Basic Mead recipe | Epicurious.com Makes about five gallons, which should fill 53 twelve-ounce bottles. Ingredients 12 to 18 pounds of grade-A honey 4 1/2 gallons of tap or bottled water 8 grams (1/4 ounce) of freeze-dried wine, champagne, or dedicated mead yeast Advertisements Preparation Note on equipment: Making mead requires essentially the same basic kit necessary to brew beer at home: primary and secondary plastic-bucket fermenters with air locks and spigots, transfer hosing, a bottle-filler tube, heavy bottles, bottle caps, bottle capper, and a bottle brush and washer. You should be able to find these items for approximately $70 total (excluding the bottles) through a home-brewing supplier, such as The Home Brewery. Bottles cost from $6 to $20 per dozen, depending on style. You might instead buy a couple of cases of beer in returnable bottles, drink the beer, and — after sanitizing them! — reuse those bottles, for the cost of the deposit. All your equipment must be sanitized or sterilized before use. Ordinary unscented household bleach does the job fine.

Put all the equipment (including the lid and stirring spoons) into the fermentation bucket, fill with water, and add 2 teaspoons of unscented bleach. Let it sit for 30 minutes. Drain the water through the spigot, rinse everything in hot water, and allow to air-dry. Bring the 4 1/2 gallons of water to a boil. Well water, by the way, should be avoided because of potentially high levels of strong tasting minerals like iron. Boiling should remove harsh chlorine from municipal tap water. If you don't own a pot large enough to hold five gallons of water, boil as much as possible. You will add the remaining water to the fermenter later. Once the water reaches a boil, remove it from the heat and stir in all of the honey. Do not boil the honey, as it reduces the aromatic quality of the finished mead. While the honey dissolves in the water, put a cup of lukewarm (90 to 100°F) water into a clean bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and cover the bowl with plastic wrap.

When the honey has been fully dissolved in the water and the pot is cool to the touch (not over 80°F), pour the honey-water into the fermentation bucket and stir in the yeast mixture. Note: Cooling the honey-water should take about half an hour. This process can be accelerated with a so-called sink bath, that is, repeatedly immersing the pot in cold water in a sink or basin. If you have not already added the full 4 1/2 gallons of water, top it off with the balance in bottled water (or tap water if you're confident of its quality). Seal the bucket and allow the mixture to ferment for two weeks to one month. The progress of fermentation can judged by monitoring the carbon-dioxide bubbles escaping from the air lock: When they drop to one bubble every sixty seconds, fermentation has nearly concluded. Note that is only an issue during this primary fermentation; secondary fermentation has more to do with aging and mellowing and hence is more flexible. When primary fermentation has subsided, siphon the mead over to your secondary fermentation bucket and seal it. Allow one to four months aging time. Do not open the fermenter, as this risks contaminating the mead.

When you decide it has matured enough (and the mead has cleared), you will want to siphon it into sterilized bottles and cap them. Follow the same procedure as you would for home-brewed beer. My book Beer for Dummies has a detailed guide in its Chapter Ten, or consult the web site of the American Homebrewers Association. Keep in mind that this is a recipe for still (i.e., non-carbonated) mead. Mead typically improves with age, so the longer you can wait to open the bottles, the better. Nutritional Info View All I normally make homemade wine in 5 gallon batches, and make small batches of mead. I've always done fizzy mead and I infuse ginger while boiling the water, I also let the honey boil a bit in the water so that i can skim off the "sludge." Anyway, last time I made mine it exploded (glass shards embedded in walls and ceiling), so I'm looking forward to trying this recipe for a large batch of still mead, it's looks very much the same as my regular recipe, so I'm wondering how it will come out still? Do i stir the carbon dioxide out of it like when making wine?

veronica_cantin / Flag if Inappropriate One thing is wrong: Hypochlorite bleach is a horrible idea. It leaves a residue and smell that takes hours to disappear and can cause off-flavors and stuck fermentations. Instead use something like potassium metabisulfite (campden tablets), or some other non-toxic, usually sulfite-based, sanitizer. sayeh / Flag if Inappropriate As a mazer (someone who makes mead) of some experience, I run the online mead community "The Mead Hall", I heartily endorse this recipe. It is a nice simple starter recipe to get you on the road to making more meads. CuAllaidh from London, ON / Flag if Inappropriate As a homebrewer with over a decade of experience, I would endorse this recipe as written. If a person is interested in the beverage I would suggest studying the many resourses available on the internet. With the addition of yeast nutrients, liquid yeast, spices and apple juice you can make a "cyser" (apple mead) that many people find to be the ultimate hard cider. great recipe!!! make mead! save history!

