Does Mixing Honey in a Mead Matter?
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- Опубликовано: 17 май 2020
- Today we're conducting a test to see whether mixing your honey in a mead actually makes a difference! We're seeing if the yeast will ferment on honey that hasn't been mixed and also seeing if there is any taste difference between the two. I'm excited to share this video with you because I was very shocked! I'm sharing the mead recipe below and some links to support the channel! I hope you will hit like and subscribe to support the channel. Thanks for watching.
This Meads Recipe:
1/3 Gallon of Spring Water
1.1 Pound of Honey
2 Grams of Lalvin QA23
Want to know what I use? Check it out on my Amazon store of my website!
www.ManMadeMead.com
Discord Link: discord.io/ManMadeMead
www.ManMadeMead.com
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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. 
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I really like all of these "What would happen if I did.....?" videos. 🙂 And I really like how you include the whole experiment in one video, instead of making us watch four separate videos over a month to see the end result.
#CSBrews lol
I forgot to include it in this, but the final gravity for both was 1.000 .
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The question that kept me awake a night has finally been answered.
Very good video.
Thanks so much Im new to brewing but all your helpful videos have inspired me. Really love these style videos I like science meets art of true brew crafting- subscribed and have started my first mead!
i asked you about mango mead a while back, ended up using sliced mango for a week in secondary and it turned out really good, the mead has a really cool green tint to it and tastes a little tangy. looks great next to my apple cinnamon bottles, success!
Great experiment! While I wouldn't start a mead without doing any mixing, it's good to know that if you've got some undissolved honey it's not going to be a problem; the yeast will take care of it even if it slows the ferment a bit. It's always nice to know when there's something that will work out on its own so you can be a bit more chill in your mead making.
I don't think it's normal to start without mixing it, but I enjoyed this experiment!
It could be very beneficial to not mix when using very aggressive yeasts. By slowing the fermentation in this way less of the funky spirits should be produced yielding a Mead which is smoother and requires considerably less ageing. This is a fairly common method of making high ABV meads without having to step feed. I usually oxygenate the heck out of the water. It's really neat to see it in time lapse though! I never would have thought of that. Good video
It isn't the yeast dissolving the honey, it is the honey absorbing the water as honey is a hygroscopic product (like brake fluid) so it absorbs water from the atmosphere.
Ive also made meads in the past where i put the fruit in first then let the honey sit at the bottom and sort of encase the fruit to delay any of their sugars being fermented too quickly. The main reason I did this was because the containers I was using were just thrown together and I didnt dare chance opening them more then once or twice. Each time they came out great and the various fruit tastes came out amazing. I actually even forgot about one for a couple months and came back to something that aged very well.
Amazing video. I was considering re-stirring my mead as I saw alot of separation, and this has confirmed that that's not needed. I like the patience hands off method. Good presentation!
Thank you!
Truly the Bob Ross of mead, nice video man
Really interesting stuff, I'd never thought about it before.
Great experiment! I stopped re-hydrating my yeast and have not had any problems so far. For a mead with ~3lb honey per 1ga I would, but for lighter ones I don't bother and it always works. Good to try different things :)
One of the best mead videos ever. Very valuable information. Thanks for sharing.
I’m happy to share!
I did a no mix wine like this. I caramelized sugar into hard caramel, and it was just a solid blob at the bottom of the bucket.
One month later, it was rich and delicious, like i was drinking a snickers candy. I gotta revisit that recipe again.
I've always wondered this. thanks
great video. And very interesting. Thank you
Cool experiment, good video MMM.
It looks like you switched the two on accident. You wrote the O.G. on the mixed one and then when you came back to check the gravity you said the one that was not mixed was 1.090 but that jar had the O.G. written on it. Also the red top air lock was originally on the non mixed but at the end you said that one is the mixed one.
Yeah...I now have no idea what the actual results were. Did he accidentally switch the tops, too? Does that mean it was actually the mixed jar that turned out more yeasty...or was that just his perception, due to him _thinking_ it was the unmixed?
