Mead

Latest Articles

Mead
Page Previous 1, 2

Downsizer Forum Index -> Recipes, Preserving, Homebrewing

Author

Message

Dabinett

Joined: 23 Dec 2010
Posts: 90
Location: Hampshire

Posted: Mon Jan 31, 11 6:53 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

Blue Peter wrote:

cab wrote:

Mead is a doddle.

Start out with mead and water .

Throw away the water, and you're done, eh?

Peter.

Edited

I knew what you meant

Dabinett

Joined: 23 Dec 2010
Posts: 90
Location: Hampshire

Posted: Mon Jan 31, 11 6:55 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

If you've made wine before, and you're familiar with how to keep everything clean, it'll be a cake walk. Have fun

Yeah I've made various wines and several batches of beer so I'm aware of the need for cleanliness. I think it should all be fairly straightforward.

Just a shame I have to wait so long. Could really do with a bottle now....

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42207
Location: North Devon

Posted: Mon Jan 31, 11 10:53 pm Post subject:

Blue Peter wrote:

Do you need to boil, actually? Honey is pretty sterile, antiseptic even. I'm fairly certain that (a long, long time ago) I've just dissolved in water and gone straight ahead,

Peter.

It's more about getting rid of protein so that it doesn't take four billion years (approximately) to clear than it is about sterility.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Feb 01, 11 8:06 am Post subject:

Blue Peter wrote:

Do you need to boil, actually? Honey is pretty sterile, antiseptic even. I'm fairly certain that (a long, long time ago) I've just dissolved in water and gone straight ahead,

Peter.

It'll ferment out fine, but as Sean says, it'll take ages to clear if you don't heat it and get the scum off.

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Tue Feb 01, 11 2:04 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

Blue Peter wrote:

Do you need to boil, actually? Honey is pretty sterile, antiseptic even. I'm fairly certain that (a long, long time ago) I've just dissolved in water and gone straight ahead,

Peter.

It'll ferment out fine, but as Sean says, it'll take ages to clear if you don't heat it and get the scum off.

Fair enough. Does it change the flavour at all?

Peter.

James

Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 2866
Location: York

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 11 4:30 pm Post subject:

Marts wrote:

A famous (or maybe infamous) recipe is Joe Mattolli´s ancient orange mead.

I make a batch every year and it never fails to be great. I´ve encouraged friends who never thought of brewing before to give it a go and they all loved it.

I once managed to keep a bottle for two years and it was like liquid gold

Hereś a link.

I have a gallon of Ancient Orange Mead at the momment that 18 months old. I tasted a little just before christmas and it was trully delectible. It's as easy to make as falling off a log, and as Marts says, its like liquid gold.

This is supposed to be faster than most meads as well. However, my mead took longer than others I have read about to finish fermenting, and took longer to mature. But with every mead, time is the most important ingredient, and there's no way around that.

You've really got to try it to believe it!

fatbloke

Joined: 22 Mar 2009
Posts: 121
Location: Sussex Coast!

Posted: Sun Feb 13, 11 1:32 am Post subject:

Ok, my tuppence worth.......

I make mostly mead. "just" mead is relatively straight forward, but a good mead needs some practice.

If you want an easy to follow recipe, then just go for the Joe's Ancient Orange recipe - if you follow his instructions, it's pretty fool proof and yes, while I think about it, Allinsons bread yeast is fine as Fleischmanns isn't available here.....

Don't worry about the panic a lot of people get in about the orange pith, I suspect that the original idea was that a little bitterness helps to counteract the sweetness - yes it will finish sweet.

Do let the fruit drop, because at that point it's drinkable (despite the yeast being a bugger, as it doesn't flocculate very well). Age will improve it. If you can rack the main part of the mead off the fruit clear, then carefully drain off the last bit of liquid and run it through a coffee filter. It usually works fine like that (and a decent filter pump is over a wunner).

If you want to try a good mead, then you're gonna need the usual kit i.e. DJ's, hydrometer, test jar, etc etc. The quality of the honey is important, as is the yeast. Your greatest selection of yeasts is at Morewine in the US (so yes that means mail order but they stock just about the largest range available - some are repackaged commercial strains not normally available to the home brewer). Though for ease of obtaining, Lalvins K1V-1116 is available from a lot of the UK based online HBS, I use either that, or D21 (both of those strains were used by the late Brother Adam at Buckfast Abbey).

