Different flavours etc, and other things.....

Been reading up on some stuff about some of the different flavours that people over at Gotmead have been using.

Some of them sound excellent, but some of them sound very bizarre - well to me they do anyway......

I mean, Chocolate ? Apart from those cream based liqueurs like Baileys and other similar products, I can't get my head round why you might want to produce a Chocolate, or maybe Coffee mead.....

Surely, the whole reason why those work with the cream based liqueurs, is because of the flavour and the presence of the cream and sweetening in them ????

Or maybe something like Banana. It makes great deserts, eaten raw, etc etc, but banana flavoured booze, mead or whatever ?

I just don't get it.

Yes, I can see a bit of "novelty factor", or even the "make it, because I can" idea but I still just don't see the point.....

Of course, something like the cyser that I'm having a go at right now, well, say to have something like a stronger version of a cider (that's hard cider for those in the US), but "appley" with a honey sweetness, sounds wonderful (and hopefully my efforts will turn out like that).

Sure, I know that there's a few fruits etc that are grown for cropping in the US that are grown less so here (Pumpkin comes to mind), but why anyone might want to make a "pumpkin" flavoured mead is beyond me (hell I've never eaten a pumpkin dish that I've liked anyway - maybe that's got something to do with it).

Oh well, s'pose I'll just carry on reading about some of the weird and wonderful brews others make and continue to keep "scratching my head" over the "why" bit...

As for the "Other things" mentioned, well I've read a number of times about not adding any further "non-organic" source of nitrogen as at that stage, the yeast can't use it and that only "organic" sources of nitrogen should be used after the 1/3rd "sugar break".

For "organic" nitrogen, I've read that "yeast hulls" are good/ideal. The only snag being that I can't find them locally......... though I've read that if I boiled some yeast it produces the same thing.

So yesterday, I dug out a small tin of bread yeast that had gone out of date (probably nothing wrong with it, but it was ideal for an experiment), I added about half a pint of water into a small saucepan, heating it until it was boiling and then added the tin of yeast. I had to stir it a lot and reduce the gas so that the yeast/water mix was just simmering.

My problem is, that the term "yeast hulls" suggests something that at least resembles the tiny yeast pellets in brewing and/or bread making packs. Whereas my "boiled yeast" (I boiled it to about half it's original volume) looks like a yeast coloured sludge. Which I don't mind, because lets face it, most of the additives used in mead/wine/beer making don't look very appetising do they.....

So with the "yeast coloured sludge" image in mind, how do I work out how much to use, if at all. Damn! I'll have to go and dig round the web to see if I can find any further info on this.....

TTFN!