Thanks for the video. I was hoping we would get to see the bubblers in the time-lapsed video and to see it finish up but I guess that would take up all your video equipment time.
I like that test that was dope
Really great idea for an experiment. I was less surprised than you with the results. Where the water and the honey touch you are going to get the equivalent of a mixed solution and so the yeast which are exposed only to that surface area are able to transport the sugars through their cell walls, so I would have hypothesized that the fermentation would take place but would be considerably slower.. but here's one condition that you never kept constant. You mixed one jar, OK but in mixing you ALSO added air so I would have expected the yeast in the mixed jar to begin fermenting sooner than the yeast in the jar that had no added oxygen. So I wonder what might happen if you had aerated the water in the jar that wasn't mixed? That said, I thought it was very fascinating that both jars fermented without problems (I don't know that you gave us the final gravity) given the fact that you never provided any nutrients and current thinking is that we do need to provide nutrients when making mead AND your must was at 1.100 (or potentially, at 13% ABV) - so that is a lot of honey for the yeast to ferment without minerals and nitrogen...
I have made quite a few batches of mead, some going up to 17-18%, and have used nutrients in only of them. All fermented up to tolerance, except for the ones I stopped myself. The one batch I used nutrient in tasted horrible, and was a recipe I had already tried and liked.
Cool test
That’s some ambitious yeast!
Good job little dudes!
Very interesting and informative, good job!
Thank you!
@@ManMadeMead I like these videos that kinda show what is important and what is not. This shows that mixing your must is one of the things you don't need to be anal about.
I think Ken Schramm suggested that the first meads were made in "bags". That wild fermentations in tree trunks were unlikely to reach the dilution levels necessary to allow for fermentation (or maybe he was citing someone else). This video to me suggests that no dilution at all would be necessary. A hollow tree full of beehive suddenly filled with rainwater and bam!. Mead. Good vid!
Great video and experiment. The process of OSMOSIS would have the honey dissolve into the water over time. Also, as the yeast are consuming the sugars they are releasing gas/CO2 (farting as my 10th grade biology teacher would say) the gas rises to the top, agitating the solution.
I thought this was going to be about blending different honeys for flavor profiles (like orange blossom honey and cherry blossom honey or something like that). I think that would make a good experiment.
There is a company called "Lehman's" out of Ohio that sells lids already made for fermentation in canning jars (like sauerkraut) that have the hole and grommet already in place. It is a great resource for all sorts of things.
One thing I would like to point out is when you use scales, you should have a separate vessel for measuring and zero out the machine with the vessel on it then add the material.
I like the video. Its great content and as always informational. My take on the subject is like this...
If you have a banquet hall with max occupancy of 800 ppl. And you have 800 ppl to serve all night. So relation to the mixed and non mixed batches is that mixed has greater surface area of effectiveness. Allowing more of your yeast to gobble down on the foods available. The non mixed is like you have all 800 ppl waiting in line serving a very small amount of them at a time. I think slower means a stronger flavour or more aromas... but you'll be waiting much longer through fermentation to complete. And may not be clean in the end. Holding all that yeast flavour as well.
My last mead would separate every time I quite shaking it , the honey would drop to the bottom.
Right now its 3 weeks in and all the honey that was all at the bottom is now gone and airlock is still going .
This is a time I would of suggested some nutrients for the yeast and possibly an energizer, do to the difficult task at hand for them. I might also suggest a brewing vessel with a greater diameter, to allow more yeast to be able to get at that honey.
I like your mixer. I recommend the same to everyone. Keep it clean and you'll never have to stir again unless you want.
In the past I've made cyser by dumping 5 gallons of store bought cider into a bucket with a gallon of honey didn't really mix it up. The sugar in the cider gave the yeast a bit of a boost to get the energy to eat the honey that settled at the bottom. It was a bit slower to start fermenting and Took about a month to stop fermenting.
Very interesting experiment. I knew honey was hygroscopic and would eventually dissolve in water, but I did not expect it would do it so fast.
