickly outcompete any latent organisms it harbours. I am certain that the big meaderies in the US, like Schramm's, don't use heat. An easier way that doesn't imperil the delicacies of the honey is to dose the must with sulfites and pitch after 24 hours. But I haven't done either, and so far all my mead has come out clean.