The Bee's Lees Part II
Recipes from the Mead Lover's Digest
Compiled and edited by Sheryl Nance-Durst
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Basic Mead (and Maple Meads)
Chapter 2: Methyglyn-Mead with Spices
Chapter 3: Melomel-Mead with Fruit
Chapter 4: Pyment-Mead with Grapes
Chapter 5: Cyser-Mead with Apples
Chapter 7: Other (Recipes to use mead in)
Welcome to the Bee's Lees II. This is a
collection of recipes posted to the Mead Lover's Digest mailing list. The
original Bee's Lees was compiled and edited by Joyce Miller. Unfortunately,
that was in 1994. A lot of recipes have been posted since that time, and this
is my attempt at organizing them. I used Joyce's original method for choosing
which recipes to include. Basically, the poster had to specifically mention
that the resulting mead was at least "pretty good". I've tried to credit each
recipe with the author's name and e-mail address as it appeared on the Digest.
If I've made any mistakes, please let me know so that I can correct them. I've
also added one section that wasn't included in the original Bee's Lees - a
section with recipes for cooking with mead. This list is free to use &
distribute, except for commercial purposes. Give this away - don't sell it!
Enjoy!
Sheryl Nance-Durst
sherylnd@sound.net
November 1997
Source: DaveP@eworld.com
Mead Lover's Digest #414 13 June
1995
Get a good yeast starter going, and when
it's ready, mix the honey, maple syrup and water in a fermenter. Shake like the
dickens until it's mixed. Add the yeast starter. Relax.
It turned out very well, except for
maybe being a bit too alcoholic for some people's tastes.
Source: Gary Watts (Volt Temporary)
<a-garyw@microsoft.com>
Mead Lover's Digest #425 20 August
1995
The 'must' came out like a
porter.
Over the next week the fermenting
stopped dead but the mead was still dark. It tested at about 8%. I added a
pinch of yeast nutrient again and gently rolled the jug to unsettle the dead
cells at the bottom. It blew off more than it did the first time.
I repeated this process for the next few
weeks until the mead was clear as water. The resulting tests showed an increase
to 12% them 15%. I usually let it go until at least 17% so I watched the
airlock for another week.
To my amazement four days later, the
airlock had stopped moving and the mead was very clear. It tested out at 20.3%.
I was so shocked that I tested it three times and they all came out the
same.
I botched an old recipe but the mead
came out a very powerful 20.3%.
The resulting beverage tasted very much
like a flat dry champagne.
During the act of creating this wonder
the cats tried to kill each other and I added TWO CUPS of dark tea. (The
correct recipe was 2 TABLESPOONS)
Except for a very dry taste, it turned
out very palatable. I took the bottles to a birthday party and they went in
half an hour with people asking for more. I'm starting a new batch this weekend
but unlike last time, I'm putting a few bottles away to let them carbonate,
this should wind up tasting like champagne.
Source: olson99@mack.Rt66.com (Gordon
Olson)
Mead Lover's Digest #438 21 October
1995
Initially, only six pounds of the honey
was added to preboiled water and pasteurized at 150 F for 15 minutes with the
yeast nutrient and hulls. After cooling with an immersion chiller, the yeast
starter
was added and air was pumped through the
must for 25 minutes with an aquarium pump.
After one month the specific gravity
dropped to 1.008, so the mead was racked and two more pounds of honey were
added. After another five weeks, the gravity was 1.020, the pH was 3.2, and the
acidity
was 0.7% acid. This was too acidic, so I
added the calcium carbonate. After another month, the numbers were 1.015, 3.7,
and 0.6%. I then added the sodium benzoate to kill off the yeast and another
half pound of honey. Three days later I added the sparkaloid and polyclar. Then
one week later with a specific gravity of 1.019, I bottled straight from the
carboy. I should have waited longer to add the clarifiers and even longer to
bottle. Then I would have had less sediment in the bottle.
This mead was started in August of 1994
and bottled in December of that year. At the first round of the AHA National
Competition in May 1995, the judges (in Texas) did not recognize the orange
blossom aroma and thought it was "yeasty." They scored it at 29 points. In June
at the Mazer Cup Competition, the judges thought that the orange blossom aroma
was excellent, but the mead needed more complexity. They gave it 36 points. At
the New Mexico State Fair competition for wines and meads it received a gold
medal and the best of show in the amateur division. The wine judges were
impressed by the wonderful bouquet.
This is a very simple mead that get all
of its character from the honey. This particular batch of honey had the best
aroma of any orange blossom honey that I have ever experience. It is worthwhile
to hunt out good smelling and good tasting honeys.
Source: "Charlie Moody"
<chmood@photobooks.atdc.gatech.edu>
Mead Lover's Digest #465 5 March
1996
Fixed up the starter this afternoon:
emptied the bread yeast into a ½ G Pyrex measuring cup (thank the gods
for Pyrex!), whisked it into a cup of boiling water; added a cup of honey &
whisked that in, then added water to 3 pints. When it had cooled t o about 80F,
I added 2 packets of premier couvee yeast, poured it off into a half-gallon
jug, capped it & shook. Within an hour, the lid was chattering away
happily.
After sterilizing everything, I brought
2 G of spring water to a boil, added 4 quarts of tupelo honey from the local
co-op, brought it up to 180F & kept it there for 30 min. Turned off the
stove & added the "acid blend". I thought the lemon would be a n ice note
w/ the tupelo, and the cranberries' tartness a nice contrast. The tea was added
for 'depth' (?). Then the hulls & energizer got stirred well in, and the
whole thing sat in an ice bath in the sink for an hour or so.
Poured the must into 1.5 gallons of cold
water, & quickly scooped some up for the gravity test: 1.100, on the nose!
The flavor is much milder than I'd expected, and there's less of a sense of
sweetness than my other musts (generic/1.1225, orange/1.090).
I still have a quart of that same honey,
and I'll probably be feeding this one as it goes along, if the premier couvee
is as attenuative as everyone says.
I'd like this one to end up as a sippin'
mead, with just enough sweetness to balance the tupelo signature & the
"acid blend" ('course, who knows if there's enough of any of that to make a
difference?). 03/13/96: bubbling once every 2 seconds. Smells remarkably like
tupelo honey.... Opaque as anything, and very fizzy-looking, and thoroughly
delightful-smelling. This I have no qualms about leaving alone for 2 weeks.
Average temp = 72F.
Sept 22 96 Both have turned out
wonderfully [the traditional tupelo and a tropical ambrosia melomel]: after
sitting in their carboys for six months, they both got thoroughly tasted at a
Labor Day party, and at a Goodbye Summer party, two gallons of the melomel
& one liter of the tupelo at each function. Survey says that each is a big
hit with pretty much everyone who tasted them (a couple of Jack Daniels fans
said they tasted like Mogen David). I got kissed a lot, and toasted a
lot.
The both really are very good, I'm
pleased (and amazed) to say. Both a still, and clear as a bell, and each is a
rich deep golden color. The melomel is distinctively fruity, and the tupelo is
distinctively tupelo. They're smooth, mildly sweet, and carry no off-flavors. I
can hardly wait for them to age enough to *really* show off!
Source: Ron Raike
<ron@mail.creol.ucf.edu>
Mead Lover's Digest #500 26 September
1996
Started by generating ~4 gal RO water.
