Comments on: Making Mead: The controversy over boiling http://www.washingtonwinemaker.com/blog/2007/06/05/making-mead-the-controversy-over-boiling/ Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:19:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3 By: Erroll http://www.washingtonwinemaker.com/blog/2007/06/05/making-mead-the-controversy-over-boiling/#comment-5079 Erroll Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:18:52 +0000 http://www.washingtonwinemaker.com/blog/2007/06/05/making-mead-the-controversy-over-boiling/#comment-5079 Hello Aaron, <i>The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened: Whereby is Discovered Several Ways for Making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry-Wine, etc, & together with Excellent Directions for Cookery: As also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, etc</i> contains mead recipes that call for boiling, and it was published in 1669. I don't know if Sir Kenelme's mead was clear or not, none of us can go back and look, but it certainly <i>could</i> have been. I have found no relationship between clarity and flavor. I've waited three years for some meads to clear, and when they didn't, I fined with bentonite. The mead tasted great before and after the fining. So if clarity is important to you, there are simple things you can do to get it without harming your mead. If it isn't, then you're not missing anything by drinking mead that isn't brilliantly clear. I should mention that you can add too much of a fining agent (like bentonite), and that can hurt your mead. Then again, that's true of most things: you can have too much honey, tannin, and acid. In principal, you can probably add too much yeast (but it would really have to be a <i>lot</i>). Erroll Hello Aaron,

The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened: Whereby is Discovered Several Ways for Making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry-Wine, etc, & together with Excellent Directions for Cookery: As also for Preserving, Conserving, Candying, etc contains mead recipes that call for boiling, and it was published in 1669. I don’t know if Sir Kenelme’s mead was clear or not, none of us can go back and look, but it certainly could have been.

I have found no relationship between clarity and flavor. I’ve waited three years for some meads to clear, and when they didn’t, I fined with bentonite. The mead tasted great before and after the fining. So if clarity is important to you, there are simple things you can do to get it without harming your mead. If it isn’t, then you’re not missing anything by drinking mead that isn’t brilliantly clear.

I should mention that you can add too much of a fining agent (like bentonite), and that can hurt your mead. Then again, that’s true of most things: you can have too much honey, tannin, and acid. In principal, you can probably add too much yeast (but it would really have to be a lot).

Erroll

]]> By: Aaron http://www.washingtonwinemaker.com/blog/2007/06/05/making-mead-the-controversy-over-boiling/#comment-5069 Aaron Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:23:52 +0000 http://www.washingtonwinemaker.com/blog/2007/06/05/making-mead-the-controversy-over-boiling/#comment-5069 Just a question. How clear was mead traditionally, I mean, before use of modern stoves or the knowledge that bentonite exsisted as a clarifying agent? Do you find the clarity of the mead changes the flavor, and if so, is it a change for the better? Just a question. How clear was mead traditionally, I mean, before use of modern stoves or the knowledge that bentonite exsisted as a clarifying agent?
Do you find the clarity of the mead changes the flavor, and if so, is it a change for the better?

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