Rathpig / How to Make Mead: 8 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow How to Make Mead Community Q&A When you mix water and honey and ferment it with yeast, you get mead, an alcoholic drink often referred to as "honey wine". There are over 30 different kinds of mead. [1] This article will give you a simple recipe to use. Ingredients (Amounts vary depending on how much mead you want to make) Honey Steps 1 Gather and sanitize all the items listed in the "Things You'll Need" below. Anything that will touch the mead-in-the-making should be sanitized first. The environment you are creating to encourage fermentation can also encourage the growth of any microorganisms left behind from inadequate sanitation. You can use a weak bleach solution (remember to rinse well) but it is better to use a sanitizing solution that can be found at any beer or wine-making store (and online). 2 Mix approximately 3.5 pounds honey with 1 gallon (3.8 L) distilled water. DO NOT HEAT OR BOIL. There is no need to do this with an FDA regulated honey and clean drinking water.

Boiling used to be done to drive off germs and bacteria in the water, honey is naturally anti-bacterial. This mixture, by the way, is called "must". Adding fruits or spices to the must will drastically change the flavour, and just about anything can go with a mead. It's really fun to experiment with flavours as a home-brewer! Rehydrate your chosen yeast per the manufacturer's directions then add it to your must. 4 Put in a large container with plenty of room for fermentation to occur. If there isn't enough space, a vigorous ferment can escape and cause a mess. You'll want to prevent air from getting into the container, but carbon dioxide needs to be able to escape. One way to do this is to poke a few holes in a balloon and then stretch it over the mouth of the bottle. Secure it by putting a rubber band or tape around it. This, however, is not a very good way to seal your mead as you can not add nutrients or aerate very well with the balloon in place, requiring the balloon to be replaced several times.

The best method is to purchase an airlock from a local brew store or online as they are reusable, sanitizable, and won't disintegrate over time. 5 Put in a quiet place at an optimal temperature range for your chosen yeast. This information should be published by the manufacturer. If you have a hydrometer and know the starting gravity of your must, you can determine the sugar breaks of your fermentation. To determine your three sugar breaks, take your original gravity, determine what your final gravity should be based on the ABV tolerance of your yeast, then break that total number into thirds. Aerate (introduce oxygen) at least once daily during the first sugar break, the more times a the better. 6 There are a few different ways to know when the mead is done fermenting: [2] The most accurate way to know is to measure the specific gravity with a hydrometer when you first mix it, then measure it every two weeks. The chosen yeast has a published ABV tolerance, and the hydrometer reading can be used to determine what the final gravity of the mead should be.

When the mead reaches this gravity, wait a minimum of 4-6 months before bottling to ensure all CO2 that was in suspension in the mead has degassed. If the mead has not properly degassed and too much CO2 for the rating of the type of bottle the mead is bottled in is transferred, there is a risk of bottle explosion with temperature swings. Wait at least 8 weeks. The amount of time it takes for the mead to ferment will depend on a variety of factors, but 8 weeks should be enough time for most scenarios. If you're using an airlock, wait until 3 weeks after it stops bubbling. 7 Once the fermentation has completed, transfer your mead to a container with little to no headspace for aging. The less surface area that oxygen can get to, the better. Siphoning is the best way to go so that you leave as much sediment behind as possible. The longer you wait, the better your mead will be, an average wait time is 8 months to a year for a home brewer. 8 Transfer the mead into bottles, seal, and store in a cool dark place.