I started a cider with honey yesterday and forgot to mix the honey. I was worried that I would run into problems when transferring to secondary but I am now reassured that it should'nt be a problem. Thanks!
The hygroscopic property relates to honey’s propensity to draw moisture out of surrounding air. In this case the experiment is more about the solubility of honey and water and the mixing of the two at the interface of the layers… having to do with the different densities and the viscosities. It might be cool to run the same layered experiment, one with yeast, one without yeast to see how the yeast impacts the rate of solubilization of the honey.
@@davenirschl6522 Indeed. I would expect that the yeast would drastically contribute to mixing the two, but I might be wrong.🤔
Would have been interesting to have had a control jar with just hunny and water to see if it was just natural diffusion, or if the yeast sped it up. I'm sure the currents created by natural degassing also helped speed diffusion so we couldn't say if the yeast directly "ate" at the honey layer, or if they thrived somewhere higher in the must.
Good to know. I've always wondered.
So. Short story, long.... If it's cold and the last of the honey is being a pain mixing in because the carboy is heavy, the arms are sick of shaking it and ol' mate's turned up to take you weekend fishing.... Don't sweat it, just pitch the yeast and grab the fishing tackle.... It'll eat that last bit down the bottom before you get back anyway. :)
Amen! Haha
I made a coconut water maple syrup wine this way. Maple syrup dissolves a lot more easily than honey, and coconut water has a little sugar in it as well which I think "woke the yeast up" faster so even without any stirring the must was fully mixed within less than half a day.
Love the video, this is a great experiment. Side note:
1.) 1ml of water is around equal to 1 gram of water, so when deviding your water you can measure them by weight to make sure you have the same amount of water and honey in each one.
2.) I think you mixed up your jars when you took the second Gavity reading (1.060 reading). The jar without the mix didnt have a SG written on it. The one that you did mix did have the orginal SG on written on it. But when you took the gravity reading of the "non mixed" it had a SG written on it. And the one you called the "mixed" mead no longer had an orginal SG written on it.
I noticed this too, so does that mean the non-mixed actually was faster?
@@michaelh9841 I think he just mixed the lids, not the meads
Thoroughly interesting. The debate has been going for a long time among mead makers: to mix or not to mix? To mix thoroughly or not to mix thoroughly?
Here’s what I’m thinking: this might be an interesting thing to do when step feeding. Theoretically various types of honey can generate different gravities, but if you’re using only one kind of honey, your first addition and subsequent reading can already give you an accurate amount of points per pound per gallon. So basically step feeding can be done by simply stirring up your fermenting brew to disturb the yeast cake (and possibly add nutrient) and then pour in a measured amount of honey. A much slower process, but perhaps worth trying!
Mmmmm... seriously considering having a go at this! Especially if the weather is quite hot, you’ve got no airconditioning and you don’t want your fermentation to go crazy on you! The combination of the coolest spot in the house AND unmixed additions might prevent off flavours. MIGHT. Not sure.
hey i have a question, with the mead finishing at 13% what was your final gravity, or did te mead finish semi sweet or dry?
About to start my first mead.
I haven't mixed up my must well enough to not have the honey and water separate out. I think fermentation takes a little more but the overall mead seems to improve in the flavour like it isn't as stressed in taste compared to the
Hi, ive been watching your videos after CS mead and more recommended you. My question for you is what would happen if you oxidize the water as well as leaving the honey at the bottom, it looks like a great way to slow things down but just adding the water over the honey means there should be less oxygen. What do you think? and thanks for the cool videos! I found this was asked already.
Now I'm interested in seeing this hypothesis tested with sugar rather than honey.
If you use a fruit based activation method I’d say this is a far more casual method cause I add it to the juice usually from grapes and it just sits there and I add the activation juice that’s prepared already and it mixes automatically whenever it starts to ferment
If you were going to not mix on a larger scale (3-7 gal), do you think you'd try to add 02 to the must somehow, or would you just leave it as is?
