Joe's Ancient Orange Mead

john mills · Post by **john mills** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:21 pm

I used to work for a company that trained people with disabilities to become janitors. I've borrowed, and rented the much better commercial carpet extractors. I had thought of cleaning the carpet, but thinking how sticky even 1 drop of honey is, made me change my mind. The carpet is right inside my walk out basement sliding doors, and my wife pointed out how much ants like honey. I could only imagine how much they'd like the 13 lbs, 5 oranges, and almost 1/2 lb of raisins. The carpet is a goner. I've already ripped it up, and installing new ceramic or slate floor is now in my to do list.
My wife's happy she gets an updated floor, and I keep thinking...damn, I could have had a stainless conical. There is a slight positive for me too. The carpet is also part of the bar flooring, so at least I'll get new bar flooring also.

Jim W · Post by **Jim W** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 7:21 am

Just an update. After two months this has become perfectly clear.

A few of the orange slices have dropped out. If I have time I will bottle, and maybe even drink this weekend. I'll then start on batch 2 and 3.

john mills · Post by **john mills** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:34 am

I'm still a little gun shy of mixing up another 5 gallon batch of the sweet sticky stuff. I listened to betterbrewing pod cast sampling different yeasts, and the winner in blind tasting was the good old California Common from Wyeast. I was thinking of sampling this yeast with Joe's recipie, and also sampling Joe's with other citrus, and fruit variations using the bread yeast. I'm just stuck with the difficult task of trying to drink the contents of my smaller 1.75L spirit bottles, and the 1 Carlo Rossi jug I have.

Anybody have any extra 1/2 gallon or gallon bottles?

Jim W · Post by **Jim W** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:07 pm

Tried mine tonight. I used several cloves instead of 1. I did not have a cinn stick, so I used a tablespoon of powdered cinn. The first taste is good, but it finishes like a cross between sprite and tear gas. I'll stick with the recipe this weekend.

john mills · Post by **john mills** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 7:29 am

I have heard that Joe's Mead has results all over the board. Dewayne's sample was great, but like you say with your's Jim, it's not so good. The difference of the not so good may mean considerable conditioning time is needed. I'm not sure why there is the variance, but it's a fun easy recipe to try.

Dwayne_Delaney · Post by **Dwayne_Delaney** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 9:32 am

Those cloves are mighty potent critters; one per gallon would be the max. I would think that the extra surface area of the ground vs. the stick cinnamon would throw off the balance of the recipe somewhat. With some experimentation you could probably find the correct equivalent.

Also, I've read that most stick cinnamon is actually cassia which is less potent that true cinnamon.

Jim W · Post by **Jim W** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 12:13 pm

Yea, I blew it on the cloves and cinn. I'll follow the recipe exact today.
That stuff tastes like liquid mace. I'm thinking of contacting the military to check on homeland security applications.

Chris Norrick · Post by **Chris Norrick** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 1:58 pm

Sounds like a bunch of fruit wines I dumped today. Most were bottled in Dec 05 and if they didn't taste good today, they were'nt getting any better. Down the drain the went.

The persimmon isn't terrible so I saved it. The Elderberry is truly good and makes your mouth tingle. To bad it is such a pain in the ass to harvest and process elderberries. I may try the canned version sometime.

The raspberry/blueberry blends were terrible. As were the straight blueberry wines. I also did a gallon of elderberry/blueberry. That was really nasty. I'm glad I only made 1 gallon batches! I think I'll stick to beer. I have a clover mead and orange blossom mead from the same time period. The clover wasn't great, but not bad either. I didn't sample the orange blossom.

Dwayne_Delaney · Post by **Dwayne_Delaney** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 2:47 pm

Jim W wrote:Yea, I blew it on the cloves and cinn.
That stuff tastes like liquid mace.

Chris Norrick wrote:Sounds like a bunch of fruit wines I dumped today. .

Don't you guys have in-laws that'll drink that stuff??

Jim W · Post by **Jim W** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 4:16 pm

First, just come right out and say it. I'll save some for your brother in law.

Second, you must not have realized how cheap I am, yet. I'll drink it, even if I hate it.

john mills · Post by **john mills** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 7:26 am

Of course there are In-laws out there that drink that stuff....and make it too. It's one of the reasons I'm veering off in this direction on the fermentation trail. Some of their offerings have been OK, others are so bad, even they pour them out. So unless I want to spend a lifetime sampling dumster juice, I need to do some edjucatn'

john mills · Post by **john mills** » Fri May 09, 2008 2:37 pm

Maybe we should start a Mead thread to say what we're must'in.

Well I finally got around to facing my fears, and mixed up another batch of Joe's Old mead. This time I used 1 gallon jugs, instead of the 5 gallon carboy.
I also wanted to do a little experimenting. In addition to the orange mead, I made 1 gallon variations using other citrus fruits. I made a lemon, lime, grapefruit, and a pineapple Acient mead. I also wanted to try out some other yeast so I used the same recipe, but left out the acidic fruit all together, and added 1 tsp of yeast nutrient, and made 1 gallon versions with Wyeast 1056, Red Star Montrachet, and Red Star Pasteur Champagne.
I tried to use 3 1/2lbs honey in each gallon by mixing up 28 lbs honey with 4 gallons of water...then split it up evenly amongst the 8 jugs...added the fruit, spices, etc....then topped off with water. I took OG's of all:
Joe's Orange: 32.4 Brix or 1.141 SG calculated
Joe's Lemon: 31.0 Brix or 1.134 SG calculated
Joe's Lime: 29.8 Brix or 1.128 SG calculated
Joe's Grapefruit 32.1 Brix or 1.139 SG calculated
Joe's Pineapple 31.8 Brix or 1.138 SG calculated
Joe's no fruit 1056 ale yeast 30.0 Brix or 1.129 SG calculated
Joe's no fruit Montrachet 29.8 Brix or 1.128 SG calculated
Joe's no fruit Pasteur Champagne 29.5 Brix or 1.127 SG calculated

Really high readings...ought to be good warmers for the winter if they ferment down enough. I went with the 3 1/2 lbs of honey, because I liked the sweetness of Dewayne's first try vs the dryness of the 2nd sample I had at Big Brew. I'm thinking the extra honey is the difference of the bread yeast dying off in it's own excrement, yet leaving enough sweetness not to have to add honey back.