#no.070823

[boissonsaumiel]

Flora of the Sierra Nevada alpine zone - Wikipedia

My favorite honey that I get locally boasts to be harvested from bees that pollinate high in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I use it for my hōjicha mead. I decided to look up what kind of plants grow there. I assumed the answer would be mostly pine trees, but apparently not. It's these little perennial shrubs.

From the wiki article:

Over 90% of California's alpine flora are perennial herbs.[5]: 18  Annuals are not common.[5]: 18  Depending on the elevation used to define its lower boundary, the Sierra Nevada alpine zone may have almost 600 species, about 200 of which are only found here (endemic).[5]: 17–18 [9] The flora includes plants that are descended from the plants that survived the glaciation of the last ice age (relict plants), because they were growing on mountain peaks that stood above the ice sheets like islands.[6]: 17 

Flowers that survived the last ice age! They were basking in the sunlight above the snowline when all their genetic relives got trapped under un-melting snow and starved in the darkness.

Incredible!

That makes it so much more amazing that I get to eat honey and brew mead from these amazing flowers.

ETA: Nope! I misread the honey description. The elevation was written in feet, not meters, which puts the foraging area in the Sierra Nevada lower montane forest, not the Sierra Nevada alpine zone. My first guess was right. Most of the plants there are various species of pine trees, as well as shrubs like wild currants and lilacs.

Sierra Nevada lower montane forest - Wikipedia

[boissonsaumiel]

Home Brewing: How Controlled Oxidation Can Potentially Improve a Brew

Yesterday I opened the last bottle from my first batch of hōjicha mead that I made roughly a year ago.

To recap:

Batch No.070823 | ½gal🫙 1¾lb🐝 Honey: Sierra Wildflower Source: Sierra Nevada Mountains Brand: Kingsburg Honey Stg. 1: D-47 sub water for brewed Hōjicha (Numi) Stg. 2: aged sur lie 4 months

All my batch numbers are dates, so this one was started July 8th, 2023.

I use a variety of bottles when bottling. I have some 32oz bottles with polyseal lids intended for longer term storage. I have some swingtop bottles intended for shorter term storage. I'll usually pour the last inch of mead in my carboy into a mason jar along with the lees and cold crash and clear in the fridge for a while before siphoning out that very last ¾cup or so of mead with a stainless steel baster.

Sidenote: I do not recommend using a glass baster because they shatter way, way too easily. The glass is even thinner and more fragile than the glass in your lightest, most delicate champagne flute.

Something interesting I noticed is that the bottle I opened yesterday had a much stronger, smokier hōjicha flavor than my less securely sealed bottles of the same mead. It also tasted less sweet, and had less discernible honey character.

Controlling Oxidation Making Wine

Step into the enchanting world of winemaking, where art and science intertwine seamlessly. Within this realm an intangible element holds bot

In controlled amounts oxidation can be advantageous for winemakers. It helps soften tannins and creates complex flavor profiles in wines such as Sherry or Madeira. The result is an [sic] full bodied sip that lingers on your palate

I took two containers of my newer batch of hōjicha mead with me during my trip to NYC, one 16oz swing top bottle, and one ½gal jug with a polyseal lid. Both containers got thrown about in my luggage. Although neither visibly leaked, the shaking most likely resulted in minor oxidization, with the swing-top getting the worst of it, as that bottle had a higher ratio of air to liquid when it was sealed.

The mead in the swing-top bottle didn't get over-oxygenated to the point of spoiling. It actually tasted quite nice. On the one hand, it lost a lot of the smoky hōjicha character. On the other hand, it had the strongest honey character and sweetest flavor of any of my bottles from that batch.

If I were running a more professional operation, I'd be able to calculate the exact right amount of oxygen exposure to achieve the perfect balance of smokiness and sweetness. Then again, it's nice to have a little variation and get a subtly different tasting experience every time I crack open a different bottle of the same brew.

