1-27-26 Ryan Carlson – Optimizing Fermentation

1-27-26 Tonight we’re talking with Ryan Carlson again. He had a lot of information, and we just ran out of time last time!

Ryan is a Colorado mead maker who has been making mead for quite a while. Those of you who have listened to the early GML episodes may remember him. He has been quiet publicly  for a few years, dealing with personal things, but during that quiet time, he’s also been doing a lot of learning and experimentation to deepen his mead making expertise.

I'll just let Ryan tell you himself:

Hi, my name is Ryan. Some of you will know me from the mead world going back a long way. Some of you won’t know me at all — and that’s just fine.

I was very active in mead for many years, right up until around 2020. Then life hit hard. Multiple things at once. Survival mode. For about five years I was mostly just circling the drain and trying to stay upright. Things are finally closer to normal now, and I guess you could say I’m back in the saddle.

I’ve been a successful meadmaker for a long time. I’m a certified judge. I’ve taught hundreds of people — maybe more — how to make good mead. I love teaching, but I’m picky about it. I only teach what I’ve lived. I only teach what I can prove. If someone wants receipts, I can bury Mount Rushmore with them.

I also teach mead in a way most people have never experienced. From here forward, I’ll be approaching things a little differently. We’re going to “get small.” We’re going to pretend we’re a single-celled yeast and jump down inside Mead City. We’ll look at fermentation from the inside of the vessel outward and change our perspective completely.

Mead is going to do what mead does. Yeast is going to do what yeast does. When we actually understand the science and biology, our job isn’t control — it’s assistance. We learn when the window opens, and when it does, we can hand the yeast exactly what they need so they can do the job they were already built to do.

Most of the time, when people don’t understand what’s happening, they get in the way. They step on the yeast without realizing it. They try to force outcomes that biology simply doesn’t allow, and they miss the chance to co-create.

My goal is to help raise everyone’s bar by changing perspective first, then layering in real science and real biology — not folklore, not wives’ tales, and not parroted bad science.

If you want to understand mead well enough that you don’t have to beg for recipes anymore — recipes that often produce medio