Posted: 12/17/2008 10:17:40 AM EDT
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Anyone make it before? How did it turn out? What do I need to make a small batch? And recipies?
Read up a little about it and decided I want to give it a go. Just want some advice before I start. |
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I "brewed" one last Christmas day in fact. I used a kit from Northern Brewer and I say "brewed" because this one was done without heat––IIRC, it only required mixing the honey with warm water and then pitching the yeast.
I have sampled it a couple times and it has gotten better over time. Still has that "alcohol bite" to it. |
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I've made a bunch of mead, make it more than beer (although it's been a few years). Some turned out great, some not so much. One mediocre batch ended up tasting fantastic a couple years later, but I don't have much patience so was down to my last bottle by then. Next time I'm making a double batch and hiding half of it.
Here's a few sites to get you started. http://www.meadmadecomplicated.org/ http://www.oldwestbrew.com/basic_meadmaking.htm http://www.brewery.org/brewery/library/beeslees.html ETA - I'm undecided on heating it before fermentation. Some say you'll boil off some of the subtle flavors, others say you'll allow bad microbeasties to contaminate it if you don't. My primary objection to heating is that I once spilled half a gallon of boiling honey on my bare feet (well, I was wearing socks. but that seems to just give the stuff something else to stick to). You want to avoid this. |
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3lbs of honey per gallon of water, add campaign yeast and wait a year, you can rack it off the trub after it quits bubbling for improved taste. I have people begging me for the stuff.
As far as heating, all I have made I have added the honey to the water and brought it to a boil while skimming of the foam, ya gotta keep skimming or it will create an insulating blanket and boil over. As far as I know honey is such a heavy specific gravity that no organisms can live in it so doesn't go bad. I have heard it doesn't require heating but I have been brewing beer for so long I can't seem to make myself do it without heating it up. |
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I am a wine freak.
I am also a beekeeper. A friend of mine who lives near here makes the best mead I've ever tasted, and, no lie, it's the best tasting alcoholic beverage I've ever put in my mouth. He wins blue ribbons with this mead all the time. He says he'll teach a class this spring about it, but I don't for ONE MINUTE believe he's gonna give away his prize-winning recipe. Still, I'll try to get some pointers. I have probably five or six gallons of honey that's gone off and I need something to do with it. I think mead is the best option if I don't end up feeding it to the bees. Kitties |
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Quoted:
3lbs of honey per gallon of water, add campaign yeast and wait a year, you can rack it off the trub after it quits bubbling for improved taste. I have people begging me for the stuff. As far as heating, all I have made I have added the honey to the water and brought it to a boil while skimming of the foam, ya gotta keep skimming or it will create an insulating blanket and boil over. As far as I know honey is such a heavy specific gravity that no organisms can live in it so doesn't go bad. I have heard it doesn't require heating but I have been brewing beer for so long I can't seem to make myself do it without heating it up. It does not require heating. And it's better if you DON'T heat it. Honey goes bad for one reason––because it has too much moisture in it. If it's harvested before the comb is all capped it has too much moisture and a lot of beekeepers do this. Also, if you harvest it and let the supers sit in damp/wet weather before you extract the honey, the honey can take on moisture. Moisture is the thing that causes honey to ferment. Only the bees, or a hydrometer, can tell you when it's right. If you're buying the honey there's a chance it's already been heated anyhow. You can ask your source whether it's raw or has been cooked. Heating the honey keeps it from crystallizing and turning to sugar and that's why a lot of commercial producers (and all supermarket producers) heat their honey. I like mead made with raw honey best of all, but it's good either way. Would love to taste some of yours. It sounds like you have a great recipe. Some say you'll boil off some of the subtle flavors, others say you'll allow bad microbeasties to contaminate it if you don't
Yes, you do cook off the subtle flavors if you boil it. It's the reason raw honey from your local farmer's market tastes so much better than grocery store honey. Local honey is often raw. Store honey is never raw. Microbeasties won't contaminate it if you do it right with raw honey that's been harvested and extracted at proper moisture content. |