Then treating it with ½ tsp. gypsum, ½ tsp. CaCO3, ¼ tsp.
Sea Salt. Brought to a full boil in 8 gal. brew pot for 30 min. Heat off, added
some orange and some lime peels and ½ oz coriander (all ground
together), let sit and cool to 90C. Added Honey and maple syrup. Temp dropped
to 80C. Back on heat. Added strained juice of 6 fresh off the tree Florida
lemons and 4 fresh Florida limes - 16 oz.
Stirred a few times for 30 min. Temp
back up to 90 - kept there. Added juice with pulp - 6 more lemons and 4 limes.
Some hot break forming and moving. Chopped remainder peels and coriander in
chopper and added. Let sit 10 min. Heat off. Final Temp at 90C. Stirred well
(whirl pooled). Covered with saran wrap, put lid back on and ice bathed (lots
of ice) for 2.5 hrs. Removed saran wrap to find a nice conical forming upward
from the center of the brew pot - from whirl pooling. Clear with spices and
fruit mostly in the center. Some haze in suspension. Racked to carboys. 2.5
gal. got the a champagne yeast starter and 3.5 gals. got the Wyeast Mead Sweet
yeast starter. Both were started with a honey based starter solution at ~1.050
- 1.5 liters for 1 week repitched twice.
OG of the must was ~1.14 - only way to
measure was to cut in half with water and measured 1.070. Nice citric smell and
taste. Tried to keep temp at 68-75F for fermenting. Champagne carboy was racked
at 40 days and bottled 35 days later, very clear and went straight into
bottles. FG is 1.020. Kinda hot for my liking.
Racked the Wyeast Sweet carboy in 2
weeks down to 1.065 and bottled 2 months later, very clear and still, no prime
- straight into bottles. FG is 1.045.
This may be considered by some to be a
metheglin but the honey and alc's really comethrough and balance well with the
fruit and spice flavor. No nutrients were used. This is the 1st
place traditional mead for the '96 MCMC. Judge comments include: "Excellent
cacophony of flavors this is so big yet well balanced to the Nth degree -
clean, not burning or rough" - "Well balanced and very mellow - clean finish
and big strength - great job!" ... Thanks.
Final scores - 41,38.
Source: Dave Polaschek
<davep@best.com>
Mead Lover's Digest #590 2 September
1997
I heated the water to make things
dissolve easier. It might've gotten as warm as 170F before I started pouring in
honey, but no attempt was made to heat & hold to kill bugs.
After 7 months, the final comment in my
log is: "Incredibly yummy" at which point I quit taking notes on it.
I'd call that a success, except for the
not making enough part.
With 5 quarts (quick mental calculation
says that's 11-15 pounds, depending on how far down it's been boiled), you've
got enough to scale the batch up to 10 or 12 gallons with no problems.
The dark wildflower honey is a Minnesota
woodland blend. I suspect it was actually made of mostly of honey from trees.
The only other clue about its exact composition I have is that a mead made just
with that dark honey ended up tasting of anise, in spite of no noticeable anise
quality to the honey, and no weirdness during the fermentation.
Source: Gordon L. Olson
glo@beta.lanl.gov
Mead Lover's Digest #322, 1 July
1994
Ingredients were pasteurized at 165 F
for 45 min. Then I cooled the must and strained out the spices. I pitched 10 gm
of Lalvin K1V-1116 yeast. After one month the specific gravity was down to
0.997, so I racked it into a clean carboy and added 5 sodium benzoate
stabilizing tablets to kill off the yeast. It was drier than I wanted and the
nutmeg dominated the spices too much, so I added 2 pounds of honey and another
0.5 oz. of fresh ginger root after pasteurizing them for 10 min. The ginger
root stayed in the bottom of the carboy right up until I bottled the mead. No
problems. After another month, the balance still wasn't quite right so I added
another 0.75 pounds of the desert honey. Two months after that, I bottled with
a SG = 1.024.
Because of the spices, it doesn't taste
as sweet as it sounds.
Here are my recommended ranges on these
spices:
fresh ginger root: less than 4 oz.,
unless it is a very sweet mead
cinnamon sticks: up to 12 sticks, each 2
inches
cloves: up to 2 tsp. of whole cloves (I
personally want gentle cloves)
nutmeg: not more than one whole nut
Source: Joyce Miller
(jmiller@genome.wi.mit.edu)
Mead Lover's Digest #345, 1 September
1994
Dissolve sugar & honey in water,
heat, and skim. Just before the boil, add ginger, mace, rosemary, bread, the
grated peel of the lemons. Peel the pith from the lemons and throw it away. Cut
the lemons in half, squeeze them into the wort, breaking them up into smallish
pieces. Put them in the wort, too. Pasteurize all at about 180F for 20-30
minutes. Force cool, put all into carboy, top up to 5.5 gallon-mark with
pre-boiled and cooled water, if necessary. Pitch yeast starter.
The bread was a weird idea I had to
avoid using yeast nutrient. It certainly didn't seem to hurt!
09-04-93: O.G. = 1.086 @ 78F = 1.088.
10-07-93: S.G. = 1.028 @ 74F = 1.030.
Mild lemon aroma, some bitterness from the ginger.
10-10-93: Bottled (had seemed to stop
bubbling). F.G. = 1.026 @ 68F = 1.027 (before ¾ cup priming sugar).
Tastes okay; young, not too dry (lemon seems to make it taste drier than SG
indicates). 11-01-93: Pretty drinkable, very small amount of bitterness. Should
be really good in 1 month.
08-15-94: This mead won 2nd
place in the Metheglin category of the 1994 Mazer Cup Competition.
Source: leighann@sybase.com (Leigh Ann
Hussey)
Mead Lover's Digest #386 23 February
1995
Boil together honey and 1/2gal water for
5 min. Put flowers with citric acid and tannin in a gallon jug and pour the hot
liquid over. Let cool in a sink of cold water to room temperature, then add
yeast and nutrient and further water to make a gallon plus a pint. Add the
airlock. Let ferment 1 week, then strain out flowers. Set the lock on again and
ferment until all quiet. Bottle and age.
Source: rdevine@microsoft.com Bob
Devine
Mead Lover's Digest #410 29 May 1995
I added the tea bags to 3 gallons of hot
water and let the tea bags steep for about 20 minutes. I was aiming for lots of
color, berry flavor and tannin in the tea. After removing the bags with a final
squeeze to press out any remaining flavors, I added the honey for a
pasteurization step. No acid was added, though I might change this for the next
version - I'll know in a year or so.
Now at about 7 months later, the mead
has a pale purple color and a fruity aroma and taste. It still tastes quite
young, the tannins are low and a bit rough but it is shaping up nicely.
In conclusion: Tea works fine. Play
around with the levels. Other dried botanicals might work great too.
Source: Joel Stave
<stave@ctron.com>
Mead Lover's Digest #429 7 September
1995
8/18/94
Heated water and honey. Skimmed and
simmered about 5 minutes.
When cool, added acid blend and nutrient
and pitched yeast. SG 1.080
8/19/94
picked and crushed basil leaves, put
into a straining bag and added to the must. Ferment was going pretty well by
this time.
