Mead, properly aged, is some SERIOUSLY GOOD STUFF

[Jenab]

I've had several liter-size glass jars of mead in my fridge, aging away ever since I put it into bottles in August 2001. It was, ah, taking up room that I could use for, uh, other stuff, so I decided to drink some of it. This is some really good brew...as in: I've never had wine this good, and having gone to quite a number of USAF dining-ins-and-outs before, I've had a fair amount of wine.

I remember sampling the mead a few months after bottling, early in 2002 I think it was. It still had a rough streak to it then. But not any more buddy! This is a sweet-tartish alcoholic candy with a tongue-bite and a vaguely cinnamony aftertaste. Why in the world does anybody pay for inferior stuff when you can make better in your own home?

Happy holidays,
Jerry Abbott

[Kind Lampshade Maker]

I've had several liter-size glass jars of mead in my fridge, aging away ever since I put it into bottles in August 2001.....Happy holidays,
Jerry Abbott
Co-incidentally, I just had a bottle of Belgian beer brewed with mead, yesterday. It was very lovely. some of the best I've had:
http://tinypic.com/zuws9
http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~bot/bier/index.php3?update=Barbar__.xml
Here is a recipe for fish using mead beer:
http://www.herbergvaneen.nl/html/zeewolf_olanda.html

[COTW]

Why in the world does anybody pay for inferior stuff when you can make better in your own home?
As for me it's because I'm impatient in that regard. Having to wait almost 4 years for the mead to become palatable I hope you made enough to last.

[Jenab]

Required Ingredients (use during cooking)
2.5 gallons clean rainwater
100 ounces (6.25 pounds) of clover or fruit blossom honey
2 large (family size) tea bags

Optional Ingredients (use during cooking)
60 black grapes
The peel off of several lemons
12 cinnamon sticks
12 whole cloves

Required Ingredient (use during fermentation)
two packages of active yeast

Optional Ingredients (use during fermentation)
a gallon of rose petals
a quart of prune juice (pasturized)
1 crushed multivitamin tablet

Heat the water to boiling in a large pot or pressure cooker. Turn off the heat and wait a minute. Then add the honey to the water while stirring the pot. Turn on the heat again, but reduce the heat as the water-honey approaches boiling. (If you let the water-honey boil, it has a tendency to suddenly come messily out of the pot.)

White sudsy stuff will appear at the surface of the water. Scoop this stuff off and throw it down the sink. It's mostly impurities in the honey.

When the sudsy stuff is gone, add the other ingredients that you will use in the cooking stage. Squish the grapes before adding them. Remove the tea bags once they have been in the hot honey-water for 20 minutes.

Cook the mix of honey, water, and spices for a total of 45 minutes, simmering just below boiling. Then turn off the heat and wait for the mix to cool. You can add the crushed vitamin tablet or the prune juice at this time, if you're going to use any. While the must is cooling, open the yeast packages and put the yeast into two separate cups of rainwater.

When the must has cooled to room temperature, or to luke-warmness, put a strainer on top of a glass fermentation vessel, about six quarts in size, and dip half of the must from the pot, through the strainer, into the fermentation vessel. Do likewise with the other half of the must, except into a 2nd fermentation vessel of equal size. Both the dipper and the fermentation vessels must be sterilized and clean.

If you're going to use the rose petals, they go into the fermentation vessels just before you add the must.

Add a cup of water-soaking yeast to each of the two fermentation vessels. Seal the fermentation vessels momentarily, tightly with a lid, and give each a few good shakes to mix the yeast in along with some oxygen. Remove the lids and Cover each fermentation vessel with a clean cloth.

Do not reseal the vessels shut air-tight, or the gas evolving from the fermentation will cause an explosion (and a wretched mess).

Once the fermentation is under weigh, leave the must alone for two weeks. At the end of that two weeks, return and rack (siphon) the must into two new, clean fermentation vessels. Again seal them and shake them, uncover them, and leave them on the shelf covered by a new clean cloth.

Two weeks later, do it again, except this time it's OK to seal the must prior to again leaving it on the shelf.

The purpose of the racking (siphoning) is to remove the liquid while leaving the old, dead yeast cells where they have fallen, at the bottom of the fermentation vessel.

Leave the twice-racked mead on the shelf for two months more, while it engages in anerobic fermentation. At the end of this period - three months after the cooking - you rack the must (which is now raw mead) into bottles, cork the bottles, and put the bottles into the refrigerator or some other cool spot.

Leave the bottles alone for a long time. After two years, it's fit for the nobility to drink. After three, it's fit for a King. After four, for God Almighty.

Jerry Abbott

[Aryan Lord]

Co-incidentally, I just had a bottle of Belgian beer brewed with mead, yesterday. It was very lovely. some of the best I've had:
http://tinypic.com/zuws9
http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~bot/bier/index.php3?update=Barbar__.xml
Here is a recipe for fish using mead beer:
http://www.herbergvaneen.nl/html/zeewolf_olanda.html

Now that sounds really nice.I will try and get some. :)

[Jenab]

Some of the ancients served mead warm or hot. I prefer it cold.

If you get a good mead, try drinking it in tiny sips a few drops' worth on the tongue while inhaling. You can taste the flavor of the mead and the "breath" of the alcohol very well this way, though you might cough at first if the alcohol hits the back of your throat.

The alcoholic content of mead is about the same as for wine: twelve to eighteen percent.

Jerry Abbott

[COTW]

Found this for what its worth.
FAQ on mead making (http://talisman.com/mead/meadfaq.html)

In the USA, mead is classified as a wine. A brief, informal (not legal advice!) synopsis: Federal regulations allow an adult to make up to 100 gallons a year, or 200 gallons per year per household of two or more adults, for personal or family use, with no tax or license required. It may not be sold. Concentration (including but not limited to distilla- tion) is prohibited. State and local laws may impose additional restric- tions, so check first. The usual situation is that home mead-making is allowed in any locality where commercial wine can be sold. Repeat: this is NOT legal advice.
A whole lot of mead info HERE. (http://www.gotmead.com/)

[Joe Snuffy]

Jerry,
How much would I have to fork over for a bottle of the good stuff?

