Ken Schramm joins me from Schramm’s Meadery to discuss growing fruit for use in his big fruit meads.
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Topics in This Week’s Episode (56:16)
- This week I welcome back Ken Schramm from Schramm’s Mead. Meadery. Ken literally “wrote the book” on mead making called “The Compleat Mead Maker”. Ken was also a founding member of the Mazer cup and has won numerous national awards including a lifetime achievement award from the American Homebrewers Association. His meadery arguably makes some of the highest rated meads in the world from fresh fruit, spices and honey.
- We discuss Ken’s meadery and some of the new projects he’s working on.
- We discuss the impact of COVID, shutdown of his tasting room and move into farming.
- Ken explains why the specific variety of fruits matter when making fruit mead.
- He tells us how he got into fruit farming and his orchard and a bit about it.
- Ken gives us his overall experience with fruit farming so far.
- We discuss a few of the fruits he is growing starting with Black Currants which were banned from 1911 to 1966 in the US.
- Ken talks about growing and using berries including blackberries, raspberries, loganberries.
- We discuss his orchard which grows a number of stone fruits including apples, cherries, plums and pears.
- We talk about the long game which is to figure out which specific fruit varieties work best in meads.
- Ken tells us how growing his own fruit has impacted his own mead making. He also explains how is mead making has evolved over the years.
- Ken provides his closing thoughts.
Sponsors
- Thank you to our sponsor Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for sponsoring this episode. I encourage you to subscribe to their great magazine!
- And also Anvil Brewing Equipment. Anvil is a new line of kettles, burners and accessories from John Blichmann at Blichmann Engineering. They make top quality brewing equipment built to last a lifetime.
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Thanks to Ken Schramm for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!
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Related Beer Brewing Articles from BeerSmith:
- Mead Making and Melomels with Ken Schramm – BeerSmith Podcast #143
- Fruits and Mead with Ken Schramm – BeerSmith Podcast #289
- Melomel – Meads and Fruit with Michael Fairbrother – BeerSmith Podcast #119
- Mead Making with Michael Fairbrother – BeerSmith Podcast #88
- Moonlight Meadery with Michael Fairbrother – BeerSmith Podcast 43
- Making Mead with Michael Fairbrother – BeerSmith Podcast #65
- Mead with Michael Fairbrother and Berniece Van Der Berg – BeerSmith Podcast #197
- Brad’s Tart Cherry Mead – Mead Case Study
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