8/24/94
Racked to a 4 liter jug - SG
1.042
9/20/94
racked to 1 gallon jug (4 liters to 1
gallon almost always works without having to top up or having any left over) SG
1.000 It cleared *very* quickly after this.
12/11/94
bottled in half-bottles. SG
0.996.
9/5/95
opened a bottle. pale green, crystal
clear, *very* strong basil flavor and aroma. Definitely drinkable if you like
basil - might be good with pesto.
NOTE: I made this metheglin for cooking,
and so wanted a strong basil flavor. It can be sipped, but only if you *really*
like basil. Also, when I say "gallon" I mean U.S. gallon.
Source: dkerfoot@freenet.macatawa.org
(Douglas Kerfoot)
Mead Lover's Digest #442 2 November
1995
Boil 2 Oz of fresh ground ginger root
and the grated peel of one orange in about 1 ½ gallons of water for 30
minutes. Scoop most of the chunks out. Turn off heat and pour in 8 - 9 Lb. of
honey. Pour into carboy ½ full with cold water(I like to run my water
through my $8.00 faucet filter to remove the chlorine). Add remainder of orange
and 1 - 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or the juice from a grapefruit. (Because
this ferments out very dry, a little sourness goes a long way, don't overdo it)
Add some yeast nutrient, and top off with cold water. Temp should be below 90
degrees F. Add rehydrated Edme Yeast. Stand back.
Although I usually propagate my yeast
from slants for my beer, I've had great luck with Edme dry yeast for VERY quick
results. Edme is famous for overnight fermentations with beer ("I'm a new
brewer and my first batch hasn't started yet, what could be wrong?") and will
finish off a light mead in less than a week. I understand that it has three
strains of yeast in it:
One for fast starts, One with high
alcohol tolerance, and one that is a strong floculater that pulls the other
yeasts down with it.
In two to three weeks it should be
pretty clear. I like to carbonate it in a keg. I brought a keg of it to my
homebrew club meeting when it was only three weeks from brew day. They were
amazed! ("I thought mead took a long time to ferment?") Would it be better
after aging? Probably, but I haven't personally been able to keep a batch
around for more than 2 months!
Source: kurt@iquest.net (Kurt
Schilling)
Mead Lover's Digest #468 19 March
1996
Combine honey, water, quartered orange,
grated ginger in brew pot and bring to boil. Skim froth from surface. Remove
orange and ginger with a sanitized strainer after 30 minutes. Cool and pour
into fermenter. Pitch yeast when must is 70-75 degrees F. Rack the mead when
fermentation slows (after about 1 week) to secondary. Additional rackings may
be necessary.
The mead is drinkable when cleared, but
improves with aging. Total time till drinkable is about 2.5 months, hence the
name Quick Mead)
This is an ale strength mead that is
just fine for a medieval feast or for whooping it up on St. Paddy's Day or
Lammas.
You can also ferment this one with a
wine yeast or Mead yeast if you choose.
I have found that it is fairly dry and
gingery. Quite tasty in fact.
Source: "Charlie Moody"
<chmood@photobooks.atdc.gatech.edu>
Mead Lover's Digest #465 5 March
1996
| 1 part each |
2 parts each |
½ part |
trace/pinch |
| tang kuei |
ginseng, Chinese |
eucommia bark |
peony root |
| polygonum multiflorum |
astragalus |
|
gum frankincense |
| lychii fruit |
ginseng, American |
|
gum myrrh |
| schizandra berries |
jujube dates |
|
|
| asparagi |
|
|
|
| rehmannia (processed) |
|
|
|
| licorice root |
|
|
|
| morindae |
|
|
|
| atractylodis |
|
|
|
Creating an extraction from the herbs
took pretty much all of 2/3/96 (9am-1am); double-container water bath method,
three rounds.
Result: 3 quarts of fluid
extract.
-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday morning, the mead-making began in
earnest:
flavorings:
-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
So: I boiled 1 gal. water, added 1 gal
honey, and all the flavorings, and brought the temperature up; I figured I'd
let the scum rise & skim it off, but not actually boil it. Didn't occur to
me that a lot of the flavorings would float....
I skimmed off the scum (and most of the
raisins & mace & lime), and pulled out about half the ginger (the more
I thought about it, the more I began to doubt using so much...). Eventually,
the scum slowed down; I cut the heat off, added the herb extract, and set it in
the sink to cool (that was the weekend it was 50 below in Minnesota, so no ice
was necessary ;)).
Because of the herbs, I kept the pot
covered. In future batches, I'll just add the already-pasteurized extract to
the pitching bucket & save myself the extra grief.
When the must had cooled to 95F, I
poured it into the bucket, along with a half-gallon of ice water, snapped on
the lid, and shook it hard for a while. Pulling the lid off, I dipped a test
sample, and pitched the starter.
Original gravity is 1.1225 (!)
After repeating the shaking, I poured
off into a 3-gal carboy. O gawd, it's filling up too fast - do I have another
jug? Found a half-gallon jug, did a quickie sterilization on it (difficult to
do w/ crossed fingers), and gave it the rest. (Turns out I have almost
*exactly* 3 gallons, but hey....)
Eighteen hours later, it's bubbling once
every 10 seconds!
03/04/96 - After a month, it had slowed
to once in 40 seconds, so yesterday afternoon, I poured the half-gallon into
the carboy, added 3 yeast energizer tablets, and 2 teaspoons of yeast hulls. As
of 19:52 today, it's bubbling every 7 seconds.
S.G. = 1.040, as of 15:00 yesterday.
03/13/96: SG has dropped to 1.010, which
makes it about 28proof, but it's still bubbling away once every 13 sec. Taste
has gotten sharper, but is still quite palatable; I wonder if this will still
be drinkable once it dries out all the way.... Maybe I'll feed it a bit more
honey when I rack again.
4 Apr 1996 For a more general update,
the metheglin from an OG of 1.225 to 0.090. At only 2 months old, it tastes
very mature and civilized, and the herbal recipe definitely imparts a zing! It
took 22oz to the same party, and everyone walked off smiling to savor their
taste.
I've been interested in medicine and
herbology (particularly Chinese) for a long time, and so when I read about
metheglins, my interest (already high) definitely perked up. Naturally, I
wanted to make a medicine-metheglin: one w/ tonic herbs, not just spices, but
it seems that none of the recipes (save those, perhaps, of Sir Digbie) use, or
even discuss tonic herbs...just flavorings.
Undaunted, I burrowed my way into my
health shelf for info on tonic herbs, even while I was inhaling NCJoH and the
MLD archives, and after a while, pieced together a tonic herbal recipe.
Your health, safety and comfort are YOUR
responsibility: mess around w/ Chinese herbs and you do so *entirely* at YOUR
*OWN* RISK!
Source: "Dione Wolfe "
<DKEY@MEDUSA.UNM.EDU>
Mead Lover's Digest #572 14 June
1997
Strain into 3 gal carboy and pitch yeast
starter (I used Red Star Cuvee)
Racked 2-3 times to clarify, then used
Sparkaloid with excellent results.
Bottled after 2 months. O.G. 1.055,
potential alcohol 7%
It had a very strong green chile flavor
and a nice heat when raw. Now, after six months in the bottle, it's beginning
to mellow and the chile heat is a nice back-of-the-throat warmth. After at
least another year, this should be great with appetizers and chile dishes.
