How Should a Traditional Mead Taste?
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- What should your Traditional Mead taste like? I believe this question is really important for us to know what things to look for in a traditional mead. In this video I am going to give you my opinion on what to look and I asked my facebook group to tell me what they think! Let me know what you expect in a traditional mead and thanks for watching! Don't forget to hit like and subscribe to support the channel!
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Mead Making is an art that people have enjoyed doing for years. It's something that intermediate to expert people can do and I'm somewhere in between. I've really enjoyed trying to use lots of different flavors in my meads like: Apple, Peach, Mango, Pear, Traditional, Elderberry, Blueberry, Blackberry, Maple Syrup, Apple Pie, Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Cherry, Chocolate, Bochets, Bochet, White Chocolate, Cilantro, Peaches, Melomels, Melomel, Acerglyn, Hydromel, Berries, Berry, Capsicumel, Peppers, Fenugreek. Some of my favorite meads have been the big blueberry mead, apple cinnamon mead, Bochet, OK Bochet, Raspberry Bochet, Mixed Berry Mead, Orange Cream mead, and Peppermint mead. I focus on how to make mead and how to make mead for beginners and hopefully anyone who wants to continue to grow in their mead making.
Made my first mead about 70 ish days ago. It was a blackberry melomel. It actually has almost no taste except a hint of blackberry. I think the reason it does not have a lot of flavor is because I put the berries in during the primary fermentation stage. As well as the fact that I used some pretty cheap honey. While it might be a little tasteless it packs more of a punch than I thought it would. Wanted to prove to myself that it contained alcohol, seeing as how mild the brew seemed, so I downed a couple of glasses last night, about 4 in total, and before I realized it I was waking up in my bed still dressed.
I am a Bee Keeper and from what I found out about what is required to call a Honey, say a Clover or Citrus Blossom honey is if that Honey harvest has at least 51% of the required flavour of Honey.
Bees will travel up to 5 kilometres to get Pollen and nectar, mostly they only travel 1.5 kilometres if the flow is strong enough close buy.
I have watched my Bees and can tell you this 100% true, you can have a whole mess of flowering plants within 5 to 10 metres of the Hives and yet you can see them flying away from those plants and travel away in another direction, how the professional Bee keepers make their bees go to only certain plants I have no clue, I think if we did tests on the Honey it would be at best 51% as I know for sure my Honey is a mix of what ever is flowering in the area, I haven't seen any test kits for sale to tell which of my frames are which flowers ;).
Another sad thing I found out from watching a Documentary is that a lot of Suppliers add cheap sugar syrups to Honey, depending on the Country as the USA uses Corn Syrup a lot and in Oz where I live they use sugar cane sugar.
This will also change the flavour of a Mead for people that are buying a commercial Honey that has been altered.
It's why I recommend supporting your local Bee Keeper as you know it will be fresh and unmodified.
You have made so many meads since the time i started watching this channel, im so suprised that you've never used cactus apples. In Charlie Papazian's book, The Home Brewer's Companion, he claims that," Prickly pear mead is the most seductively delicious mead i have ever had-ever."pg 360
He says in the book he makes 5 gallons every year and buries bottles of them on a special mountain to dig up years later.
August is coming, and where i live numerous cacti will be fruiting. As someone who ate cactus apples on a regular basis while hiking i can say the flavor can't really be compared well to any other fruit, the closest i can describe would be a watermelon crossed with blackberries, as i said, this does not do the fruit any justice. The flavor is out of this world. Throughout my life i had always been making meads, but i never realized i could use the cactus apples i loved do much untill i saw the recipe in Papazian's book. The thought never crossed my mind. Im always trying to inlude the most natural ingredients in my meads, i dont really use concentrated flavors, always fruit, so something i can go and pick of a plant to make mead is always fun for me.
You should really consider trying one. I've never made it myself but this summer I'm gonna go wild on it, and make as much as possible.
Cool story an interesting idea!
I can forage prickly pear on my land. I'm going to try this. Thanks for such an excellent idea!
I make cactus mead but have to buy the nectar since it doesn't grow around here. I use mesquite honey and add habbanero tincture to bring the heat to where I like it. I love it.
My first dry mead, because sweetness hides all ills, was an interesting experience. I made it, let it sit in secondary for a couple months, bottled it and drank one after chilling it.... and didn't like it at all. A sip started nicely on the tongue with a crispness, because it was dry, developed into a honey tone and then faded to a mustiness that was unpleasant. So the remaining bottles stayed at the back of the cupboard for the next six months and it wasn't till we ran out of other stuff that we gave this dry traditional mead another go..... and what a difference. The sip still started out with the expected crispness of a dry wine, developed a distinct honey tone with floral/fruity character and faded to a sweetness that wasn't really there but the mind expected because of the honey taste.... No mustiness whatsoever. Don't drink your traditional mead for at least six months after bottling... or if you do, understand that they will taste different and better with time. I'm guessing my mead had some fusel byproducts that needed time to dissipate/chemically bond, plus the usual enzymal reactions on long chain sugars that comes with aging.