Your mead is now drinkable, but it is even better when aged even longer. Community Q&A Should I be concerned if there is no bubbling in the airlock after four days after I have started the fermenting process? wikiHow Contributor You may have a stuck fermentation. Adding Lalvin EC-1118 or Wyeast 4632 will restart your batch. Normally it should only take 24 to 48 hours to see notable signs of active fermentation. What is champagne yeast? Is it okay to use it? wikiHow Contributor There are a few strains of yeast used to make champagne, sparkling wine and cider. A highly common strain would be Lalvin EC-1118. EC-1118 would be a good choice for mead due to its high alcohol tolerance and acceptable temperature range. Addition of a yeast nutrient and energizer will help this strain to thrive. How much alcohol does the final product have? How much yeast do we need? Does it cause problems if we use usual water? wikiHow Contributor Alcohol content varies based on the type of yeast you use, how much honey or other sweetener you use and how long you allow your mead to ferment. Tap water is fine.

How can I tell what proof my alcohol is? wikiHow Contributor You would use a gauge to tell the specific gravity of the solution before fermentation, which shows the maximum potential alcohol level. Bottles Tips If there's a wine-making shop near you, white wine yeasts are also good. Beer yeast has trouble digesting the sugars in honey, being bred to digest maltose. The sweetness of your mead has more to do with how much honey you put in the must per gallon vs the ABV tolerance of your yeast than the specific type of yeast. Once you learn more about the tolerances of the yeasts available in your area, you can make your mead dry or sweet depending on the recipe you create. There is actually a time you can heat your honey: it's when making a specific type of mead called a bochet. A bochet is a mead made with caramelized or burnt honey. Any neutral fruit juice (apple, white grape) will make a good yeast nutrient, which is generally needed in honey - which, unto itself, has no additional nutrients for the yeast to feed off of and is actually very acidic. Just add a small amount to get things going, unless you want your mead to taste like those juices.

Alternatively, a commercial yeast nutrient can be picked up at your local home brew or home wine shop. Letting your mead get too hot or cold during the fermentation process can stop the fermenting or spoil your mead. A quiet place is best, without a lot of traffic. Dark isn't necessary. A wine-making shop will also have finings, sparkolloid and bentonite, which will attract the particulate matter that makes mead cloudy. This really speeds up the clearing process which can take months on its own. Adding potassium sorbate to the mead when you are bottling will help preserve the color and flavor for a long period of time. Sorbate is mostly used as a yeast inhibitor to help stabilize the mead before bottling. However, you should never used sorbate without also adding sulphite or microorganisms will eat the sorbate and turn it into geraniols. [2] Warnings Avoid the temptation to add more sugar or honey to the mead when bottling. If the fermentation has not completely finished, it can get rejuvenated by the new food source and turn the mead into a glass grenade. Make sure you get yeast from a wine-making supply store.

Do not use "brewer's yeast" from a health-food store. Baker's yeast is an alternative for anyone interested in trying this out for the first time. It gives you a feel for brewing while keeping your cash from going into failed batches. However, baker's yeast is also bred to ferment VERY rapidly, and produces a lot of off-flavors. Some beer yeasts may also produce some off flavors, but to a lesser extent (honey water is a harsh environment for a yeast cell, and is missing a lot of nutrients found in beer). Wine yeast is generally the best for mead, and some homebrew supply shops will carry yeasts developed especially for mead. As with all alcoholic products, please enjoy your homemade mead responsibly. This is an alcoholic beverage, so all consumers must be of legal drinking age. Updated: Views: 847,946 "This article was helpful because I am interested in mead. I am trying to make wine from different wild fruits and plants, and trying to understand different terms. I am finding when the term mead is used there is usually honey, not always but a lot.

I am trying to make wine like my grandfather did 70 years ago without the nutrients, etc."..." more - Kay "I've been looking online to see how easy this would be to try, considering I've never made alcohol before. I found this article contained enough detail to be a good starting point whilst not being overly complicated or scary."..." more - Hannah Pettifor "I make wine, and was just wondering what the process was to make mead compared to making wine. My question was answered."..." more - Roxanne Burnette Step by step in a conversational mode was very helpful. - Tom Reidy Just about all I needed to know, thanks! - Pedro Santos Quite informative. Thank you. - Sue Anderson Mead made complicated: mead making.