Source: Darin Trueblood
<mtss@ptw.com>
Mead Lover's Digest #560, 9 May 1997
The cranberries were frozen, then thawed
enough so that it didn't sound like a handful of ball bearings in the processor
when I chopped them sufficiently to break most all of their skins. I
pasteurized the honey and poured it over the chopped fruit in the
primary.
I let it go for about three weeks, then
racked it off the fruit. Poured the fruit into a nylon and squeezed the juice
out. Racked it again in about a week. Again a couple more times over the next
few months.
When I scaled it up to 5 gallons, I had
to substitute plain old water, as it only snows on Christmas once every 10 or
15 years here in California's high desert.
The starter is about a third of a
package D47 yeast, a tablespoon sugar or malt extract, and a pinch of yeast
energizer, in a cup of water, done the day before.
Source: Robert C. Santore
<rsantore@mailbox.syr.edu>
Mead Lover's Digest #326, 10 July
1994
Water was boiled to drive off chlorine,
then nutrient and honey added to dissolve, brought back to just boil then heat
turned off and rhubarb added. Allowed to cool covered in pan overnight. Next
day the mixture was poured back and forth between pan and plastic fermenter to
aerate. Then the yeast sediment from a 1 qt starter of yeast was pitched. SG of
honey mixture (before fruit) 1.092. Racked to secondary after about 1 month,
bottled when still with priming sugar.
I like fruited meads to have dominate
fruit flavor but I don't think that 7 cups rhubarb per gallon was at all
excessive. At bottling this was sour with some sweetness, hot alcohol flavor
typical of young mead. Overall very nice. I am looking forward to tasting this
in the future.
Source: Alex (last name unknown)
(Lothar1@aol.com)
Mead Lover's Digest #348, 14 September
1994
Bring honey, raspberry leaves and citric
acid and 1 gallon water to a full boil.
Skimming any scum which rises until
there is no more scum (20 - 40 minutes).
Add boiled honey mixture to 1 gallon of
frozen berries in primary fermenter.
Add cold water to 6 gallons.
Add rehydrated yeast when temperature is
70F - 80F.
Allow to remain in primary fermenter for
4-5 weeks before transferring to a secondary fermenter.
Rack secondary fermentation on 2 week
intervals. Allow 6-8 weeks total secondary fermentation before bottling.
Sulfite 1 week prior to bottling (5
campden tablets).
2 days prior to bottling rack and add a
syrup made from the juice pressed from the remaining gallon of raspberries and
1 lb. of sugar (I suppose that honey could be used here also, I just didn't
have any on hand when I did this)
Fermentation temperature on this batch
was high (70F-80F)
Source: Lee Bussy
(BrewerLee@aol.com)
Mead Lover's Digest #358, 23 October
1994
Wash pumpkin thoroughly before cutting
open. Remove seeds and stringy material. Peel skin. Grind or mash pumpkin into
nylon straining bag. (Note: Extraction may be aided by freezing the pumpkin
overnight to break down the structure of the fruit.) Keeping all pulp in
straining bag, squeeze juice into primary fermenter, tie top and leave bag in
primary fermenter.
Stir in all other ingredients except
yeast. Cover and allow to sit overnight. After 24 hours add yeast. Cover
primary.
Stir daily and press pulp lightly to aid
extraction.
After 3-5 days (SG should be below
1.040) lightly press juice from bag and remove bag. Rack off of sediment into
glass secondary and fix airlock.
This is one that has turned out quite
well for me in the past.
Some people add traditional pumpkin pie
spices to this but I feel it is a wonderful mead without any such additions.
Darker honeys such as Mesquite do very well in this recipe.
This does much better as a still
mead.
Source: mercese@anubis.network.com
(Steve E. Mercer)
Mead Lover's Digest #369 5 December
1994
Ferment with Yeastlab Sweet Mead yeast
M62 (Steinberg Riesling)
The honey was purchased in bulk at a
nearby grocery co-op store. The raspberries were frozen to help break down the
cell walls, and they were crushed by hand (in plastic bags) while thawing. The
lemon and orange juice were to provide acids.
The tea was to provide tannins.
I do not know what the nutrient is, but
I suspect that it supplied nitrogen.
Boil the honey in some water for 30
minutes, skimming off any scum, wax, bee parts, etc. that rise to the
surface.
Remove from heat and add berries, tea,
juice, and nutrient. Let sit, covered, for a few minutes to let the heat
sanitize the fruit.
Chill to room temperature in an ice
water bath.
Put into primary fermenter and add water
to bring the volume of the must up to the appropriate level.
Pitch yeast into must. ( I just pour the
liquid yeast into the must without making a starter.)
It was fermented at about 70 degrees F.
(room temperature in my kitchen).
Rack after about three weeks, when the
fruit pulp has settled.
Rack again at month 2, 4, and 6. Bottle
at month 8. The mead had cleared and was finished fermenting by the racking at
month six. During the last two months in the fermenter there was no airlock
activity at all, and nothing more settled out. I waited the extra two months to
be certain that the fermentation was complete. There is still some residual
sugar, and I did not want the mead to continue fermenting in the
bottles.
This is a sweet, still melomel intended
for use as a dessert wine.
A word of advice learned from previous
experiences:
If you use a carboy as your primary
fermenter, use one with a LOT of extra headspace, or use a wide blow-off tube.
If you do not, the raspberry pulp will foam up and will plug the airlock. This
will cause a pressure buildup which can pop the stopper off of the carboy and
spray your walls with sticky raspberry stuff. I hear that it can also cause
your carboy to explode, leaving an even bigger mess.
The mead was entered into competition at
age nine months (one month after bottling. The competition included beers,
wines, meads, and flavored liqueurs. This mead won "Best of Show". Judges
comments included things like "Excellent blend, couldn't improve upon it. A
winner".
Source: mattm@teleport.com (Matt
Maples)
Mead Lover's Digest #390 15 March
1995
mix all ingredients well makes three
gallons.
24 hr. after adding campden tabs add one
pkg. champagne yeast. as mead falls to 1.05 add another 3 lb.. Do this until
desired sweetness is reached.
Yet another glowing testimonial for kiwi
mead! The following was one of the first meads I ever made. After it aged for a
year it turned out great. I only found one person who didn't like it and she
didn't care for the smell the yeast imparted. I guess the apple juice would
make this a cyser and not a melomel but no need to pick at nits. I did manage
to strain out 70% of the seeds but in retrospect it wasn't really
necessary.
Source: ScottK678@aol.com Scott
Kaczorowski
Mead Lover's Digest #419 16 July
1995
1/29/95 - Added 10lbs orange blossom and
5lbs "California Desert Wildflower" to five gallons of boiling water. Brought
back to a boil for 15 minutes, while skimming. Added 2 tsp. yeast nutrient near
the end of boil. Cooled with an immersion chiller, aerated by beating with
spoon in plastic primary, added two packs rehydrated Pasteur Champagne yeast. 6
gal (?), OG 1.100.
2/9 - Racked to glass secondary. Filled
carboy almost to neck, 5+ gal. SG 1.023, still sweet, slight sulphery
smell.
3/25 - Racked just less than three
gallons to 3 gal Corny. SG 0.998. Mead was still very cloudy from yeast and
still fermenting slowly. Strong honey aroma, no grav taken.