Interesting results. When I first saw the title I thought you were going to discuss mixing different honeys. Like 50/50 buckwheat and clover honey and such. Any of you guys have experience with various honey mixes?
Or even 1/2 sugar 1/2 honey?
You should make a few videos about brewing hard ciders
I just watched this to make sure you got the same results.
Not mixing, just makes fermenting slower.
If you want CO2 production to be slower and over a longer time, don't mix it. The ONLY reason to do this, would be for feeding houseplants. Just like you said, it is a risk that foreign bacteria/yeast/mold could take hold before the yeast kicks in.
This is what happens:
Some of the honey or sugar, will be dissolved into the water, just by having contact with it.
As the yeast eats the sugar/honey that has been mixed in the water, it creates CO2 bubbles.
These bubbles, agitate the water, which causes slight mixing of more sugar/honey into the water.
The more they eat, the faster the sugar/honey will be mixed in.
.
It's the equivalent of dripping vinegar on baking soda, versus mixing it all up in a container. You get a slower reaction.
If you are mixing sugar/honey with water and yeast to make a drink, I suggest mixing it.
As you saw, you don't need to get it mixed to 100% perfection, but mixing ALSO adds air, which ALSO helps the yeast get started.
(typo corrected)
Good to know the yeast will get to whatever honey is in there no matter what
That is crazy!
Something also to consider, if the honey were to just sit in the water, it would eventually dissolve. So the yeast seemingly is sitting on the dense honey, which it will really have an issue processing, but they are able to consume the honey as it dissolves into the water above.
For another experiment, what would you think about re-using yeast from one batch to another?
See, my thought is that yes, any yeast near the honey level would be fairly stressed- but the rest of the colony can slowly eat the honey as it dissolves, leading to a far slower (but still relatively low-stress) fermentation.
Reusing lees works but it can be inconsistent. There are methods of propagating yeasts, of course, but it's not for your average bear. The best way, in my opinion, is to inoculate a stirring stick. It works really well after 20 batches of so. Just stir your meads with the same stick every time, or even better leave the stick in the fermentation vessel. Pretty soon you won't need to pitch yeast.
great video, and something I've been pondering myself. one question thought. Should you have drilled/shaken the water in the non-mixed jar to oxyginate the water, in the same way as happened when you stirred/mixed the waters in the mixed-jar?
I am not sure if it would have made a difference?
That could have made a small different, but I don’t think it was huge!
I think it would have as oxigen is more important than mixing and helps build a yeast colony faster.
Honey also contains its own yeast from all the flowers the bees harvested to make that batch of honey. Adding yeast only speeds up the natural yeast
If you mixed the honys like orange blossom with wildflower would it change the fermentation time? Also would it change flavor?
I don't think the fermentation time would have changed! It would have definitely changed the flavor though!
I feel like the biggest draw back from not mixing your must would be trying to get an OG reading, lol
I totally agree!
@@ManMadeMead I disagree. I find OG pretty much useless; given the fermentables, you should know potential ABV, it is what it is, and FG is the most critical to determine when it's bottlable. IMHO.
Hmm. Well I know that there are different yeasts that either ferment on top or on the bottom. Some also stay suspended in solution. So I guess if you have a bottom fermenting yeast then maybe mixing the honey in doesnt matter as far as fermentation. But can that also effect the flavor or color? Maybe close contact with all the honey yields more aroma and flavor because they can process the honey more efficiently??? Oh and also how does mixing or not mixing effect oxygenation of the must? Now that may be a big difference.
I'm really surprised the yeast could do anything at that interface, the concentration gradient of sugar has to be nuts in those few mm above the honey layer. I wonder if this selectively breeds higher sugar tolerance in a culture if done several cycles.
That would be a really cool experiment, what I'm getting looking at comments though is that even though honey is a liquid it's basically "drier" than water and sucks in moisture, they call it hygroscopic
I wonder if the not mixed version had muted flavors bc more of the honey was dissolved in the liquid near the bottom (assuming you took a sample from the liquid near the top).
