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I'm getting ready to brew up a mead recipe from Charlie Papazian's book, and it calls for 1 Tsp of gypsum.

Any idea what it does in a mead?

Not sure I like recipes saying to add mineral salts because it doesn't account for source water.

I added some to my mead but mostly because Saint John water is very soft and short on calcium and other minerals.

I thought I read something about sulphate accentuating flavour. Will see if I can find it again.

ive heard it does that for hops, wasnt sure if it did it for other flavours

The article was from http://www.byo.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. Basically said sulphate and acidity help balance the sweetness of honey. I added both calcium chloride and gypsum. But look at your water composition and go from there.

What type of mead are you planning? Mine is sitting in secondary for some aging / clearing. Takes a while. Mine is a dry mead at about 15%. Added some dried orange peel, cinnamon and cloves.

I'm making Barkshack Sparkling Ginger Mead

5 Gal Recipe

7 Lbs light honey
1.5 lbs corn sugar
1-6oz (im going on the highside) grated fresh ginger
1 tsp gypsum
1tsp citric acid
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/4 tsp irish moss
28g Champagne yeast
3/4 cup corn sugar bottling

O.G 1.060-1.066
F.G 0.992-0.996
ABV ~9%

Says a week or so in primary, and 2 months in secondary, the bottle condition for 6 months to a year

Nice!

28g yeast though? That seems excessive. I added 2 5g packs of ec-1118 champagne yeast. Also added nutrients on day 2, 4 and 6. Mine was stronger and took about 3 weeks in primary. Started 1.105 and finished at 0.994.

What yeast are you using?

I'm using the same stuff, I thought it was high but it specifically calls for 28g. Maybe I'll try and look up an older version of the recipe and see what it says

2 packages was definitely enough and your recipe is lower gravity. 28 for is almost 6 packages! Weird...

Found the recipe here:

http://www.recipesource.com/side-dishes ... c0047.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Listed 2 packages.

I had seen that, the 28g I got from the complete joy of homebrewing 4th edition. I'm going to see if I can find a 3rd edition online and see whats there, just out of curiosity. Likely it had been 2 packs, and when the book was being updated somebody just found 1/2 oz packs of yeast and said well 2 packs then so 1oz.

Anyway I'll use the 2 packs as you have done this before and it works. thanks

No problem. I have the 3rd Ed on my Kobo. Will check out of curiosity!

Indeed. 3rd Ed listed 28g of yeast! Yikes probably why it was updated...

4th edition, which I have hard copy, lists 28g of yeast as well, weird

Oh guess they didn't update! Opps

I find mead gets very acidic during the ferment (minimal buffering capacity), and sometimes have to add some bicarb or the yeast starts to throw off sulfur notes (yuck!). I would add acid post fermentation according to taste before bottle conditioning. I've never thought about adding salts of gypsum, but I came to mead from a winemaking prospective.