Added ~1 gal pomegranate juice to just
less than 2.5 gal mead left in secondary. Juice was squeezed from ~14 lb. of
previously frozen pomegranate fruit in a hop bag. Juice was sanitized by
heating to 170F and left to sit for 10-15 minutes. Juice had a VERY grassy
aroma during heating - not very pleasant. Juice was cooled in sink and added
via funnel to secondary. Several hours later, the melomel had cleared
considerably (!?) and a thick layer (1"-1.5") of white stuff formed in the
secondary about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom. This looked almost like what
I'd imagine an iceberg would look like. It was sort of flat on the "top", but
underneath there were large voids, caverns, etc. Bluish-white; looked very much
like paraffin. Deep red color with little white flecks suspended.
Refermentation appeared to have started.
3/26 - Iceberg still present but had
sunk to bottom. Fermentation appears to be no more active than the night before
(that is: slight). Temps in the 40s last night might have something to do with
this. Or possibly because the juice seems to have dropped the yeast and now the
iceberg lies between the mead and the yeast cake. Hmm...
4/15 - Mead still contains quite a bit
of suspended snow-like particles.
Prepared and added 3 tsp.
bentonite.
4/18 - Racked to 3 gal carboy. Nearly
filled the 3 gallon 'boy + 2/3 of ½ gal growler. SG 1.020.
Looked a lot like cranberry juice, clear
and red. Unbelievably tasty. Still quite sweet, and still fermenting slightly.
No sign whatever of the grassy/earthy aroma present in the pomegranate juice at
its addition. Very slightly tart, pomegranate taste/aroma evident. A lot of
honey taste/flavor. Flavor very reminiscent of Cranapple juice.
5/14 - Racked to keg. SG
1.008-1.010.
I cannot overemphasize the intensity of
the grassy aroma coming from the pom juice during pasteurization. It was almost
overpowering and the juice spent more time on the heat than it should have
(almost 20 minutes) because I had to debate whether or not to add the juice to
what I knew to be perfectly good mead. The memory of seemingly permanently
juice-stained hands and 3 or 4 ruined T-shirts eventually convinced me to add
the juice.
Any ideas on what the 'iceberg' was? The
best guesses I got (in private correspondence with Pam Day and Mark Fryling,
both hard science types) was that I set the pectin during pasteurization and
this coagulated upon contact with the mead. Maybe with the suspended yeast? The
base mead was quite cloudy when the juice was added and cleared almost
immediately afterwards. Next time (and I think this is worth repeating), I'll
not heat the juice.
I sent some of the pom melomel off to
the Mazer Cup and was happy with my scores and with the judges' suggestions. It
scored a 36 and a 39. The one judge thought the slight sourness was
well-balanced with the sweetness and liked the tartness. He also wondered if I
had "dry-fruited"! The other thought that there was too much tart and that
perhaps I used too much fruit. Both said honey aroma/flavor were a little
low.
All in all, one of my best, and
certainly most interesting, meads. It'll be very interesting to see how this
mel ages, it being only 7 months old at the moment.
Source: JLAUKES@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU Jim
Laukes
Mead Lover's Digest #422 31 July
1995
I started by boiling citrus honey with
yeast energizer and 2 gal. of water then pitching champagne yeast into the
primary for three days. Then I brought frozen strawberries to 170 F for 15
minutes with cinnamon and mace in 2 gallons of water which I cooled and added
to the primary. The ferment continued for a week at which time I siphoned to a
carboy.
It cleared nicely in six weeks when I
bottled.
It was tasty after about 2 months and now
at five months it is a gentle mix of berries at the nose over a subtle honey
afterglow/taste. I'm trying to keep half the batch for eight months of aging.
With luck.......
Source: Sam Bennett
sam_bennett@om.cv.hp.com
Mead Lover's Digest #427 29 August
1995
Dissolve honey in water, add raisins and
cloves, & bring to a simmer (don't boil) for about 5 minutes. Let cool to
95 degrees or so, reserving a small portion to start yeast. Start yeast and add
to must in primary fermentation container. Rack to carboy after a week,
removing raisins and cloves and topping off with water. Rack again after 3 mo.
and bottle @ 6 mo.
This is a recipe that I invented, and
has become one of my favorites.
It has a fairly strong flavor and is
great when mulled. I didn't know whether to call it a metheglin or a melomel as
it has both spices and fruit, so I decided to give up and coin my own word
"melometh".
This can be drinkable after 3 or 4
months but its best to wait a full year to age properly.
Source: David Prescott
lprescot@sover.net
Mead Lover's Digest #576 6 July
1997
gypsum, nutrient, energizer,
etc.
Red Star Flor Sherry yeast
It's really easy to make, and finished
nicely. I am a stickler about aging, but after only three months in the bottle
it's getting nice.
For my next batch, I would like to do
the same thing, but increase the honey. So, for five gallons I think I'll
double the orange and nutmeg and use a gallon of clover honey.
Source: Gregg Carrier
stu_gjcarrie@vax1.acs.jmu.edu
Mead Lover's Digest #437 18 October
1995
Well, I just tasted my first mead ever
to be fermented with an ale yeast. I like it a lot better...it's really good
for so young an age. I was after a clean, very mildly sweet, weaker mead.
After 1 month...that's right one month,
this stuff is drinkable. Fermented quick and easy, cleared nicely and it has
this terrific red color. Grapey finish, mildly sweet. Pretty tart. I can't wait
to see what it's like after aging in the bottles. I would highly recommend a
plum mead to anyone who was curious.
Source: hall@galt.c3.lanl.gov (Michael
L. Hall)
Mead Lover's Digest #444 18 November
1995
On 9/25/94, I put together the first
three honeys listed along with a gallon of apricot juice and enough water to
make 2.55 gallons. There was no reason for the strange selection of honeys; I
was just cleaning out the cupboard. The apricot juice came from apricots from a
tree in my backyard. I pureed the apricots to get a thick paste, froze the
paste for about a year, then thawed it out and left it sitting in a gallon jug
in a refrigerator for several months. >From past experience I knew that the
solids would almost never clear out of the mead, so I waited until the juice
separated and just used the clear juice. At any rate, I pasteurized this
concoction for 90 min at 150 F and pitched the yeast. The SG was 1.115 and the
must tasted rather sour, even with all that honey. I thought that I might need
to correct the sourness somehow later.
I didn't touch the mead again until
4/15/95 (my son was born on 10/20/94, so I was very busy). At this point I
racked the mead, which was still sour, but had a nice apricot character. I
measured the acid content at 1.3% as tartaric, 8.5 ppt as sulfuric. The SG was
1.001 and the clarity was good.
On 5/16/95 I removed a sample and
adjusted its acidity to 6.5% tartaric with CaCO3, decided that was too much
(too chalky) and tried to adjust acidity of whole volume to 9.25% tartaric by
adding one ounce of CaCO3. I measured it to be 9.3%. I then added sodium
benzoate to kill the yeast and some extra clover honey (20 min at 160 F with 1
pt water) to counteract the residual acidity and give honey character. I let it
sit overnight for the chalk to precipitate out before bottling.