[Mike]

Mead is great stuff, and relatively easy to make. You do need patience: the stuff is simply not ready to drink less than one year old, and two years is really the minimum. Peak is probably around four years or more, as Jenab indicates. Unfortunately my batches have never lasted that long. :D I guess I need to make a ton up front and let some age.

I would like to add what I know to this thread. First regarding honey per water ratios. [For homebrew newbies, the honey (or maltose, or grape sugar) per water ratio will determine the final alcoholic strength of the product. During fermentation the yeast converts these various sugars into alcohol. If you put less honey than a certain amount in, the yeast will run out of sugar/food and the result will be less than maximum strength and somewhat dry. If you put more than the certain amount in, the yeast will stop fermenting at a certain level at alcohol (depending on the exact strain of yeast, 8-18% ABV) and any remaining sugars will impart a sweetness and "mouth body" to the product.]

Required Ingredients (use during cooking)
2.5 gallons clean rainwater
100 ounces (6.25 pounds) of clover or fruit blossom honey
2 large (family size) tea bags
What is the volume yield here Jenab? I assume this recipe yields about 3 gallons of relatively dry mead about 10-13% ABV? I use a lot more honey than this, at least 3.25 - 3.5 lbs of honey per yielded gallon of mead. I start with about 17 - 18.5 lbs. of honey and add water to make 5.25 gallons. About a quart of mead is lost during rackings so I get an even 5 gallons out. I don't measure gravities, but I use Pasteur champagne yeast which is known to ferment out at a high alcoholic level. I'd have to guess at least 17% ABV. Result is semi-sweet to sweet.

[Steve B]

Mead is great stuff, and relatively easy to make. You do need patience: the stuff is simply not ready to drink less than one year old, and two years is really the minimum. Peak is probably around four years or more, as Jenab indicates. Unfortunately my batches have never lasted that long. :D I guess I need to make a ton up front and let some age.

.

Four years to catch a buzz????? Yikes!! :eek:

From Docs private collection.

http://www.totse.com/en/drugs/booze_the_legal_drug/161553.html

[Mike]

Well Steve, if you need a faster turnaround there is always pruno (http://www.vnnforum.com/showpost.php?p=131996&postcount=38) per your recommendation. :D

Seriously, mead is done fermenting in two months or so, at which point it can be 17% / 34 proof. It's fully capable of giving you a buzz at that time if that's what you want. It keeps getting noticeably smoother as it ages so it seems sad to drink it prematurely. I have drunk most of mine one-two years old. It will keep getting better though.

Four years to catch a buzz????? Yikes!! :eek:

From Docs private collection.

http://www.totse.com/en/drugs/booze_the_legal_drug/161553.html

[heaven above]

Mead ? Legendary drink of the Gods.

Honey is used for many purposes including to heal wounds.

We have much to learn from the honey bee.

At one with nature . What can be more natural ?

This is a fine thread coming from the USA.

It look like you, we, and our ancestors, shared a 'commonality' :cool:

[Jenab]

Mead is great stuff, and relatively easy to make. You do need patience: the stuff is simply not ready to drink less than one year old, and two years is really the minimum. Peak is probably around four years or more, as Jenab indicates. Unfortunately my batches have never lasted that long. :D I guess I need to make a ton up front and let some age.

I would like to add what I know to this thread. First regarding honey per water ratios. [For homebrew newbies, the honey (or maltose, or grape sugar) per water ratio will determine the final alcoholic strength of the product. During fermentation the yeast converts these various sugars into alcohol. If you put less honey than a certain amount in, the yeast will run out of sugar/food and the result will be less than maximum strength and somewhat dry. If you put more than the certain amount in, the yeast will stop fermenting at a certain level at alcohol (depending on the exact strain of yeast, 8-18% ABV) and any remaining sugars will impart a sweetness and "mouth body" to the product.]

What is the volume yield here Jenab? I assume this recipe yields about 3 gallons of relatively dry mead about 10-13% ABV? I use a lot more honey than this, at least 3.25 - 3.5 lbs of honey per yielded gallon of mead. I start with about 17 - 18.5 lbs. of honey and add water to make 5.25 gallons. About a quart of mead is lost during rackings so I get an even 5 gallons out. I don't measure gravities, but I use Pasteur champagne yeast which is known to ferment out at a high alcoholic level. I'd have to guess at least 17% ABV. Result is semi-sweet to sweet.
That might have been my melomel recipe, where I expected to add some prune juice after cooking the must. Try that. I made a great prune melomel mead once, but I drank it all already. Maybe I'll get some oak casks and try aging a must in them.

Somebody asked my price for the stuff. Sell my mead? Why, that's illegal! But it is easy to make. I'd give it away (in small doses) if I had a party or something.

Jerry Abbott

[April]

Jerry,

Did you ever make any mead out of that case of honey I gave you?

April

[New Order]

Mead is the only alcoholic beverage a Muslim can drink as it is not of the type forbidden in the Qur'an. Not that many Muslims would admit to it I suppose.

[Jenab]

Jerry, Did you ever make any mead out of that case of honey I gave you? April
Nope. I haven't made any more mead since summer 2002. I still have some left from then. I can tell you that I doubt the buckwheat honey will pass the quality standards that I use. But the orange blossom honey and the star thistle honey are excellent, even better than the clover that I usually use.

About all buckwheat honey is good for is sweetening oatmeal.

Jerry Abbott