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Quoted:
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3lbs of honey per gallon of water, add campaign yeast and wait a year, you can rack it off the trub after it quits bubbling for improved taste. I have people begging me for the stuff. As far as heating, all I have made I have added the honey to the water and brought it to a boil while skimming of the foam, ya gotta keep skimming or it will create an insulating blanket and boil over. As far as I know honey is such a heavy specific gravity that no organisms can live in it so doesn't go bad. I have heard it doesn't require heating but I have been brewing beer for so long I can't seem to make myself do it without heating it up. It does not require heating. And it's better if you DON'T heat it. Honey goes bad for one reason––because it has too much moisture in it. If it's harvested before the comb is all capped it has too much moisture and a lot of beekeepers do this. Also, if you harvest it and let the supers sit in damp/wet weather before you extract the honey, the honey can take on moisture. Moisture is the thing that causes honey to ferment. Only the bees, or a hydrometer, can tell you when it's right. If you're buying the honey there's a chance it's already been heated anyhow. You can ask your source whether it's raw or has been cooked. Heating the honey keeps it from crystallizing and turning to sugar and that's why a lot of commercial producers (and all supermarket producers) heat their honey. I like mead made with raw honey best of all, but it's good either way. Would love to taste some of yours. It sounds like you have a great recipe. Some say you'll boil off some of the subtle flavors, others say you'll allow bad microbeasties to contaminate it if you don't
Yes, you do cook off the subtle flavors if you boil it. It's the reason raw honey from your local farmer's market tastes so much better than grocery store honey. Local honey is often raw. Store honey is never raw. Microbeasties won't contaminate it if you do it right with raw honey that's been harvested and extracted at proper moisture content. I'm a homebrewer and also make mead. I use 8 lbs. of honey to make 5 gallons of mead. I add about a gallon of crushed blackberries to mine, to give it a different flavor. I don't boil mine, but I do bring it up to 180 F to pasteurize the berries, since they are full of bacteria and wild yeasts. I use champaign yeast, and leave it in the primary with the berries for a week. I then rack it off to a secondary fermenter for about 8 weeks, or until the specific gravity drops. I then bottle it. I also like it carbonated better than as a still drink. It needs to age at least 6 months, but it is better as it gets older. The flavor peaks at about 1 year. |
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I tried a glass of mead at the Renaissance Festival a couple years ago. I was excited to taste it after hearing about it for some many years. I was very disappointed and now think I know what it tastes like and that I don't like it. But it could have been a bad mixture, or weak or over sweet. I don't recall if it had spices in it or not. Give me a good whisky or stout.
Hail fellow well met. GL |
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I tried a glass of mead at the Renaissance Festival a couple years ago. I was excited to taste it after hearing about it for some many years. I was very disappointed and now think I know what it tastes like and that I don't like it. But it could have been a bad mixture, or weak or over sweet. I don't recall if it had spices in it or not. Give me a good whisky or stout. Hail fellow well met. GL Wyzarrd is right. Mead really runs the spectrum from a lighter, fruity and slightly sweet wine that you could serve with food, to a thick, syrupy, icky-sweet drink. I don't like it thick and overly sweet. The lighter meads have a completely different character. I've never had a truly dry mead, but would like to try one. Kitties |
| Im racking some from the secondary now back to another 6 gallon carboy. going to let it rest overnite then bottle on the 1st. its my first try and the last beer i made was questionable.... so abyone ever had prickley pear mead? Ill let you know if its drinkable. can i add bubbles the same way i do to beer? |
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You can carbonate it the same as beer, but remember that mead ages well. I've had a couple glass grenades appear after several months. I don't know if it was just a mistake on my part or what, but next time I cut the priming sugar way back - After 6-8 months the stuff was still way too fizzy. I think if I do another batch like that it'll be with CO2 cartridges after the aging process is done.
