Orange Melomel and Mead housekeeping

[Cpt.Frederickson]

To close out the old year I've decided to pay some (much needed) attention to some of my meads, and to add a new member to the collection
Currently cleaning bottles and equipment ready to bottle my ginger metheglin, as it's 18 months old now! Then to rack the raspberry meads for the final time, as the proteins have settled since I back sweetened.

Today's project - Orange melomel. I've prepped 7 oranges by a swift boiling (whole) before peeling the zest and freezing to add in secondary.
More to follow...

[fatbloke]

Boil up not necessary. You can just drop them in a bit of sulphite solution to kill or at least stun the hell out of any wild yeasts on the outside..... leave them for 5 mins contact time is what I aim for with them.....

don't forget, if you're gonna use whole orange and wine yeast, you'll likely need to back sweeten if it ferments dry, as the pith bitterness comes to the forefront and needs balancing - if it's gonna be like a JAO type batch, then using bread yeast leaves enough sweetness to balance (usually).

And for your delectation (and after the let down of my supply of dead D21), Alex over at gotmead got some sent over from morewine recently. He's kept what he needs and put the rest on ebay (I bought 10 packs and have put them straight in the fridge) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lalvin-ICV-D2 ... 46171fa565 thought you might be interested......

Hope yer ginger and rasp batches have turned out good.......j

HNY to you and yours chap......

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Happy new year to you too, nice link there John! Will be getting some of those I reckon
Just to clarify, the boiling isn't any of this 'sanitisation/sterilisation' rubbish that people go for a lot. It's actually a tip from good ol' tubby Tom Kerridge making an orange cake t'other night.
Apparently, the boiling somehow removes the bitterness from the pith, and from a bit of research it seems to be a favoured method for flourless cakes and marmalade making. This wasn't my main aim, as I'm just going to press them and use the juice and use the zest in secondary, but it does make the pith seperate from the fruit more easily. We shall see if my evil plan works...

[fatbloke]

Happy new year to you too, nice link there John! Will be getting some of those I reckon
Just to clarify, the boiling isn't any of this 'sanitisation/sterilisation' rubbish that people go for a lot. It's actually a tip from good ol' tubby Tom Kerridge making an orange cake t'other night.
Apparently, the boiling somehow removes the bitterness from the pith, and from a bit of research it seems to be a favoured method for flourless cakes and marmalade making. This wasn't my main aim, as I'm just going to press them and use the juice and use the zest in secondary, but it does make the pith seperate from the fruit more easily. We shall see if my evil plan works...

Oh right ho....that sort of makes sense, though if you think when making limoncello, they only carefully slice the zest off as it (apparently) contains the lemon aromatic oils......

What a f****r with all the conflicting ideas, advice and suggestions. They all make sense don't they but which is best ??????

WTF.....go with the original plan, if it doesn't work out, there's always the zest the skin and segment out the flesh so you just put the flesh and zest in. That way, on another batch, you'd get the flavour and aroma if nothing else.........

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Here's the recipe I went with;

Orange Melomel ("Orange County Suite")

4.5lbs Orange Blossom Honey
2.8lbs Blossom Honey
Juice of 7 oranges (500ml)
Zest of 7 oranges (for secondary)
Spring Water to 9 litres
Lalvin D47 (2 packets, rehydrated in GoFerm)
3.25g Potassium Bicarbonate
Fermaid K and DAP for Staggered Nutrient Additions to 300ppm

SG 1.112 (approx, as my good hydrometer was destroyed by the missus and my old one is shite!)

Got a surprisinging amount of juice from the oranges, whizzed up in the food processor and squeezed through muslin.
Fermenting this on the cooler side, hopefully it'll keep most of the aromatics from the honey, and then chucking the zest in secondary to give this a really strong orange character. Perhaps I'll get some more oranges and zest them as you describe FB, after all what have I got to lose!

[fatbloke]

Here's the recipe I went with;

Orange Melomel ("Orange County Suite")

4.5lbs Orange Blossom Honey
2.8lbs Blossom Honey
Juice of 7 oranges (500ml)
Zest of 7 oranges (for secondary)
Spring Water to 9 litres
Lalvin D47 (2 packets, rehydrated in GoFerm)
3.25g Potassium Bicarbonate
Fermaid K and DAP for Staggered Nutrient Additions to 300ppm

SG 1.112 (approx, as my good hydrometer was destroyed by the missus and my old one is shite!)

Got a surprisinging amount of juice from the oranges, whizzed up in the food processor and squeezed through muslin.
Fermenting this on the cooler side, hopefully it'll keep most of the aromatics from the honey, and then chucking the zest in secondary to give this a really strong orange character. Perhaps I'll get some more oranges and zest them as you describe FB, after all what have I got to lose!

Sounds like a good 'un

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Did you see Medsen's orange marmalade one on GotMead? The mazer cup best in show. Based loosely on that, but couldn't get the Seville oranges.
BTW, the ginger mead was very good and the raspberry yeast experiment was truly excellent! D47 and 71B comparison.

[fatbloke]

Did you see Medsen's orange marmalade one on GotMead? The mazer cup best in show. Based loosely on that, but couldn't get the Seville oranges.
BTW, the ginger mead was very good and the raspberry yeast experiment was truly excellent! D47 and 71B comparison.

That sort of rings a bell, but don't recall how it did verbatim.... You could always have a look at the orange marmalade concentrate stuff they sell in Lakeland shops (I'd have thought Maidstone would have one) and check it for preservatives. The orange one is most likely Seville oranges.

Or that might just be a stupid idea......

Good that the yeast experiment and the ginger went well.

My ginger wine was made with a mega amount, but was uninspiring and medium dry. Then when I popped the last bottle I just stirred a teaspoon of golden syrup into it to see what it might be like.

Damn! it was like drinking nuclear grade Stones Ginger Wine.....

There's a few ideas floating around as to how to extract the flavour the best from ginger though, as well as differing ideas on the amount of ginger to use per gallon/litre/whatever. I like my ginger hot and spicy (Aldi have had bags of crystalised ginger recently. Nice and hot/sweet - and cheap at 99p per 200 grammes)..........

[Cpt.Frederickson]

Can't recall of the top of my head how much i used, probably about 80g in 1 gallon? Combined with rosemary honey it is delicious. Medium sweet with a good warmth to it. Recipe was;
3 lbs Spanish Rosemary Honey (Paynes)
340g Ukranian Sunflower Honey (Asda) left over
Small amount of Wildflower (Paynes) left over from last batches
81g Ginger Root, peeled & sliced
250mls Assam Tea (steeped and cooled)
Lalvin D47
SNA
Would love to get hold of more of that Rosemary Honey! Lovely stuff.