[boissonsaumiel]

I tasted my December Hojicha tea mead today.

You know, I thought I maybe misremembered just how much this mead recipe tasted like barbecue, but I definitely didn't. Those smoky umami notes from the tea are *really* distinctive at the 3.5 month mark. It tastes like charbroiled barbecue smells. It's wild.

The tea does not taste like that. It has a roasted slightly nutty tea flavor. Something about the fermentation process brings out those flavor notes.

The older batch that I started last July tastes quite different now. As it ages, that bbq flavor from the fermented tea mellows quite a bit, and the flavor of the honey comes forward more and more.

[boissonsaumiel]

Hōjicha mead is a surprising success -> tastes like barbecue, but in a good way!

It came out very dark, as you can see. It looks black unless I backlight it.

I used Sierra Nevada wildflower honey for this one. I had some concerns, because I used D-47 yeast without first checking to see what the temperature requirements were first, and was afraid it would end up tasting awful after fermenting at much warmer temperatures than are recommended.

It turns out I didn't have anything to worry about. I think it helped that I waited a full 4 months to rack it. Lees (the dead yeast that settle to the bottom of a fermentation vessel after fermentation ends) can actually help absorb any off flavors that yeast might produce when fermentation conditions are less than ideal.

The flavor is definitely unique, but I like it.

Hōjicha has been my favorite tea for years. It's a Japanese green tea that's roasted in a porcelain pot over charcoal, and it has a pleasant nutty flavor. It's one of the few green teas I've tried that doesn't turn unpleasantly bitter if you accidentally let the bag steep for too long.

The charcoal roast definitely came through stronger in the mead than in the original tea. The taste is smoky and has unexpectedly strong umami notes, and the smell reminds me a little bit of barbecued ribs.

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I also taste tested a lapsang souchong batch that I started around the same time, which is another smoky tea. It's a Chinese black tea that’s smoke dried over a pinewood fire. The resulting mead has a much more neutral smokey flavor. Quite pleasant.

Unfortunately, that batch had too high a ratio of honey to tea and came out much, much too sweet for my liking. I watered it down and added some more yeast. Hopefully I'll be able to ferment out some of that excess sweetness. I'll check back in another month.

[boissonsaumiel]

I finally purchased some potassium sorbate stabilizer for my meads(to prevent fermentation from re-starting). Usually when it's only me drinking them I just keep them under airlock until they're ready to drink, but I'll need to actually stabilize if I'm bottling to give to friends and family as holiday gifts.

My two tea meads (hōjicha, lapsang souchong/立山小種) have been clearing up very nicely on their own without my needing to add a fining agent.

For both batches, I brewed tea, and used that instead of water. I thought the color of the tea would have more influence on the color of the mead, but apparently not. 立山小種 is a darker tea than hōjicha. The honey I used for the 立山小種 batch is a lighter honey. Both batches looked about the same color at the beginning of fermentation, but now that they've cleared, both batches are the color of their respective honeys:

[boissonsaumiel]

I almost forgot with all the racking that I was supposed to take gravity readings.

I'm using Lanvin D47 yeast for my two new batch, which can ferment up to 15% alcohol.

My Yosemite honey mead got a Brix reading of between 25 to 25.5. If the yeast hadn't already started fermenting would mean there was enough honey for the batch to reach 14%. Since it's already been actively fermenting for a 2 days, that means there was probably enough honey in there initially for the batch to go all the way to 15%, provided the batch doesn't stall out.

My Hojicha tea mead got a Brix reading of 27. Again, if I'd taken the reading when I was supposed to that number would mean there was enough honey for the batch to reach 15%. It's been really active the last couple days, so there was already some alcohol in there when I took this reading, meaning I put slightly more honey in there than the yeast can handle (though you never know with yeast).

I think this mead will taste better dry, because it's made with a tea that I usually prefer to drink unsweetened. I might end up either diluting with a tiny bit of water or adding some higher tolerance yeast to make sure the batch goes completely dry.