I'm by no means an experienced brewer, so someone who knows what they're doing probably could carbonate mead and age it for years. Just sharing my own mistakes. A very slight clink of bottle against bottle caused 5 or 6 quarts to blow apart, spraying me with broken glass and mead. Bit of a surprise, that was. |
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You can carbonate it the same as beer, but remember that mead ages well. I've had a couple glass grenades appear after several months. I don't know if it was just a mistake on my part or what, but next time I cut the priming sugar way back - After 6-8 months the stuff was still way too fizzy. I think if I do another batch like that it'll be with CO2 cartridges after the aging process is done. I'm by no means an experienced brewer, so someone who knows what they're doing probably could carbonate mead and age it for years. Just sharing my own mistakes. A very slight clink of bottle against bottle caused 5 or 6 quarts to blow apart, spraying me with broken glass and mead. Bit of a surprise, that was. I always carbonate mine. Check your mead with your hydrometer. It will tell you if it is ready to bottle. Mead is made with honey, and takes a long time to ferment out. If you still have unfermented sugar in your mead, and you add sugar to carbonate it, sugar plus additional sugar equals a glass grenade. If it is not completely fermented out, and you still feel the need to bottle it, just bottle it. The sugar still in the mead will ferment out in the bottle, and carbonate itself. For a little additional safety, you could always bottle it in champagne bottles. You can cap them, just like a beer bottle. Then the problem is gettingit out of the bottle. Over carbonated liquids are a problem to get out of the bottle too. Think fountain. I have 5 bottles of over carbonated mead at home. It's great tasting stuff, but a real bitch to deal with until you get the pressure down. ETA: Anyone want a great recipe for some real easy german hard cider? I got the cost under 35 cents per bottle. |
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Finally found some in the stores by me. It's Chaucer's Traditional and Raspberry Mead. Only opened the Raspberry bottle so far, and it's best cold. My question now is, "Is Mead suppose to be more of a beer strength or a wine strength?" Chaucer's is really good mead. Those of us who are wine drinkiers and who also LOVE mead think of it more as a wine. And the alcohol content of the good commercially available meads is generally somewhere between a beer and a wine. Lower than a big red, but higher than a beer––maybe like a Moscato.... It's interesting to hear about the carbonating process the brewers in this thread are using, as the meads I drink are, as a rule, not carbonated––at least not artificially. And if there's natural carbonation in them, it's not much––nothing like a sparkling wine or a Moscato d' Asti. I've had a right fair number of meads, but maybe only one or two with any measure of perceivable beer or ale-like "carbonation" in them. BTW: I like the natural Chaucer's MUCH better than the raspberry. This is a fairly sweet mead, too. Kitties |
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If you happen upon anyRedstone Meadery "Traditional Mountain Honey Wine", I'd say it's about the best commercial mead I've had. They also make some flavored and carbonated stuff that's not too bad.
Other Colorado Meaderies are either too sweet or too dry for me & I don't care for Chaucer or that Czech stuff. But I'm a beer guy rather than a wine guy, so mead that's too wine like isn't my choice. |
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Quoted:
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Finally found some in the stores by me. It's Chaucer's Traditional and Raspberry Mead. Only opened the Raspberry bottle so far, and it's best cold. My question now is, "Is Mead suppose to be more of a beer strength or a wine strength?" Chaucer's is really good mead. Those of us who are wine drinkiers and who also LOVE mead think of it more as a wine. And the alcohol content of the good commercially available meads is generally somewhere between a beer and a wine. Lower than a big red, but higher than a beer––maybe like a Moscato.... It's interesting to hear about the carbonating process the brewers in this thread are using, as the meads I drink are, as a rule, not carbonated––at least not artificially. And if there's natural carbonation in them, it's not much––nothing like a sparkling wine or a Moscato d' Asti. I've had a right fair number of meads, but maybe only one or two with any measure of perceivable beer or ale-like "carbonation" in them. BTW: I like the natural Chaucer's MUCH better than the raspberry. This is a fairly sweet mead, too. Kitties Hey, the nice thing about making your own, is you can make it the way you like it. |
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I am making a one-gallon batch right now. The recipe I'm using is called "Joe's Ancient Orange" and it is simple.
you need; 1-gallon carboy air-lock funnel blow off tube (just in case) sterilizing agent Ingredients; 1-whole orange 1-cinnamon stick 1-clove 25-raisins 3.5-pounds of honey 1-TB bread yeast approx 1-gallon of good water warm about a half gallon of water up––-do not boil! Mix honey in warm water and transfer to carboy. Slice orange into eighths, drop into carboy with clove, cinnamon stick and raisins. Once water is at pitching temp, pitch yeast. Wait a few months and don't screw with the carboy. Then rack into secondary/storage. |