Tamarind Mead Recipe Critique

[Briatta]

So I stumbled across this recipe posted in a thread by an inactive user. I've only been brewing since August and don't know enough of the chemistry to know how to spot recipes that should work versus ones that may need tweaking. I don't know the rules for when ingredients need extra nutrients for the yeast or may be too acidic etc. I did however just finish a bag of dried tamarind with brown sugar and chili powder and thought the flavors would be awesome for a mead. However, I might just be crazy. Heh. Can someone with knowledge of the "why" and chemistry of mead making take a gander at this and see if it looks right or if something should be adjusted? Most of the instructions were ad-libbed by me because they originally were all of two sentences. It's not the OP's fault.

3lbs Mesquite honey
1 ¾ T pure Tahitian vanilla extract
Lalvin EC-1118 yeast
Water to 1 gallon
1 dry ancho chili
Pulp of 6 tamarind pods
2 cinnamon sticks
½ cup Grade A Dark (previously labeled Grade B) maple syrup

Warm water slightly in a sanitized pot. Add honey and stir until blended. Add to primary with vanilla extract. Top off with water to one gallon. Check temperature and OG and pitch yeast.

Ferment to dry.

Place chili, tamarind pulp, cinnamon sticks and maple syrup in saucepan. Add water to cover solids. Bring to a boil for a few minutes. Strain and add liquid to a secondary gallon jug. Rack from primary. Age for one year.

Thanks in Advance

 

[loveofrose]

So I stumbled across this recipe posted in a thread by an inactive user. I've only been brewing since August and don't know enough of the chemistry to know how to spot recipes that should work versus ones that may need tweaking. I don't know the rules for when ingredients need extra nutrients for the yeast or may be too acidic etc. I did however just finish a bag of dried tamarind with brown sugar and chili powder and thought the flavors would be awesome for a mead. However, I might just be crazy. Heh. Can someone with knowledge of the "why" and chemistry of mead making take a gander at this and see if it looks right or if something should be adjusted? Most of the instructions were ad-libbed by me because they originally were all of two sentences. It's not the OP's fault.



3lbs Mesquite honey

1 ¾ T pure Tahitian vanilla extract

Lalvin EC-1118 yeast

Water to 1 gallon

1 dry ancho chili

Pulp of 6 tamarind pods

2 cinnamon sticks

½ cup Grade A Dark (previously labeled Grade B) maple syrup



Warm water slightly in a sanitized pot. Add honey and stir until blended. Add to primary with vanilla extract. Top off with water to one gallon. Check temperature and OG and pitch yeast.



Ferment to dry.



Place chili, tamarind pulp, cinnamon sticks and maple syrup in saucepan. Add water to cover solids. Bring to a boil for a few minutes. Strain and add liquid to a secondary gallon jug. Rack from primary. Age for one year.



Thanks in Advance

You can cook it if you like, but it is likely not necessary. In fact, cooking can cause the loss of some of the aromatics in the honey and maple syrup. Personally, I would mix it all up at room temperature.

There are a few additions to make the fermentation faster and cleaner. First, add 1/4 tsp potassium carbonate upfront to buffer the pH. Second, add three staggered addition of 1/4 tsp DAP and 1/2 tsp Fermaid K. Your SG should be ~1.12, so add upfront, 1.08, and 1.04.

Additionally, if you want to drink it in a month, use Wyeast 1388 instead of EC1118. Either way, it will go dry. EC1118 will need 6+ months to be drinkable. Even better, make two batches with each yeast to test side by side!



Better brewing through science!

 

[On-target]

I personally wouldn't go with the vanilla extract. I have used it in the past and not liked the results as much as using vanilla beans in tie secondary. I might try 2 beans sliced lengthwise.

 

[Urkelbot]

More tamarind.
I did a tamarind habanero mead 1 gallon. I wanted a big tamarind flavor. I added the pulp of 15 pods or more to secondary but that tart sweet and sour just wasn't there. To get the flavor I wanted I ended up adding potassium sulfite and sorbate and back sweetening with a tamarind extract from another 15 or so pods, soaked the shucked pods in hot water overnight. This gave it the sweet and sour you are looking for with tamarind. It also made an awesome mead that was excellent at 3 months.