I entered this melomel in the 1995 NM
State Fair as part of their wine competition (8/27/95). It received a Gold
Medal and a score of 6.80/10, which was the highest rated mead, and the second
highest rated wine (highest was 7.04). Judges noted excellent acidity-sweetness
balance, good apricot and honey character, some spiciness (maybe the Questa
honey?), and some sediment (the chalk), but otherwise good clarity. In the
future I will try to wait until the chalk precipitates out to bottle, but at
that time I needed to free up the carboy. You can see a chalk layer in the
bottom of each bottle, but the mead can be easily decanted off of it.
Source: MicahM1269@aol.com micah
millspaw
Mead Lover's Digest #563 18 May
1997
The honey was rehydrated to 28 B and
heated the Irish moss. It was then skimmed until clear, then yeast nutrient
added and then force cooled. When cooled to 70 F and racked to a 10 gallon
fermenter then yeast was pitched. After 2 days of vigorous fermentation the
strawberries were added to the must. A extremely active fermentation followed.
When subsided the must was racked to a carboy to finish out and clear. The
vanilla was added at racking. After one month the mead was racked to a soda
keg, chilled and force carbonated. A portion of it was C-P bottled. the rest on
draft. This was/ is a very drinkable melomel, light pink in color with a
definite strawberry flavor, you really cannot pin down the vanilla though but
it may be adding some complexity. The acidity of the strawberries real help out
the with the balance.
Last week I visited a fellow mead maker
out in California and got to sample an excellent sparkling strawberry melomel ,
on draft in fact ! I got the recipe and permission to pass it along so here it
is.
I think that this is a good, quick sort
of mead ( 4-6 weeks ) since the honey used is so mildly flavored. And there is
still time to get one started for drinking this summer.
Source: Matt Maples
<mattm@ipacrx.com>
Mead Lover's Digest #575 28 June
1997
Slice bananas skins and all ( Don't let
anyone give you that "banana skins have a psychoactive chemical in them" stuff,
it just does not apply here), place everything in a press bag and tie it. in
1.5 qrts water boil them for 30 min. Remove pulp. Put honey into fermenter and
pour hot liquer over it. Add remaning water (cool) Pitch. Age at lease a year.
This stuff is VERY harsh young.
Reducing the tannin and cloves should help that. (I don't care for cloves all
that much and they were quite strong.) After a year it starts to mellow and
have nice spicyness to it with and good but not overpowering banana flavor and
golden color.
Source: DFusion@aol.com Dave ?
Mead Lover's Digest #567 28 May
1997
The fruit was sliced and put in a fine
nylon mesh bag, then steeped at 155 F for 20 min. Honey was added and simmered
at 145 F for 20 min. I then lowered the temp to 80 F and pitched the
yeast.
The primary fermentation (in a 6 gal
plastic bucket with the nylon fruit bag) was like nothing I had ever seen
before. There were bubbles the size of grapefruits!!!. I racked it into a
carboy about 10 days later, removing the fruit bag. Fermentation slowed down,
and I racked the mead off it's sediment into another carboy. After awhile, it
started fermenting again, and to this day still is actively bubbling. It even
still has a bit of foam in the neck. Since then, it has cleared dramatically to
a glorious strawberry color.
It tastes pretty good right now (wow is
it sweet!), but in retrospect, I would have done the fruit differently. The
fruit flavors are hard to find. Hopefully two and a half years aging will turn
this stuff into ambrosia.
Source: ra@ftn.net (Robert
Alexander)
Mead Lover's Digest #451 6 January
1996
Heated and skimmed the honey (with some
water) for about 20 min., and then added the chopped rhubarb and let simmer for
about an hour to extract the flavor and other components. Actually, because of
the size of my pot, I had to do this operation twice, with half the ingredients
each time.
94/06/11 This mixture was then put into
a large primary pail, and topped up with water. BTW, my water comes from a
well, and is VERY hard, so I didn't feel the need to add any minerals, like
gypsum, to the must.
94/06/12 S.G. 1.080 Pitched yeast into
primary
94/06/13 Going like crazy!
94/06/21 S.G. 0.996 ! Racked to carboy.
Added ~ 1 K. (2.2lb)
honey, which raised S.G. to 1.016.
Topped up with water. 94/08/01 S.G. 0.994 Rack. Clearing well. Tastes horrible,
acidic and solvent-y. My notes say I added .5 K. kilo honey, which raised the
S.G. to 1.016. Looking back, that doesn't seem to make sense, but THAT'S what
the notes say. *shrug* :-)
My notes end here. The stuff tasted so
bad, I just wrote it off as a bust effort. I know I racked and added honey one
more time (what the hell). It seemed the yeast would NEVER poop out. After that
the stuff was just ignored. I figured I'd get around to dumping it when I
needed an empty carboy.
As it turned out, it's a good thing I
have a few extra carboys. :-) When I next tasted the stuff, it was seven months
later; March of 95. Most of the harsh, solvent tastes and strong acid had
mellowed (probably due to malo-lactic fermentation, I'm guessing) and both the
rhubarb and honey notes were present, though subdued. Good legs, too. The mead
was still VERY dry, but that turned out to be OK; the overall presentation was
similar to a chablis-steely, earthy, complex. Didn't check the finish S.G.,
just started drinking it, but I guess it was around 0.990. Alc. around
15%.
Much of this mead was drunk by just
tapping it from the carboy, so there was considerable oxidation over the next
few months. Though I know this is bad form, it didn't seem to harm the taste.
(Why?) Maybe it helped? Oh, and about half of the quantity was stored in a
small oak cask for about a month (Aug 95), then remixed back into the carboy.
In any case, I finally got some bottled, and the few I have left are still
improving. (I think the oak flavor was important.)
This mead was a real hit, especially
among my grape-wine drinking friends (and especially among the ones who've been
conditioned to turn their noses up at anything that's not BONE dry).
This recipe came about when I wanted to
create a mead that had a higher acidic content, but without adding a commercial
acid blend. I wanted to get the acid from a more 'natural' source. So I got
thinking, and maybe this is a weird concept, but, 'what's the opposite taste to
honey?' I finally decided that rhubarb was probably the closest; sour and acid
v/s sweet and soft. My goal was a strong, balanced mead, with a bit of residual
sweetness. Considering the champagne yeast, I'd have to continue 'feeding' it
honey until the yeast pooped out.
Source: doantm@netinfo.com.au (Donna
Maurer)
Mead Lover's Digest #453 20 January
1996
I can't remember what yeast I used, but
it was possibly a Bordeaux yeast.
We tried this, chilled, at Christmas
and it wasn't bad. It was pretty acidic and kept a good lemon flavor. No
sweetness at all. I think it will improve with age.
Source: DoubleDDD@aol.com
Mead Lover's Digest #454 25 January
1996
B.P. acid blend. adj. to .71%
prisse de mousse yeast
Source: "Charlie Moody"
<chmood@photobooks.atdc.gatech.edu>
Mead Lover's Digest #465 5 March
1996
What an incredible mess I've
made!!!
Sevananda, the local co-op, had some
real nice orange blossom honey, and the idea here is to use fruits that will
support and enhance the flavor of the honey. I thought the cranberries would
make a nice counterpoint to all the sweet fruit, and that the tea might add
depth, or character, or something.
I heated 2 gallons of water, then added
5 quarts of the honey, got it all stirred in, then brought the temp. up to
about 180F. Kept it there for 30 min. Everything went fine until I started
adding the fruit to the must. I quickly realized that the pot I was cooking in
was running out of room, and I still had plenty of fruit to go!