Includes ingredients, equipment, recipe and troubleshooting The main ingredients for making mead: honey, yeast, water The equipment you need for making mead Chemicals which can be used in mead making: acids, sulfite, fining agents, yeast nutrients Procedure (recipe) to make mead Recipes using fruits, making sparkling mead Troubleshooting problems that can arise when one makes mead: stuck fermentation, funny aspect or smell June 9 How to Make Mead and Drink Like a Viking The World's Largest Carbon Capture Tech Is Online How to Make Mead and Drink Like a Viking Home-brewers have embraced mead, or honey wine, the drink of choice for many ancient cultures. If you want to whip up a batch of your own, follow these steps. Most Popular flickr / DanGrebb Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Mead may be the ancestor of all today's booze. People gathered, ate, and probably fermented honey long before the agricultural developments that led to beer and wine. After all, honey fermentation is an amazingly simple process. In its simplest form, mead requires only honey, water, and yeast.

"If you take the honey out of the hive before the bees finish drying it, it has enough moisture content to ferment on its own due to wild yeast," says Houston meadmaker (or "mazer") Josh McGregor. Most Popular People drank mead in Viking longhouses, in ancient China, and nearly everywhere in between. Today, home-brewers who want to resurrect the spirits of the ancients are bringing on a mead renaissance. Picking the Right Honey Honey comes in many flavors, which are usually named for the most common flower around the hive that produced it. Experienced mazers advise against using the processed honey sold at most supermarkets. "Every time it's heated and pasteurized, it breaks down some of the flavor and some of the nutrients," McGregor warns. That can cause honey to ferment badly or produce a poor-tasting batch of brew. Some beginners' guides recommend starting with the basic grocery store honey just as a cheap starter option while you learn the basics. Just look for the least-processed honey available. While you're learning to make mead, visit your local farmers' market or organic grocery store to try out other kinds of honey. Other ingredients can be added to give the drink a unique flavor.

Mazers have tried fruit, spices, chocolate, rose petals, or even maple syrup. Much like cooking, developing mead recipes requires learning what flavor combinations work well, then experimenting with the ingredients you like. Getting Started The process is simple, although perfecting the finer points will take time and experience. If you already home-brew beer , you'll have many of the tools and skills necessary to make mead. You will need: • Primary fermenter: any sealable container large enough for the purpose, made of food-grade material that can be sanitized. Glass carboys work well, and 5-gallon buckets designed specifically for home-brewing are also available. • Hydrometer: an instrument used to check the specific gravity of the mead (that is, how dense it is compared to the normal density of water). • Secondary fermenter: another container that meets the same requirements as your primary fermenter. • Siphon hose: a 5/16-inch tube of food-grade vinyl used to transfer mead between containers. • Bottles. This equipment is available at any local store that sells home-brewing equipment, or you can order it online. Mead starts with honey dissolved in water.

Although most recipes will probably be more specific, a good general guideline will call for one part honey to four parts water. Be wary of heating the mix. Heating can help kill microorganisms and make the honey easier to stir in, but it can also alter its flavor and nutrient content. The honey and water go into the primary fermentor. Then add yeast. The yeast you choose will impact the fermentation process and the taste of the mead. Bread yeast works, as does white wine yeast. Time to Ferment Fermentation takes about two weeks, depending on the honey, yeast, and other ingredients, as well as how sweet and how alcoholic you want the finished product to be. As the yeast consumes the sugar in the honey, it becomes less sweet and more alcoholic. To get an idea of how much sugar is left, check its specific gravity (SG). SG below 1.006 is considered dry, while 1.012 or higher is considered sweet. If your mead reaches the specific gravity you want before the yeast stops working, you can stop fermentation by adding potassium sorbate—a preservative often used in fruit juices—which will inhibit the yeast's reproduction.