I may have needed a lot of extra tamarind because I had used 2 habaneros so the flavor had to work over the heat.

 

[Briatta]

Sorry it's taken me a few days to reply. I've been a bit busy and feeling a bit icky.

You can cook it if you like, but it is likely not necessary. In fact, cooking can cause the loss of some of the aromatics in the honey and maple syrup. Personally, I would mix it all up at room temperature.

There are a few additions to make the fermentation faster and cleaner. First, add 1/4 tsp potassium carbonate upfront to buffer the pH. Second, add three staggered addition of 1/4 tsp DAP and 1/2 tsp Fermaid K. Your SG should be ~1.12, so add upfront, 1.08, and 1.04.

Additionally, if you want to drink it in a month, use Wyeast 1388 instead of EC1118. Either way, it will go dry. EC1118 will need 6+ months to be drinkable. Even better, make two batches with each yeast to test side by side!

I wasn't really planning on doing anything that I would consider 'cooking' per se. I just thought that heating the water a little, maybe to 90°, would facilitate the proper melding of the water and honey. Not even close to a temp that would form bubbles. Would that still risk aromatics loss or should I still just stick to the room temp mixing?

The post that I swiped this from was from 2009 and they said this was one of their first meads so there is no telling how old the recipe was. Possibly prior to the more commonly accepted steps of adding yeast nutrients to meads. I'm only a few months into this, but I know it wasn't always the thing to do. I will definitely do that. I keep forgetting when reading older recipes.

I'm not worried so much about the yeast. Being a brand new brewer I keep making quick drink items. Lime Skeeter Pee, a quick drinking cider, etc. My first mead, JAOM, is just now clearing. This recipe mentioned a year and I'd like to finally dig in and make something that I can mostly forget about and let age. Gotta start sometime.

 

[Briatta]

I personally wouldn't go with the vanilla extract. I have used it in the past and not liked the results as much as using vanilla beans in tie secondary. I might try 2 beans sliced lengthwise.

I did a little more research and decided to go with Mexican Vanilla beans instead of the Tahitian vanilla extract. Floral doesn't seem like the right flavor profile for the rest of the ingredients.

That being the case, do you think I should just add a split bean to the secondary (these suckers are quite long) or should I make my own extract with some vodka that I can add to taste to the secondary?

 

[Briatta]

More tamarind.
I did a tamarind habanero mead 1 gallon. I wanted a big tamarind flavor. I added the pulp of 15 pods or more to secondary but that tart sweet and sour just wasn't there. To get the flavor I wanted I ended up adding potassium sulfite and sorbate and back sweetening with a tamarind extract from another 15 or so pods, soaked the shucked pods in hot water overnight. This gave it the sweet and sour you are looking for with tamarind. It also made an awesome mead that was excellent at 3 months.

I may have needed a lot of extra tamarind because I had used 2 habaneros so the flavor had to work over the heat.

I'll keep that in mind. Tamarind pods are cheap. I was hoping to supplement it with some of my jar of tamarind cooking concentrate that I use for pad thai, but I double checked the label and it has sodium benzoate in it. Granted, I guess it could still add it after fermentation is done if I really need to since the preservatives with be irrelevant at that point.

 

[Briatta]

So it's under way and I made a couple adjustments. I did just a room temp mix/aerate in the jug. Added the potassium carbonate, ¼ tsp DAP and ½ tsp Fermaid K up front and will add an additional ¼ tsp DAP and ½ tsp Fermaid K at the 2/3 and 1/3 breaks. I've replaced the Tahitian vanilla extract with one Mexican vanilla bean (That sucker is huge. It's almost 50% larger than my Madagascar beans.) that I will add to the secondary when I add the tamarind/maple/chili/cinnamon steep. It will go in separate. I'm not steeping the vanilla bean. I'm going to use the 6 pods the recipe initially calls for and then add any additional extract at the end to my taste. I'd rather start with it mild and have to add more since it's easier to add and almost impossible to take away.