I grabbed my half-gallon Pyrex cup
& scooped out about 3 pints, and added the rest of the fruit to it, stuck
it in the microwave & zapped it several times, stirring after each zap,
while struggling to get a completely-full 4-gallon pot off the stove and into
to sink to cool. *sigh* Not all the must made it.
The stuff was thick as anything and
*extremely* sweet (apparently even more so than my first must (SG=1.1225)), so
I figured I'd better dilute it some...oops, then I had 6.5 G of must filling up
my 6.5 G fermenting bucket! *sigh* Now it's a two-carboy batch...at least there
was room for the yeast!
Ever try to pick up a *full* 6.5 G
bucket & pour it *all* into a funnel perched on top of a carboy? *sigh* Of
course you haven't, and neither have I: I started bailing into the funnel, and
making an incredible wreck of the kitchen...which I managed to track all over
the carpet....
By this time, I had fruit clogging the
funnel, pools of fresh honey-glue creeping across my kitchen counters and
floor, sticky spots on the floor throughout the house, and two open carboys,
but I finally got the fruit distributed between the bottles, got the fruit
*rammed* through the funnel and *into* the carboys (*grrr*), locks installed,
and everything cleaned up (or at least, wiped down).
No, I'm fine,
really...*pant*pant*pant*....
The result? I now have +/- 7 gallons of
fruit-punch melomel producing CO2 in industrial quantities: bubbling about
every 1.5 seconds. The stuff smells and tastes heavenly, but the must is really
much too sweet for me to drink, even though the starting gravity is 'only'
1.090.
This batch was much more work than my
first one, even though the first batch took me a full 2 days, what w/ the herbs
and all. Partly, I was thrown by my miscalculation of the must's volume, and
that had me playing catch-up from then on.
03/04/96 - After 48 hours, it's
bubbling once every second, and still smelling incredible!
03/05/96 - I just noticed what seems to
be a crack in the 5-gallon carboy, and (very) minor seepage around it. Was this
crack there before? Did I somehow knock the bottle against another, and if so,
is there *loose* *glass* in my mead??? I suppose CARE FUL racking might take
care of it.... I would *hate* to have to throw this out!
03/13/96: After blasting away @ 1 per
second for a week, on 3/10 it dropped to 1 in 3 seconds, then to 1 in 7 seconds
on 3/11; as of this morning, the rate is 1 in 49 sec! This is really a dramatic
fall-off (sudden, too), and the must is actually beginning to fall clear! At
least, it's become translucent, as opposed to the other batches, which are
still utterly opaque. I'm leaving today for 2 weeks in Colorado; I hope it will
be okay sitting here. I think I'll rack this as soon as I return. I wonder if I
should add more hulls/energizer/honey when I do....
In the last several days there's been a
change in appearance in the fruit:
it looked pretty wretched in there for
awhile, but things have spruced up nicely, and now it resembles fruit salad! I
wonder what it would taste like w/ a spritz of whipped cream or drizzle of
honey....
Average temp = 72F.
The question of glass in this mead
still remains unanswered. If some minor cavitation has occurred, will normal
racking procedures leave any glass bits behind, or should I prepare to take
extraordinary measures?
I'm not likely to have the chance to
test SG before I leave, but I doubt there's been enough time for all 15# of
honey to get chewed up. I've been agitating fairly thoroughly / frequently (no
sloshing!), so I suppose fermentation may have been speedier as a result. Any
feedback?
4 Apr 1996 It's just one month old, and
has fallen from
1.100 to 1.000; fermentation virtually
/ apparently ceased by 3 weeks. within a week of racking, it had fallen clear
enough to read book titles thru. It still has a lock on it, but it bubbles only
once every 20 minutes or so.
Took some to a party on 3/23 and shared
tastes around 15-20 people. The consensus? Bright, yummy, fruity, just sweet
enough. It'll be a pleasure to track this stuff as it ages.
Sept 22 96 Both [the melomel & a
traditional tupelo mead] have turned out wonderfully: after sitting in their
carboys for six months, they both got thoroughly tasted at a Labor Day party,
and at a Goodbye Summer party, two gallons of the melomel & one liter of
the tupelo at each function. Survey says that each is a big hit with pretty
much everyone who tasted them (a couple of Jack Daniels fans said they tasted
like Mogen David). I got kissed a lot, and toasted a lot.
The both really are very good, I'm
pleased (and amazed) to say. Both a still, and clear as a bell, and each is a
rich deep golden color. The melomel is distinctively fruity, and the tupelo is
distinctively tupelo. They're smooth, mildly sweet, and carry no off-flavors. I
can hardly wait for them to age enough to *really* show off!
Source: Daniel Gurzynski
<daniel@buffnet.net>
Mead Lover's Digest #472 8 April
1996
Skimmed and heated honey to 170 degrees
in 1 gal water for 30 min. Added 6 oz.. ginger and OJ, and let sit for another
30 min on the stove with no heat.
Mixed in 4 gal. more water with must in
primary.
Starting S.G. 1.082, on
11/17/95.
11/24/95
Racked off ginger mead, SG was 1.067,
mainly to get it off sediment.
12/10/95
Took an a SG reading of the orange
ginger mead. S.G. 1.030. Extremely sweet and gingery, should be really good
when it goes dry. Approx. 6.5%.
12/17/95
Racked off Orange-ginger mead into one
5 gal. carboy. Small bottle we tasted last week had an S.G. 1.020 and large
carboy had S.G. of 1.040. Loads of crud on the bottom of both containers.
Tasted both. Big bottle sample way too sweet, small bottle sample sweet but
getting to a drinkable stage. Strong ginger taste in both samples. Time will
tell. Small sample already at 7.8% alcohol and is not nearly done.
1/6/96
Tested Orange-Ginger batch. S.G. 1.026.
Still very sweet but getting there, need time for this batch to mature.
1/14/95
Racked off Orange-ginger mead. S.G.
1.020. Ginger taste is becoming prominent., honey taste is quite noticeable.
Overall fruity and sweet, honey Moselle kind of flavor.
2/5/96
Racked off Firewater mead still at
S.G.1020. Fine fruity and gingery smell and taste.
2/25/96
Bottled Firewater. S.G. 1.020. A
poignant smell, certainly can taste the ginger in it.
quite drinkable in a reasonable time,
and won't knock you down.
Source: sobol@ofps.ucar.EDU (Rebecca
Sobol)
Mead Lover's Digest #473 14 April
1996
Heat honey with water to almost
boiling. Add gypsum and yeast nutrient. Skim scum. Keep hot for about 10
minutes to pasteurize. Add juice and let sit covered (heat off) for 20 minutes.
Cool, pour into carboy and add water to make 5 gallons. Pitch yeast. Stir and
store with blow-off tube.
¾ cup corn sugar boiled with 1
cup water. Pour liquid sugar into pail, rack mead into pail and stir before
bottling. Bottled October 12, 1995.
This mead still has a nice red color,
but it's fading to orange. Good pomegranate flavor comes through nicely. It's
pretty dry and doesn't really sparkle. Still has a bite that I associate with a
young mead that needs more aging. The last few sips from my glass tasted better
and more like pomegranates than the first few sips. Try a gourmet grocery
store, or possibly a middle-eastern grocery store for the pomegranate
juice.