Fermentation is over when the mead is mostly clear and no longer produces gas bubbles. You can move the mead to a secondary fermenter to separate it from the yeast, which helps you avoid accidentally transferring yeast to the bottles later. Throw in the additional ingredients at this point, but leave the mead alone long enough to absorb those flavors. Otherwise, it can be bottled anytime. Some mazers recommend aging the drink after bottling, but opinions vary. "As soon as it's ready for the bottle, it's ready to drink," McGregor told PM, "but some people will tell you it needs to sit around for a while." For more detailed instructions and good basic recipes, try the website Got Mead or books like Ken Schramm's The Compleat Meadmaker . More from Popular Mechanics: Mead Recipe (a fermented drink made from honey) Generic Recipe Kevin Karplus (written around 1982) The basic ingredients of mead are honey, water, and yeast. The proportions of the honey and water determine the final strength and sweetness of the drink, also how long it takes to make. The ratio ranges from 1 lb.

honey per gallon of water for a very light "soft-drink" to 5 lbs. per gallon for a sweet dessert wine. The less honey, the lighter the mead, and the quicker it can be made. I've successfully made a 1 lb/gallon mead in as little as three weeks, while my strongest mead (5 lb/gallon) was not bottled for six months, and could have stood another few months before bottling. Elizabethan recipes varied considerably in strength, but 3 or 4 pounds of honey per gallon was common. The mead I make is spiced, so is sometimes referred to as "metheglin." Elizabethan meads used large numbers of different spices and herbs, but not always in large quantities. Kenelm Digby, after giving the recipe obtained from "Master Webbe, who maketh the Kings Meathe," has this to say: The Proportion of Herbs and Spices is this; That there be so much as to drown the luscious sweetness of the Honey; but not so much as to taste of herbs or spice, when you drink the Meathe.

But that the sweetness of the honey may kill their taste: And so the Meathe have a pleasant taste, but not of herbs, nor spice, nor honey. And therefore you put more or less according to the time you will drink it in. For a great deal will be mellowed away in a year, that would be ungratefully strong in three months. And the honey that will make it keep a year or two, will require a triple proportion of spice and herbs.

[The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened, 1669] Here is a partial list of flavoring agents (mainly herbs and spices) mentioned for meads by Digby: agrimony, angelica root, avens, baulme leaves, bay leaves, bettony, blew-button, borrage, cinnamon, clove-gilly flowers, cloves, dock, eglantine, elecampane, eringo roots, fennel, fruit juice (cherries, raspes, Morrello cherries), ginger, harts-tongue, hopps, juniper berries, limon-pill, liver-worth, mace, minth, nutmeg, orris root, parsley roots, raisins, red sage, rosemary, saxifrage, scabious, sorrel, strawberry leaves, sweet marjoram, sweet-briar leaves, thyme, violet leaves, wild marjoram, wild sage, wild thyme, and winter savory. In my own brewing, I use mainly "sweet" spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg). The main herb I use is tea. Tea is an important addition to the mead.

It provides tannic acid, to give the drink a bit of bite. It is particularly important for sweet meads, which can otherwise have a rather syrupy taste (like Mogen David wines). Any sort of tea will do--I've used genmai cha (a very light Japanese green tea), lapsang souchong (a smokey Chinese tea), China Rose (a black tea with rose petals), jasmine, oolong, and others. If you want to use Lipton's, that should work as well. I have not seen any period recipes that use tea in mead, but all my batches that omitted tea were not as good. I am more interested in producing good flavor that in strict authenticity, so continue to use tea. Other ingredients I use include small amounts of orange or lemon juice, fruit, cloves, and other spices. I've used bay leaves, cloves, rosemary, anise, and galingale, in addition to the spices listed above. Be careful not to over-spice the mead! It is probably safer to use less of fewer spices, until you've had some experience.

As examples, here are the quantities for two of my mead batches: Batch: M4 Type: Quick Mead 3 gallons water 5 lbs honey (Wild Mountain) 1/3 cup jasmine tea 1/2 tsp ground ginger 2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp ground allspice 1/2 tsp ground cloves 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg ale yeast Started: 1 July 1979 Yeast added: 2 July 1979 skimmed: 12 July 1979 racked: 15 July 1979 bottled: 28 July 1979 yield: 3.1 gallons clarity: excellent sweetness: fairly sweet sediment: slight carbonation: variable (some popped corks) color: light gold An excellent batch ------------------------------------------------------------ Batch: M7 Type: Sack Mead 3 gallons Water 16 lbs honey 1/4 cup keemun tea 1/4 cup oolong tea 2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp whole aniseseed 18 cardamum seed clusters crushed (about 1 tsp) 20 whole allspice slightly crushed (about 3/4 tsp) about 