I had this with a beer once. Was so disappointed and wanted to throw it away, but I was off to spend a semester in Japan. Asked my father to dump it, and he just forgot about it and it was there when I got back. He had a bottle before I got back and said it was great. It was. Sometimes, the best ingredient is time.
I always think of the earthy in a more woody bark forest kind of a way the smell and flavours of ancient forests on a warm sunny day.
My very first mead I've ever tried i made and I put into secondary and degassed tonight. I had a quart leftover from 2 gallons. I used orange blossom honey 2.5 lbs of honey per gallon of spring water some orange zest about 6 oz of rains and a lil black tea sprinkled in. One month later it's fermented from 12.5 to .4
It smells amazing! It's a little hot, tart and you definitely get some orange honey then it's just gone. I mixed in a lil more orange blossom honey and OMG! I know what I'm drinking is probably bunk compared to whats to come with age but my girlfriend and I killed this quart tonight. I have 2 gallons pit up for a min of 6 months im starting a few more very different meads im totally looking foward to whats to come. My back ground is is distilling, but im enjoy the differences in brewing mead vs grain mashing.
Your bottles look really professional. Can you talk more about your labels? In the "All My Meads 2017-2019" video, you mention that someone helped you with the artwork. Do you have the designs printed and you just add in the name of the brew, or are you editing the label design and printing them as needed? What labels are you using? The sticker labels I see are on a sheet as opposed to being individually printed with a peel off back. Regarding the artwork, does the person who helped you do design tutorial videos? I saw a few with a quick search, but if you can plug your person that would be great.
I thought this might give you another video to fill some self isolation time. Thanks for the videos, keep up the awesome work!
I alter all the files to fit the mead name, color scheme, ingredients and ABV info. I print them out on glossy sticker paper at my local print shop and then cut them myself!
I tried a Commercial Mead to see what a Mead would taste like before I decided to make a Mead and I have to say, I nearly didn't go ahead and try a mead of my own making.
It was very bland, a slight taste of Honey but to be honest, I couldn't see why it was selling out all the time ?
I had over half a bottle left of the Mead which cost me $36 and after I made my first Mead and Bottled it, I let people try mine as well as the Commercial version.
I did a blind taste test for them so they wouldn't know which was which, everyone thought the crappy commercial one was the one I had made as mine was just so much nicer and had way more body as well as mouth feel and taste, you could tell it was made from honey and was very easy to drink, considering it was a very young Mead.
Now nearly 6 months later and it has really aged well.
My Dry version that I thought I wouldn't like has aged to the point it's now tasting sweet ?
My Sweet version that wasn't overly sweet, say similar to a good Moscato in sweetness, now seems a little to sweet ?
I never expected that, so now I am only making dry and will back sweeten if required.
Making a Cyser as well as a normal Mead at present and am waiting to see what the Cyser turns out like before I make a full size brew as now I am only making a test version of one gallon.
Also wanting to try a Coffeemel after watching City Steading make one :).
Home made is by far better than Commercial versions of just about everything I have made to date, Ginger Beer is probably the only one that is pretty close, home made is just a little smoother I think :)
Great work on your videos, have helped a lot and saved on waste :), I let you guys make the mistakes so I make less.
Australia has Yellow box honey As in from our Eucaplyt trees.
Thanks for the mention! Cheers!
Were any traditional meads naturally carbonated? If so, that would impact the flavor profile and mouth feel. Meads that were served chilled, warmed or at room temperature might also have some different characteristics.
I used to be an adventurer like you, till i took an arrow in the knee
I didn't understand your use of normal adjectives on mead like warm, big... I wish you explained it more in detail
I can try better next time!
@@ManMadeMead thanks. A few days ago was my first taste of my first mead made by me. I have no other reference as mead is not available here. So it would help me a lot, as most of your videos do!
Great job. Thank you.
It should taste like happiness in a glass
Literally been asking this
It tastes like white wine at tongue frontal part with honey flavor after swallow
More like Mead Made Man! Haha amirite guys?...wait wut
I've got a lot of rice. I'm trying my very first mead as a rice and strawberry mead right now. Ever try rice?
I haven’t! That sounds interesting!
I'm new to this. Is there a lavlin yeast to get a 10-12% ABV for 6lbs of orange blossom honey. The 47? I have no clue ?
Pretty much all Lalvin goes above 13%!
You might look into an ale yeast!
I notice that is hard for him to explain the taste of mead (even thought hes doing a great job on it) because mead is imposible to standarize. And its impossible because of honey itself. I have a brand of mead in guadalajara, Mexico and i have experienced it. My mead can never taste exactly the same one batch after another unless I use exactly the same honey. I have literally used honey from the same bees located in the same spot and it has very different characteristics one harvest to the other. adding to this, the technique of the meadmaker, and the lack of solid recipies on mead, it makes it a very surprising product in the taste regard. this is what makes mead a wonderful product, and your customers should be educated on the matter. Honey is a precious natural product, you have to use whatever honey you get your hands on, and this tells on the flavor.
10000 congratulations
Thank you!
I feel like the thickness of the mead matters
Why are store meads so damn... SOUPY? Do they use a ton of glycerin? I feel like it shouldn't be so thick.
I honestly am not sure!