brewing question: mead

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brewing question: mead

Postby fishstix » Sat Apr 02, 2011 7:28 pm

i've noticed that there are several belgerim brewers on here so i thought i'd do my part to annoy the experience pool (see: ask a question)

friend of mine and i recently tried our first batch of mead. all seemed to go well during the mixing and boiling and putting it in our brand spanking new carboy. but evidently it spent a week or more bubbling ever 10-15 seconds through the pressure release valve. and now (bit over a month later) smells exceptionally strong and is clear. he's been making beer for over a year now it was my first batch i helped with.

we used this recipe: http://www.blue-n-gold.com/halfdan/meadrecp.htm
added a bit more honey than it called for but only slightly 17 pounds as opposed to the suggested 16. and he decided to put in a couple whole oranges instead of just the rinds. which he said shouldn't have this much of an effect.

1. is this normal for mead?
2. if not does anyone have any ideas as to what went wrong or how to fix it?

editted to give more detailed info.
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Re: brewing question: mead

Postby Fangesta » Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:24 am

the whole oranges are also added sugar, the more sugar you have the more bubbling and farting the yeasties will do. Also...the oranges will also continually ferment as long as they're in there, I would say that is where the problem is...if you look at brewing recipes they always just use the juice or rinds, this is because fruit rots and ferments and creates it's own alcohol.
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Re: brewing question: mead

Postby Arrakis » Sun Apr 03, 2011 1:23 pm

If you aren't already a member, join the Cooking forum from Control Panel-Usergroups. You might get more responses in there.

Mead does take a lot longer than beer and is typically stronger. Did you use Champagne yeast, or what?
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Re: brewing question: mead

Postby fishstix » Sun Apr 03, 2011 8:03 pm

arrakis: yeah we did the actual mixing and initial making in February using champaign yeasts. and i'll check out the cooking forum thanks for the heads up.

Fangesta: we didn't leave the oranges in this whole time. i wouldn't have had to ask if we had. they were only in for the boiling and mixing, we ran the whole thing through a few layers of cheesecloth on its way into the carboy so no whole fruit got in there. they were essentially squeezed and then dropped in so we essentially did just use the juice since they got pulled out 2 hours later.
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