1 inch galingale root crushed (about 2 1/4 tsp) (Fining agent: 1 pkg unflavored gelatin in 1 cup of water) Started: 26 Dec 1981 Wine Yeast added: 27 Dec 1981 1 rack: 10 Jan 1982 (vat -> carboy) 2 rack: 31 Jan 1982 (carboy -> carboy) 3 rack: 30 April 1982 (carboy->carboy) gelatin added: 23 May 1982 bottled: 3 July 1982 Yield: 3.7 gallons Comments: sweet, smooth, potent.

A dessert wine. This is perhaps the best of my 20 or more batches of mead. ------------------------------------------------------------ I use tap water for brewing, but if your tap water has off-flavors, then you might want to get a bottle of clear spring water. Recently I've switched to filtered tap water, to remove some of the rather grassy flavor that our water gets in summer. The honey may be almost any cheap honey. Strongly flavored honeys (orange blossom, buckwheat, wild flower (in some areas)) generally work best. Clover honey works well, but very light honeys (like alfalfa) generally lack flavor. If making a true mead (without spices), the flavor of the honey is more important, and only strongly flavored honeys should be used. The yeast is important. Baking yeast is bred for fast carbon dioxide production, and is not at all suitable for brewing. Some home cider makers may be used to just letting the sweet cider stand a few days to ferment on its own. This technique relies on the wild yeasts present in the air, on the cider press, and on the skins of the apples. It doesn't work for mead.

The wild yeasts result in off-flavors, which the honey is not strong enough to mask. For strong, still meads (3 lbs honey/gallon or more) I use a white wine yeast, while for a lighter beverage I use ale yeast. A beer yeast should work as well as an ale yeast, but I find top-fermenting ale yeasts more fun to work with. WARNING: the "brewer's yeast" sold in health-food stores is dead yeast, it will not be usable for brewing. The equipment you need is a large pot (I use a 20 quart canning pot), a 5 foot plastic tube to use as a siphon, and strong bottles. In addition, a 5 gallon water bottle with a stopper and fermentation lock is a very useful piece of equipment. Everything you use should be sterilized to prevent the growth of vinegar-forming bacteria. There are chemical sterilizing agents available from wine-making supply stores, but I prefer to sterilize everything in boling water. I'll mention sterilizing over and over. It is the single most important part of brewing mead rather than vinegar.

If making a still, wine-type mead, any sort of bottle will do for the final bottling. However, this recipe is for a fizzy "ale-type" mead, so strong bottles are essential. Champagne bottles and returnable pop bottles are usable, disposable bottles of any sort are not. I once had an apple juice bottle explode in my room, embedding shrapnel in my pillow from 9 feet away. Don't make the same mistake--use strong bottles!! Steps to making the mead: Boil the water, adding the tea and spices. Remove water from heat and stir in honey. (Note, stirring implement should be sterilized!) Some mead brewers boil the honey in the water, skimming the scum as it forms. This removes some of the proteins from the honey, making it easier for the mead to clarify. However, I don't mind a bit of cloudiness, and prefer the taste of unboiled honey. If you are making a wine mead, you can avoid the cloudiness simply by waiting an extra month or two for the mead to clarify.

If you're buying a clear honey from a supermarket, it may already have been cooked a bit to remove pollen and sugar crystals, in which case, a bit more cooking probably won't change the flavor much. Digby's recipes do call for boiling the honey. Cover the boiled water, and set it aside to cool (to blood temperature or cooler). This usually takes a long time, so I overlap it with the next step. Make a yeast starter solution by boiling a cup of water and a tablespoon of honey (or sugar). Let it cool to blood heat (or all the way to room temperature) and add the yeast. Cover it and let it ferment overnight. The yeast should form a "bloom" on the surface of the liquid. (Of course, the cooling and fermenting should be done in the pan or other sterilized vessel.) Add the yeast starter to the cooled liquid. Cover and let ferment. After a few days, it is useful to siphon the mead into another container, leaving the sediment behind. Here's where the 5 gallon bottle comes in handy. A fermentation lock provides a way to close the bottle so carbon dioxide can get out, but vinegar-forming bacteria and oxygen cannot get in.

