My First Wild Fermented Mead

Mead, wine, beer, and any other form of alcoholic beverages, as well as vinegar.

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My First Wild Fermented Mead

Postby TGimacountryboy on Tue Mar 25, 2014 2:22 pm

Hi everyone,
I've been reading the forums for awhile, catching up on past topics and posts. I recently started my first wild fermented mead, so it's time I joined and became an active member.

I decided to do the primary fermentation in a food grade bucket to make mixing and agitating the must and wild yeast easy on myself. The local home brew supply store only had seven gallon buckets for sale, so that's what I went with.

To keep the head space manageable, I filled the bucket with five gallons of filtered tap water (treated for chloramine that the water company adds) and five quarts of raw, unheated, unfiltered blueberry honey I got from a local farmer. It's my belief (and my hope) that both the wild yeast and natural enzymes in the honey will influence the development of flavor.

For acid (and subtle flavor), I added the juice of four organic oranges. I also tossed the peels in for whatever wild yeast were on them, plus I was hoping that the oil contained in the peel (rind) would add a tang to my mead's flavor.

I also chopped up and added two handfuls of organic raisins for both nutrients and whatever wild yeast they carried. Tannin supplied by a cup of strong organic black tea. And to round out nutrients for the yeast, I included a few tablespoons of bee pollen and brewers yeast flakes.

Oh man -- the resulting mix was delicious!

I tied the remnants of a freshly laundered t-shirt over the bucket to keep unwelcome little visitors out and vigorously stirred the must several times a day over the following days to aerate the yeast and get them fermenting. Nothing was happening for the longest time, most likely because the room I have my project in was no warmer than 65 deg F. Eventually I was rewarded with a steady flow of minute sparkly little bubbles breaking the surface. I snapped the cover onto the bucket, but before placing the airlock, I flooded the three quarts of head space with CO2 using an old Soda Stream carbonator, just to be safe. The airlock was passing 12 bubbles/minute.

After 14 days of active fermentation (now 7 bubbles/minute) I decided it was time to strain the orange peels and raisins out and see what was happening under the cover.

I wasn't really expecting a whole lot of change, but this being my first wild fermented mead, I was curious. And WOW, was I surprised! The flavor after just 14 days of active fermenting was NOTHING like the original taste. Here's what I found.

Visual: cloudy (due to yeast), very light yellow-orange in color. Nose: blended essence of orange and tea. Honey is there, too, but much less noticeable. Taste: complex flavor; buttery smooth on the tongue. Honey comes to the forefront, with orange making a strong impression. Surprisingly, the raisins and tea are making an appearance as well. The finish is mildly tart; presumably from oil in the orange peel (which was what I was hoping for), with perhaps some lactic acid bacteria rounding out the flavor.

I snapped the cover back onto the bucket and again flooded the head space with CO2 then replaced the airlock.

Today, after 19 days of active fermentation, the airlock is passing 4 bubbles/minute. When it gets down to one bubble/minute, I'll rack it into a carboy and a one gallon glass jug for the next stage of fermentation.

Should I cover the carboy to keep light out? Is that important?

I can see this becoming a regular thing. Gotta find a balance between enjoying the early fruits of my (and the bees!) labor and leaving some to age in the bottles. Bottles. That's the next project: acquiring an abundance of wine and champagne bottles. Worse comes to worst, I have an ample supply of bail top beer bottles I can use, but I'd rather reserve them for future batches of wild fermented ales. :)

Namaste,
Tidge -_-
TGimacountryboy
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2014 11:36 am
Location: Pa.

Re: My First Wild Fermented Mead

Postby TGimacountryboy on Sun Mar 30, 2014 1:43 pm

Two days ago my mead's fermentation was down to about 1 bubble/minute so I moved the fermentation bucket up onto of my washing machine and left it sit there for the lees to settle.

Today (March 30) I racked it into a 5 gallon carboy. I decided to put the rest of it in the fridge, to enjoy the early results of my efforts, rather than mix up some more honey/water to top up the gallon jug.

I was surprised by how much orange peel remained in the bottom with the lees. Next time, I'll wrap all the orange peels in a piece of cheese cloth so I can remove them all in one fell swoop.

The must tastes very tangy, but I'm not worried. I like tangy. And on page 78 of The Art of Fermentation, Sandor says: "I had a batch of strawberry mead that tasted nasty when I bottled it. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, but I didn't touch it for about three years. It's really delicious now."

My next batch, I'll probably leave the orange peels in for just seven days, and I'll wrap them in cheese cloth, like a garni, so I can be certain of removing them all at once, for some semblance of consistency (and yes, I realize that a wild fermentation is anything but consistent). Hey, experimenting is the only way I'm going to learn what works for ME! I'll probably wrap the chopped raisins in a garni, too.

For any newbies reading this, what I am attempting is not considered a "traditional" mead. A thousand years ago, the Vikings had no easy way to separate the honey from the comb. So when they were successful in gathering honey (in the comb), they dumped everything they gathered into a pot of boiling water. The wild fermentation occurred after the must cooled down to ambient temps.

What I'm doing here is brewing a mead that uses the natural enzymes, lactic acid bacteria and the natural yeast found in raw, unheated, unfiltered honey.
Namaste,
Tidge -_-
TGimacountryboy
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2014 11:36 am
Location: Pa.

Re: My First Wild Fermented Mead

Postby FermentingYeti on Mon Apr 21, 2014 12:36 pm

Your technique sounds exactly like what I have been employing since I started wild fermenting meads. Great detailed description-sounds like you're doing everything right. I've taken to only adding a couple orange peels and then adding the rest of the orange for meads in which I use orange. I like the tang, but not too much of it. And you're spot on about how the Vikings/Norse brewed their meads. Pretty much all ancient meads and ales were brewed this way. It has only been a couple hundred years since we've figured out how to extract honey without killing the bees. Usually plenty of dead bees ended up in the must as well. Ah, Vikings and mead-pretty much what got me into researching ancient fermentation techniques.
FermentingYeti
 
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Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2012 6:34 pm


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