The honey ? A good start is to locate some strong tasting, dark coloured honey, that's not been processed to hell and back (avoid Aussie eucalyptus as you can get some of the flavour through into the mead). You quote your location as "Hampshire", well if you can get over into Sussex, just a little north of Brighton (actually the place is in Hurstpierpoint) then Paynes stock a few likely candidates (the RewaRewa honey from NZ is pretty good).

You will need nutrient, and as GoFerm and Fermaid-K mean mail order from the US, something like Tronozymol will do the job, but it might be worth the effort of understanding the principle of "staggered nutrient addition", work out the dosage from the box, add 50% more and then halve it and add it in 2 batches.

Don't bother about acid additions into the ferment, like the sweetness, it's best adjusted to taste afterwards.

I use about 3 and 1/2 lb of honey in the gallon, though I make sure to mix it to about 1.100 starting gravity, which will give you about 13.5% ABV if you take finished as 1.000 (K1V-1116 has a tolerance of between 16 and 18% depending on who's info you read).

Can't think of anything else at the moment (it's late and I'm knackered). Oh and before I forget, if you have the fermenters for it, a 5 gallon batch is the best bet, especially if you get the honey in bulk, not those despicably over priced 1lb jars in a supermarket. It can be quite a lot of hassle just for a gallon........

Hopefully some of that will help...

regards

fatbloke

Dabinett

Joined: 23 Dec 2010
Posts: 90
Location: Hampshire

Posted: Sun Feb 13, 11 6:43 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the detailed reply Fatbloke. Unfortunately I read it after starting off my mead.

I ended up going for a straight honey one without any fruit etc. I used about 3.5 lb of honey, half of which was from a beekeeper in dorset, the rest (to make up the weight) was shop bought, fairly dark british honey.

I simmered it gently as was recommended by others, and removed any scum that developed on the surface, then added 1 tsp of nutrient (diammonium phosphate/ammonium sulphate) and acid blend.

I then waited until it was about 37 degrees, transferred to demijohn, gave it a good shake to aerate then added champagne yeast (not sure what yeast strain it is).

It has started bubbling away very quickly, probably within half an hour of adding yeast there was a bubble through the airlock every 10 seconds or so. I've never brewed anything that has got underway so quickly. I assume that's a good thing.

Midland Spinner

Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 2931
Location: Under a green roof

Posted: Thu Aug 22, 13 4:14 pm Post subject:
I've just started off some mead - I had enough honey & cappings for 3 demijohns of mead so two have Champagne yeast & 1 has High Alcohol yeast. One of the Champagne type yeast jars also has the additions suggested in the Joe Mattioli Ancient Orange recipe. We shall see what we shall see. I'm off now to clean up the very sticky kitchen - 3 days of honey processing leave their mark!

Midland Spinner

Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 2931
Location: Under a green roof

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 13 3:01 pm Post subject:

Another two gallons started, one is the Ancient Orange Mead, the other is ginger (approx 1" of fresh root ginger into the demijohn) *

For this batch I simmered the honey & water and skimmed the scum off. It's a lot clearer and a bit darker than the previous batch.

I've used Champagne yeast for these - for the others I had 2 x champagne yeast and one high alcohol (on the advice of the brewing shop man - this time he had none in stock)

All blooping away happily. We shall see what we shall see.

*I know, technically one is a metheglin and the other a melomel, but I'm sticking with mead as a generic term.

Midland Spinner

Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 2931
Location: Under a green roof

Posted: Fri Sep 20, 13 1:47 pm Post subject:
Another gallon yesterday, this one with plenty of root ginger and some ordinary bread yeast (the Allinson's dried in a yellow tin, not the fast acting.) There were a lot of Rape fields around here this year, so a lot of my honey was crystallised in the comb and mead seemed the easiest solution. This batch wasn't simmered, we shall see. It will be interesting to see what the differences are.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45504
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Sep 20, 13 2:03 pm Post subject:
blackberry juice fermented on the pulp and fortified with a quarter of it's weight of huney is a rather nice brew i call it wine but ....

Midland Spinner

Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 2931
Location: Under a green roof

Posted: Tue Nov 12, 13 5:49 pm Post subject:
OK one DJ appears to have stopped bubbling. But the bits of ginger are still floating & it's not completely clear. Do I leave it to clear on the lees, or should I rack it off (and if so, into what?) and do I wait until the bits of ginger drop, or will they always float? Any advice gratefully received.

	Downsizer Forum Index -> Recipes, Preserving, Homebrewing	All times are GMT Page Previous 1, 2
Page 2 of 2

View Latest Posts