Remember to sterilize the bottle and the siphon first! Ferment for a few weeks in a warm, dry place. When a lot of sediment has collected on the bottom of the bottle, siphon off the liquid (without disturbing the sediment). This process is known as "racking," and helps produce a clear, sediment-free mead. Again, make sure all your equipment is sterilized. A wine mead may need to be racked three or four times before the final bottling. For a fizzy mead, siphon into strong (sterilized) bottles a bit before fermentation stops. With the strength given here 4 weeks is about right. The exact time depends a lot on the temperature, the yeast, the honey, ... . I use plastic champagne corks to seal the bottles (sterilized, of course!). Crown caps are also good. Real corks should only be used for still beverages, since the amount of carbonation is unpredictable. Too much carbonation and you'll pop the corks, too little, and corks are hard to remove from champagne bottles. Don't wire on the corks, unless you're willing to risk an occasional broken champagne bottle.

Still meads should not be bottled until fermentation has completely stopped. I generally wait until the fermentation has stopped, and the mead has cleared. This can take more than six months for a strong wine mead. Age the mead in a cool place. Note: ferment warm, and age cool. I sometimes keep the champagne bottles upright in the cardboard box they came in. That way, if a cork pops, there is something to absorb the overflow, and if, despite my care, a bottle breaks, it won't set off a chain reaction. Drink and Enjoy! The light quick meads should be served chilled (like beer), while the wine types are better at room temperature or only slightly chilled. Traditional Mead recipe | Epicurious.com 1 packet all-purpose wine or champagne yeast Advertisements Preparation 1. In a large stainless-steel pan, bring the water to the boil, then allow it to simmer. Add the honey, stir and simmer, skimming off the scum when it appears. When no more scum forms (this can take up to 45 minutes), turn down the heat and add the lemon juice and peel to the mixture, along with the cloves and cinnamon stick.

Simmer for 5 minutes and then cover and set aside to cool to room temperature. 2. When cool, remove the cloves, lemon peel and cinnamon stick and skim off any more scum completely. 3. Add the yeast and stir, then transfer into a sterilized 1-gallon fermentation jug with a fermentation lock. 4. Allow to ferment for 48 to 60 hours until bubbling ceases, and then siphon into sterilized bottles, carefully avoiding the layer of yeast at the bottom of the jug. 5. Seal tightly and store upright in the fridge for 5 to 7 days before opening. Drink within 2 weeks. Note: Only use wine (or champagne) yeast—available from health-food suppliers—not brewer's or baking yeast. From The Beekeeper's Bible: Bees, Honey, Recipes & Other Home Uses by Richard A. Jones and Sharon Sweeney-Lynch. Text copyright © HarperCollins Publishers, 2010. Published in 2011 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, an imprint of ABRAMS. Related Video Write Review I make mead as well and this recipe is more of a traditional "hooch".

If you're looking to make alcohol and put it in your body, this'll work. If you want something enjoyable... steer clear and learn to make it properly. ChshreCat from Washington State / Flag if Inappropriate Wow. They really expect it to be done fermenting in two days? And to be drinkable in about a week? What planet are they living on? I've made mead a number of times, and the timeline is much longer than this! Most meads aren't ready to drink for a matter of at least a couple months! Also, if you only let it ferment as long as they say, you're going to get exploding bottles because it won't be done fermenting when you bottle it, thereby putting it under pressure. Sheesh. What a mess that will be. badseed1980 / Mead made complicated: Ingredients for making mead Honey All authors dealing with wines agree about it: grape is the single most important thing in wine making. Trying to imitate a great wine with poor grapes will result in a poor wine. So attention should be paid to the honey you use.

