Mead made with wild yeast

[Pannabecker]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

I bought a wine making kit from Midwest homebrewing company and it came with a recipe book for all kinds of wines, including the pear wine. The kits are pretty cheap , $87.00 for the 6 gallon one, and once you get up and going it will only cost you about $1.50 to make a bottle of wine. I bought an add on kit for $54.00 more It comes with all the additives you need and another 5 gallon bottle. If you're looking for wine recipes online go to Jack Keller's website. He has all kinds of recipes, even really odd ones. I have lots of friends saving their used wine bottles for me. Yesterday I spent a few hours cleaning and removing labels. The wine in my picture should make about 64 bottles of wine.

[Pannabecker]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

The neon one no longer looks like that. After they sit for a month they start to clear and darken. They're not nearly as pretty as they used to be, but hopefullly they'll taste better than when I put them in those bottles. Today I siphoned and took a little taste. They have a long way to go.

Wow, that's a lot of apples for so little cider. That's crazy.

[sarah h]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

Wow, those look pretty amazing!
That's quite the neon colour of that one on the right!

I've been wanting to try something with pears too. Any chance you'd share your recipe for yours?

I'm sort of re-thinking the ice cider idea after reading that it takes 50 apples minimum to make one half-bottle. That's just too expensive to make unless I find a way to harvest the ones from my own apple tree ... before the bugs or the squirrels get them. I don't really want to put a pile of pesticides into my yard.

Beside, gotta leave myself some time for WFO cooking.

[Pannabecker]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

Homebrewing can be addictive can't it? As soon as my first batch of wine was fermenting I was ready to start another. I have 5 gallons of damson/blackberry, 1 gallon of pear and 5 gallons of wineberry brewing. Most of it won't be ready to drink for at least a year. I'm glad I made some damson gin which was ready to drink in just 3 months. All I had to do with it is pierce the damsons and put them in gin with sugar added, shake and wait. It was delicious. I highly recommend it.

Maybe I'll have to try mead or ice cider next.

[sarah h]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

Not sure about mead & moose ... didn't mix the two!

That's too bad about your wild yeast meads Frances - it's do-able, as your first batch proved, but too unpredictable I guess. If you try my recipe, I wouldn't count on it in time for Christmas, however, it will certainly give a nice Yuletide aroma to your kitchen this year, and be more than ready to drink the next! I am trying to refrain from drinking it, or giving away my meagre supply (lots of hints from interested parties that they would like a bottle to try) until it matures for a few months, since everything I've read suggests it'll be a whole lot better after 6 months to a year of storage ... guess I just need to make another batch.

I was going to try a batch of mead with rosehips, as I had seen a fantastic crop of them on city property and know they had not been treated with pesticides but on a recent trip past that site i discovered that they had all been cut back and were gone - darn!

However, a recent visit to a wine & food show has me wondering how to get the concentrated juice out of frozen apples for a batch of ice cider ...

[Frances]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

Gosh, you've been busy! That looks fantastic, lovely colour. So, how does mead go with moose then?

I've sort of given up on the idea of mead made with wild yeast, the last lot started smelling of nail varnish remover, too. - the first two small batches worked fine but since then, garbage.

So what I'm going to do next is follow the recipe you posted, to the letter. Hey, if I get going it might even be ready in time for Xmas!

[sarah h]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

I finally bottled my mead ... which actually tastes pretty good!

Six small hock bottles, 2 grolsch bottles and some leftover stuff in the jug that will likely get filtered and drunk fairly soon.

I may do this again, or maybe even some red wine - better with pizza.

[Pannabecker]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

Hmmmm, maybe I shouldn't take your word about chickens. I have an African Grey parrot. He's hysterically funny, but then I'm his mom. He doesn't shriek (much). He talks LOTS though.

[egalecki]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

oh man. My husband has a parrot. African conure, actually. The stupid thing shrieks all the @$#% time, hates everyone but him, and is at least 35 years old. I don't think it will ever die. I keep threatening it with the WFO, but it just looks at me with those beady eyes and then says BRAACK!