Source: chuckmw@mcs.com (Chuck
Wettergreen )
Mead Lover's Digest #502 10 October
1996
heated to 140 deg F for 15
minutes
immersion chiller cooled to 75 deg
F
pitched dregs of previous batch of
pyment (red star champagne yeast) oxygenated with airstone for about 10 minutes
(pure O2)
fermentation begins within 3
hours
OG 1.090
8/4/96 - racked off of blueberries
(which went into other half of cherry juice, now being made into 10 gallons of
cherry wine) added 2 pounds of wildflower honey ferment slowing down pH 3.5,
added 2 tablespoons of CaCO3
8/5/96 - ferment back to active, pH
3.9
8/6/96 - ferment slowing down again, IG
1.010, tastes sour, pH 3.6, added 1 tablespoon CaCO3
8/7/96 - ferment back to active, added
1 pound wildflower honey 8/16/96 - Ferment slowing down, pH 3.6 added 1
tablespoon CaCO3 8/17/96 - added 2 pounds mixed brush honey 8/21/96 -
fermentation really slowing down, almost finished!
8/23/96 - At this point it appeared
that the melomel was not going to ferment any more. IG was 0.998 and it still
tasted a little sour and it didn't have as much honey aroma and
flavor/sweetness as I wanted. I figured that if I added one more pound of honey
I'd be where I wanted to be. I added 1 pound wildflower honey, the was pH 4.0.
FG was 1.013 and the mead refused to ferment further from this point on.
8/27/96 - The mead is done, but hasn't started to clear. I don't feel like
waiting, but I don't want to use gelatin/bentonite/sparkalloid. Into the
refrigerator at 32 deg F. Three days later it was crystal, read a newspaper
through it, clear. Five gallons racked to corney keg with potassium sorbate.
The balance (1.5 gallons) went into a 3 gallon corney keg to be later frozen to
make cherry jack melomel. I may have missed a few pH readings and CaCO3
additions. I watched it pretty closely. It appeared that when fermentation
slowed down, the pH was about 3.5 - 3.6. I'd add CaCO3 and it would take off
again. I've since done a traditional that had 12 pounds of honey that both
fermented out and cleared in a month and a half.
I bottled this melomel 9/15/96. I've
received enthusiastic comments on it since then, and while it may not be a
contest winner, I certainly do enjoy drinking it! The only flaw that I can
detect is that it's a little hot, but I'm hoping that this will mellow with
age.
Source: Jimi
(darkrose66@aol.com)
Mead Lover's Digest #505 26 October
1996
Dump the honey and water into a large
pot, and stir over a medium heat (DO NOT BOIL THE SOLUTION!!), scraping the
white scum off the top as it appears. This usually takes about 30 mins or so.
Once ready, bring to room temperature
in the Carboy, and pitch the yeast. Let the must sit for 2 weeks, then open it
up and throw a good cupful (I never measured) if the orange peels and the juice
in the must (Note: Do *NOT* use the entire orange peel, or the mead will turn
out bitter. Only use the white part of the peel.). Let the mead ferment in the
Carboy for another 4 weeks or so, until the bubbling slows to 1 bubble every
10-15 seconds.
At this time, you are ready to rack.
Strain the must through a fine sieve into bottles or mason jars (I found a
housewares place in a local mall that sells 4 qt mason jars that are perfect
for this)..
Once the must is in the jars/bottles,
add a small pinch of Champagne yeast and an even smaller pinch of
confectioners' sugar to the mead. (Skip this step if you prefer dead meads.
Rack the bottles for another 3-4 weeks, and enjoy!
(This mead has a mellow orange taste to
it, is a wonderful combination of dry and sweet (not too sweet, though), and
works well as a table mead. )
Source: FGriff6722@aol.com Fred &
Leigh Griffith
Mead Lover's Digest #505 26 October
1996
Final size of batch was about 4
½ gallons
Potential Alcohol Reading at start was
16.2% - Final Potential Alcohol
Reading was 1.5% for a Specific Gravity
of 1.011 - with 14.7% Alcohol
This mead settled quickly leaving a
beautiful, clear dark golden amber color.
We heated the honey with a little
water, and then added the Pomegranate Juice (4 hours work to get!), lemons, tea
bags, beet liquor (for coloring - filter it through a coffee filter!) and the
cardamom. After it was off the burner, we added cold water until we got the
right reading on the hydrometer. When it had cooled to below 90 degrees
Fahrenheit we added the yeast, mixed it and poured it through a funnel into the
carboy.
The batch took less than a month to go
to 14.7% alcohol, at which point the mixture quit working. We find that we like
sweeter meads rather than dry meads because we felt this was so bitter we were
even cooking with it while it was green. About nine months after we made the
mead, however, we submitted a bottle to a wine competition, along with others
we had made more recently which we thought were better. To our surprise, out of
almost 100 wines, this mixture took fourth place in the overall DRY category.
When we tasted a little of it at this point, we found that it really had
mellowed out well and understood why it scored so well. We still prefer sweeter
meads, but now we're sorry we wasted so many green bottles by cooking with
it!
Source: Linda or Darin"
<mtss@ptw.com>
Mead Lover's Digest #570 7 June
1997
After two weeks, rack off fruit and add
one more mango, treated as above.
After another 2-3 weeks, rack off
fruit. Rack 2 or 3 more times over the course of the next year, as needed, then
bottle.
BTW, the must was pasturized and
skimmed, then poured over the fruit in the fermentation vessel.
IMO, it was a bit sour. It went more or
less dry, but due to the fact that I was in my "pinch of this, dash of that"
mead-making mode, I have no hard data on gravity, acidity, etc. As is often the
case with melomels, the final product wasn't easily recognizable as mango,
though it did have a rather pleasant flavor. Linda refered to it as "ale-like."
I will do it again, though I'm sure I'll be using plain old local honey, and
I'll probably boil a couple of orange slices in the must instead of adding acid
blend.
Source: Joyce Miller
(jmiller@genome.wi.mit.edu)
Mead Lover's Digest #343, 28 August
1994
Dissolve the honey in 2-3 gallons of
water, heat to just boiling, skimming the whole time. Remove stems from grapes,
wash (watch for little worm holes!), and crush them with a potato masher. When
the honey-water mixture is hot, add yeast nutrient and grapes, and stir well.
Check to be sure that the temperature is 160+F, and hold to pasteurize for
about 30 minutes. Force cool, put into fermenter, and top up to 5.5 - 6 gallons
with pre-boiled & cooled water. Aerate by shaking vigorously, pitch
yeast.
09-13-93: O.G. = 1.085 @ 82F =
1.087-8.
10-07-93: S.G. = 1.021 @ 74F = 1.023.
Very heady wild grape aroma, high tannin, fairly astringent. Tart. Still
somewhat sweet, but it's not very evident.
11-10-93: Bottled. Added 2/3- cup corn
sugar (for 4.5 gallons). S.G. (w/corn sugar) = 1.018 @ 72F = 1.019. Bottled 3
gallons as pyment, bottled remaining 1.5 gallons as hippocras:
Spices added to 1.5 gallons:
*Note* It is necessary to stir up the
spices frequently while bottling the hippocras.
The Pyment and the Hippocras each one
first place in their categories in the