Medieval mead is now trendy thanks to hipsters and top chefs | Daily Mail Online Mead is making an unlikely comeback thanks to a surge of interest among trendy youngsters in the medieval brew It was a favoured tipple for characters in Beowulf and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. And now mead is making an unlikely comeback thanks to a surge of interest among trendy youngsters in the medieval brew. The honey-based drink romanticised in Norse legend and medieval tales is being sold increasingly to supermarkets and restaurants, brewers have said. There has been a huge spike in demand in the past six months, after the drink became fashionable in America, where there are now almost 250 meaderies. In the UK, mead brewers in Cornwall are now selling about 50,000 litres of mead a year and a new London-based producer makes 2,500 bottles a month, with capacity for double that amount. It is thought young drinkers have led the trend, with the drink being used in cocktails and sauces at top restaurants. It follows the rise of craft beer, now a common sight in pubs across the country.

Sarah Thompson, the director of Lurgashall Winery in West Sussex, said that mead was previously an ‘underground drink, popular with medieval re-enactment groups, pagans, and students’. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share ‘But we’ve seen a big difference in attitude in the past six months. It’s one of the last drinks to have its comeback, after cider and gin. But it’s coming,’ she added. Sophie Fenton runs Cornish Mead with her brother, Matthew Leiworthy. ‘We’re trying to start a new trend for using mead to make cocktails. It’s finding a new, younger market,’ she said. It is thought young drinkers have led the trend, with the drink being used in cocktails and sauces at top restaurants Mead is referenced frequently in medieval literature, having been a popular drink at the time at weddings and special occasions. It dates back to pagan times, when the bride and groom would drink mead for a month after their wedding. The tradition was the origin for the term ‘honeymoon’.

The drink was available in Tudor times, with monasteries creating it as a by-product of beekeeping, but when the monasteries were dissolved by King Henry VIII in the 16th century, mead largely disappeared. In recent years, however, the brew has been reintroduced by top chefs including Britain's Simon Rogan at the L’Enclume restaurant in Cartmel, Cumbria, and Fera at Claridge’s in Mayfair – and René Redzepi, the chef at Noma restaurant in Denmark, rated as the best in the world. Tom Gosnell started brewing Gosnells London Mead in Peckham, south London, at the end of last year. He now produces the drink for restaurants in London and as far as Edinburgh. While mead was traditionally very alcoholic, with a content of about 16 or 17 per cent, Mr Gosnell’s is 5.8 per cent and made using Spanish blossom honey. ‘I wanted a modern twist; something that was easier to drink and more accessible,’ he told The Independent on Sunday.

Chet Sharma, the head of research and development at Simon Rogan’s L’Enclume, said the restaurant makes a modern mead based on elderflower. ‘The only difference between mead and beer is they use malt as their sugar source instead of honey. Why can’t there be as much diversity in mead as there is in craft beer?’ he said. MEAD - LEGEND, LITERATURE AND LUST Legend has it that mead is a powerful aphrodisiac, enhancing virility and fertility - an unfortunate side-effect considering it is thought first to have been drunk in the UK and Ireland by monks. It was most likely discovered by accident, with thirsty men drinking rainwater from a beehive, unaware that fermentation will have occurred and that they would become intoxicated. The term ‘honeymoon’ refers to the pagan tradition for brides and grooms to drink mead, made from honey, at their wedding and for a month afterwards. The drink has been described in books for centuries. More recently, it was the alcoholic beverage of choice for many in the Harry Potter series and almost killed Ron Weasley, when he drank a glass of oak-matured mead, which had been poisoned.

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales referenced mead as a drink for urban lovers. In the Miller’s Tale, Chaucer (right) wrote: ‘He sent her sweetened wine and well-spiced ale and waffles piping hot out of the fire, and, she being town-bred, mead for her desire.’ Mead’s chief ingredient is honey but modern versions play with the flavour, adding elderflower, dried fruit and a range of unusual herbs and spices. In ancient Greece, mead was called Ambrosia or Nectar and was said to be the drink of the gods, descended from heaven as dew before being gathered by bees. The drink was brewed with herbs and spices to treat a number of illnesses and became known as Metheglin, from the Welsh word ‘medcyglin’, meaning medicine. When mixed with the borage or starflower herb it was used on hypochondriacs.

Question: What is the chief ingredient of the drink Mead ?
Answer: HONEY