Possibly!
the 1 on your left that was nixed looks a tiny bit clearer
Curiosity got me you dont rack into secondary in your tests does that change anything and is there a reason for that ive always been told rack off of the settlement as soon as possible
I do normally rack my brews after they finish fermenting!
Ok sorry
How do people expect the first mead was made? A tree with a beehive fell over and got flooded and eventually fermented, no mixing necessary, and a Viking stumbled on it and ate a couple amanita.
Wondering if not mixing would matter more in a cyser? Maybe the yeast would eat the sugars in the apple juice before getting to the honey.
Maybe!
Im surprised that this day and age this was an experiment. It's a known method to making meads, particularly high ABV meads, without having to step feed. It's a kind of self step feeder. Good video though
what are your favorite bubblers for the bung?
I like the 3 piece ones because they are easier to clean!
@@ManMadeMead thanks. I was also given some 2 piece ones that i'm not sure of so haven't used yet. just finished my first batch even made a peaches and cream and it was successful. so I'm stoked.
I'm presuming the non-shaken one still got movement with yeast going up and down in the water, disturbing the honey enough so some yeast ate, then when they produced CO2, it induced more movement so yeast could go an other layer down and etc.
I believe you’re right!
“Movement” isn’t technically necessary. There will be a zone near the interface of the layers where Brownian motion will lead to mixing of the layers (perhaps not visible to the naked eye). I’d guess that the yeast can operate in this zone and drive the equilibrium toward further dissolution of the honey.
Do you need water to make mead? Can you add it later or over time? What would happen?
You definitely need water! Too high of a starting gravity won't allow yeasts to be comfortable and ferment!
@@ManMadeMead thanks!! I'll stick to juice and honey as the thickest I'll go then lol
That’s a really interesting question. As a brewer I would agree that water is required, but as beekeepers we are constantly warned that any moisture level above about 18.5% in your honey can lead to fermentation. This is why beekeepers use a refractometer to measure the water content in their honey to ensure it won’t go bad. (Found out the hard way, you need different refractometers for brewing vs beekeeping because you’re operating in a much different range of sugar concentrations.)
The reason for this is because honey is hygroscopic, which means that is absorbs water from the atmosphere naturally, so eventually the honey and water will homogenise and become fermentable. I am afraid to do something like that because good honey is expensive in the uk.
You could try a hydromel they usually use about 1.5 pounds of honey to a gallon instead of the usual 3-4 per gallon, sorry I don't know off hand what it comes to in metric units. Cider might also be a good option
if it rained on a beehive and there was a wild ferment i would expect thats how mead was originally discovered. of course it will ferment unmoxed. Mead making has been so refined these days
I wonder how the stratification of sugars affected the yeast. Some yeast are stressed from no food, some are stressed from high-sugar, and some are in the goldilocks zone where the honey has infused into the water. After a week of fermentation, I expect there's plenty of food throughout the bottle due to diffusion and CO2 turbulence.
Hmm, you could partially mix the honey to keep the yeast happy and leave the bulk of the honey at the bottom to step-feed the fermentation.
I think I'll do exactly what you said in the future. My mead fermented rapidly the first night and overflowed a lot
That is a genius move
Still watching this four years later. Man you're different without a beard
I definitely look way different without a beard haha
I'm making mead now, I worry I need to stir more often. I think its fine now though.
The more "yeasty" feel you got form the non mixed could also be due to the measuring error that you made. You have a packet of 5g of yeast and instead of putting 2.5 in each you measured the whole pack including the packaging and it was 6.1g so you wanted to divide everything by 2 and so you put 3g in the first and the rest in the second. What this means is that you've ended up with 3g of yeast in the unmixed, 2g in the mixed and 1.1g of packaging... since you never had 6g of yeast to begin with but 5, the extra weight you measured was the packaging.
These numbers might seem small and insignificant but in the end you ended up with the unmixed solution having 30% more yeast in it then the other one.