Maybe this bird has some bearing on my feelings about chickens...

[Pannabecker]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

We don't have many neighbors close by. We live in a rural area and many people have bees. About a 1/2 mile from here one of our "neighbors" must have at least 30 hives. We probably don't even need them for pollination since they have so many but maybe one day we'll collect their honey. Maybe you can educate your neighbors by telling them they need the bees if they want their trees, flowers and gardens to bloom. Unless your neighbors have young children I bet they wouldn't mind.

I'm glad to hear that about chickens. I've never gotten to know one.

Yeah, I know that about goats. They're also great escape artists and they require some sort of shelter so that's something else I'd have to build. For now I'll just stick with dogs and a parrot for pets and maybe try chickens first.

[egalecki]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

There's a goat at the barn where I board the horses. He's into everything and climbs on top of anything he hasn't eaten already.. including cars.

If you really look at a chicken's eyes, I don't think they look very friendly. I doubt I'd have too much trouble sending one to the big soup pot in the sky.

Do you have any trouble from your neighbors about the bees? I worry that my neighbors will have a cow about them if I get some. All the websites talk about educating the people who live next door, but I don't know...

[Pannabecker]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

I've had fun catching up on this thread because I also have those same ideas/plans/dreams. Whether they pan out is another thing. We have just one hive of bees and haven't bothered them taking their honey because we've killed off other hives in the past and this one is doing so well. It's near my husband's garden and for now we're just glad to have the bees doing their job pollinating.

Just 3 days ago I began my first attempt at making wine. We had a bunch of damsons and blackberries and you can only eat so much jam and preserves so I decided to try my hand at wine. I've always wanted to do this. Today is my 3rd day fermenting. All is going as planned. My basement smells like fermenting fruit. I like it. This batch should make 5 gallons of wine but I read that damson wine isn't any good till it has aged 1 to 3 years. What?!!!! How can I wait that long? Maybe I should try meade, hmmm, hadn't thought of that. Oh, I also have some damson gin in my cupboard which should be ready by Christmas. Am I starting to sound like a heavy drinker? Winter is coming and we need to keep warm somehow if there's not enough firewood.

Now about goats and chickens......I want some of those too. I want chickens for their meat and eggs but the goats I just want because I love 'em. I had one for a pet as a teenager and I've loved them ever since. Now if I can convince my husband that they have a use (not to eat). I'm not quite sure how I'd feel about killing chickens either after they've been in my yard for a while.

[sarah h]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

Sounds like you've made mead before!
Now Frances and I know who to call if we run into mead troubles ... or start keeping bees ...
Let us know how you make out with your mead project goes!

[berryst]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

I keep bees and have most of my life. I have about ten gallons of honey headed to the mead bottles.
I have kept bees in suburbia and in the true urban environs rooftop beekeeping is done round the world particularly in italy and France. Honey production is not as prolific in the city
Bees are fascinating and fun you can spend a lifetime at the art

mead should be made with a vapor trap
berryst

[sarah h]

Re: Mead made with wild yeast

Sounds like your meads are working out pretty well for the most part and you're right, it's too bad we can't exchange samples somehow ... I'm certain I could pack a small bottle well enough to survive the journey but I'm not sure whether it would get intercepted en route by customs and cause problems ...

No plums for brandy, as I massacred the few plums available for harvest in trying to make plum jam the old fashioned way, without pectin - it did not set but that was irrelevant since the skins (left on in ignorance) made it unbelievably sour!!!

Think I'll stick with mead and WFO cooking for now!
I've found some interesting research on fermented drinks and different yeasts but I want to see how the first batch finishes up before deciding what to do for my second.

About the mead that smelled like nail varnish remover - that's not necessarily a bad thing from what I've read, but more indicative of a stage in the process when certain ingredients are used, meaning only that it will need to age for longer than some others. If you still have it on hand, just put it away for a few more months. The rotten egg one, however - goodbye!