I have just started a coffee mead. The must was made using quite a lot of ground coffee, about 50g per bottle. It occurred to me, now that I have started it, that if the caffeine does not degrade as part of the fermentation it will quite an 'exciting' wine, heh heh.
Does anyone have any idea whether caffeine is degraded during fermentation?
I just started a coffee mead also - on 3/6/07. I am curious about your results. What was your recipe? Here is the one I used from: Massaccesi, Raymond. "Winemaker's Recipe Handbook". 1976.
5 Tbs Instant Coffee (I used store brand)
7 pts Water
3 lb Honey (I used store bought clover honey)
3 tsp Acid Blend
3/4 tsp Energizer
1 Campden, crush
1 pkg Sherry yeast (I used Lalvin EC-1118)
Stir all ingredients into the hot water/honey/coffee mixture except yeast Add yeast after 24 hours At SG 1.040 transfer to secondary My starting SG was 1.120
Keep us updated. Anyone else have some ideas about the recipe - what about the acidity of the final product? Thanks, Adam
Nice to hear from you about your coffee mead! As requested, this is how mine has been going...
The recipe is one I kind of hybridised from a keller coffee wine recipe and a coffee mead recipe I found on the net. The ingredients are below - my conversions of quantities to make a UK gallon:
300g fresh ground coffee
4lbs of honey (now on the use-by date it didn't produce as high an SG as expected: 1.096, but I went with it)
1tsp citric acid
4 litres boiled and slightly cooled water
2 tsp of montrachet yeast comp (including yeast and nutrients) - I wanted to use that before its end-date too :)
The two methods for the recipes I combined were different. The advice from Jack Keller's was to add yeast when cooled and go straight to secondary, the advice for the mead was to go primary for 5-7 days then secondary.
I followed the latter but on the fourth day (today) - after significant foaming and surface solids at the end of day 1 and through day 2, dying off a little on day 3 - I went to secondary thinking obvious activity seemed to have finished. There were no bubbles breaking surface noticeably. The SG was only 1.060 too, but I had a grapefruit must go dry in three days recently and like to experiment around the rules (or common sense you could say).
I think the viscosity of the liquid might have concealed the bubbles, because within a few minutes of transferring to secondary I had fitted a blow off tube to the demijohn to save my cupboard from a foam party! Still, it looks happy - and smells like an Irish Cappucino!
All I know is that coffee wine is recommended 'semi-sweet' and that people who commented on a coffee mead of similar ingredients said: "It's great, but you REALLY have to like the taste of coffee to enjoy this one!" I guess I won't know just how good it tastes for a year or two.
Just a curiosity question. If cafine could inhimit fermentation, would it be better to add it during bulk aging rather than during any stage of fermentation? After all coffee is not going to add any fermentables, only flavor.
Possibly, but thats not how the recipes suggest to do it. Perhaps the fermented flavour of the coffee is desirable. I must admit there's no sign of this batch being inhibited and it's strong. Perhaps it would be a problem later in the fermentation if one makes the wine with a high alcohol content too?
This does sound interesting. I do my own coffee roasting and am always looking for ways to expand and meld my hobbies. I make a really nice Kahlua using espresso shots. I have only 1 gallon of straight mead in the works but I am liking the results so far. I think a coffee mead may be on the short list.
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