This doesn't surprise me. If you stare at your fermenter (and who hasn't, though it has to be a glass fermenter), the carbon dioxide rising in the must creates quite a current. It might be slow at first, since the only fermentation is at the honey/water boundary, but the displacement of the water as the CO2 bubbles form and float to the surface will start moving the water around. When I've cut up some raisins and just thrown it into the must, the really small pieces generally move with the current.
So essentially, you're just mixing in the honey slowly, using the yeast generated current. It might be slower, but it'll get done. (The same is probably true with sugar.) But to be fair to the non-mixed version, the water you added should have been oxygenated.
If you've really got no life, and are looking for experiments to perform, how about taking gravity readings every 12 or 24 hours on brews with different parameters. For instance, mix up a gallon of must, then divide it into two 1/2 gal fermenters so you're starting with an even base. One with just yeast, one with yeast and nutrient. (Or a yeast A vs. yeast B comparison. Or 1 gram vs. 5 grams of starting yeast. There's a lot of comparisons that can be done...) It would show how fast the sugars are consumed, and in the end if it made any difference to the final product.
where did you get your grommets
Amazon!
@@ManMadeMead ha 😆 should have looked there first
Ok, so at ~11.30 you're saying the marked OG one (viewer right) you said has honey on the bottom, scene before, the one marked OG was on the left so mixed with honey... storey's going off man :')
This might be an interesting way to step feed a mead.
My thoughts precisely.
Thinking along the same lines here...
That was really unexpected.
Yo so the one with the "OG" was the one you mixed. Not the other way around. You confused the two when you take the second gravity. Plus the froth at the top was thicker and left a thicker cake like. Both very visible in the jar without the "og" written on it...
Got them mixed around but the info was still accurate. The gravity readings and tastings were correct!
I'm not so sure. You're actually reading the gravity on camera and you can see which jar it's coming from. You sure they didn't get switched?
Love these types of videos btw!
Yeast can’t eat honey because it is too dense. It needs to be dissolved in order for the yeast to be able to process the sugars. What’s happening is that the water is slowly dissolving the sugar in the honey and the yeast eat it as it dissolved.
That being said I love this experiment
Well, lets Just say that the honey level is not dropping because the yeast is eating It. It is dropping because the honey dissolutes in the Water, though in a slow speed. In simple terms, Honey solubilizes in Water in a high concentration at the liquid liquid interface. It difuses away, for the top Water has lower concentration, leaving room for more money to solubilize in the water. this process is also aided by the convection generated by the CO2 prpduction, that pushes the solved honey up the container. The yeast, sinked at the low end cannot handle lot of Honey, but as soon as you drop the concentration Just right above the interface, they can happily eat It. Also, as the sugar content is still low, they have potencial to erase sugar levels Very quickly. Interestingly, what you did was simulate a very unoptimized semi continous feed process. I imagine that, If you can hold all the yeast in a kind of fixed bed, lets say, some milimiters ABOVE the interface Honey/Water, in a region of right sugar concentration, and maybe provide some regulation on the Honey/Water solubilization, like an Very, veeeeery slow stirring, adjusting parameters of nutrition for yeast, you could finish a batch like these in a very small amount of time. Think you should patent it. If It Will be more efficient than regular continuosly feeded process, i dont know. But maybe would worth a try.
Great explanation
It's all sterilized, wipe you nose, lick your hand and pat your hair down. Viking stlye. Love it. Thanks
Mixing just speeds up fermentation just like nutrient does.
Please post an update after aging
That’s the plan!
@@ManMadeMead - Have you posted an update yet? Didn’t find it.
So it's ok to be blabbering over the open jars without bacteria raining into it, not to mention skin cells? Good, I thought laboratory cleanliness wasn't really needed!
Love the show by the way. Ever try 1/2 honey 1/2 sugar for us penny pinchers out there?
Should have done a blind taste
sorry, ocd, not the same, left is lower
You should delete those Logan comments, apparently that's some kind of security breach which will compromise the account of anyone who interacts with his channel.
Uh..Life uh..uh finds a way..