Joe Mattioli's Ancient Orange and spice Mead recipe

[lockwood1956]

No

But I have promised myself I will .......next time!

[Axl]

Started 2 Gallon of this Mead at the weekend, the first gallon as the recipe reads,

The second gallon i made by replacing the oranges with lemons and limes and everything else remaining the same. Hope it'll work ok, i decided to be brave and try something a little different, any thoughts on using the lemons and limes would be appreciated as i don't feel so brave anymore.

[lockwood1956]

They are citrus fruit just the same, should be just fine.....

[Mamgiowl]

And limes taste soooo nice Good luck with it Axl and let us know how it gets on.

[Axl]

Thanks, these are by far the best looking fermenting wines i have ever started, and with me being a stubborn QUACK!QUACK!QUACK! ill try leaving them until the fruit drops.

I have one question though, the fruit will contain a certain amount of natural sugar, so will the starting SG not be that accurate as the fruit may slow release the sugar during the ferment, giving a slight higher abv when finished?

[lockwood1956]

I have one question though, the fruit will contain a certain amount of natural sugar, so will the starting SG not be that accurate as the fruit may slow release the sugar during the ferment, giving a slight higher abv when finished?

Almost............................it will be slightly higher when starting.....

I have a list somewhere of the sugar and acid content of various fruits.

will dig it out

[lockwood1956]

here you go



http://www.lockwoodrecording.net/sugarandacid.pdf

[Axl]

Thanks Bob.

[Axl]

Should i push the fruit down into the liquid, i'm a little unsure if the fruit will go off/bad being exposed in the top of the demijohn.

[lockwood1956]

Nah!
it will be fine whilst ferment in progress, its surrounded by CO2

I took the fruit out of mine when it started to look skanky (about 8 weeks)

[jcnoren]

I'll say there is C02!!!

I was bound and determined to wait until my fruit fell....well after 3 months the mead had cleared but the fruit was still on top. At the suggestion of a member at a wine site I used my vacuum on it. C02 abounds!!! The vacuum stirred up the sediment but by the end of the day after using the vacuum on it...the fruit fell...finally. Waited a week for my mead to reclear then bottled.

The C02 held up the fruit as well as surrounded it.

JC

[Dr. B]

I know I am being picky, and I'm sure this recipe tastes great, but how "traditional" is a mead with citrus fruits in?

Meads were most common in northern Europe where citrus fruits won't grow and imports would have been exceedingly expensive.
I make mead without citric acid and it turns out fine

[lockwood1956]

I think Technically it's a Melomel

the recipe is traditional but not traditional British mead, it's from Israel, where Citrus fruits abound, courtesy of Miriam a member of winepress.us who resides in Israel, so.....very traditional

it really is very good

and happy first post to you

regards
Bob

[brewnut]

In for a penny!

Hi All,

Just thought I'd let you all know this recipe has finally got me by the short and curlies too - I started it about an hour ago!!

I decided to go in for the nutmeg and all spice additionals too, so here's hoping this will turn out to be a killer mead to get me interested in doing more. I put two cloves in in a moment of madness, but hope they are not going to over-power the rest of the goodies .... If anyone thinks so, let me know ASAP, and I'll go fishing for one of them and take it out!

I must admit to a fond liking for cyser, even though I've never tried it yet, but it seems a turbo cider used as a base would be lovely jubbly! I might, therefore, give a cyser a go just as soon as another DJ gets freed up!!

I've also started another two kits tonight; one peach wine, another black cherry! ..... I've added some grape juice to each kit, as I did for my plum wine (which tasted FANTASTIC tonight!) .....

I've also bottled my 4.5 gallon turbo cider tonight! ..... All in all, a 12 hour brew session, what, with one thing and another! .... Never mind; now I can finally relax, with over 80 pints on tap ... And have a home-brew!!!

Brewnut

[lockwood1956]

Wow brewnut you have it bad!


lol