Go To:
Gryphon's Home Page
Yule Mead Party 2005
Sad update on the Mead Competition I entered...(January)
Despite bubble wrap, lots of crumpled newspaper and being marked at the PO both “fragile” and “liquid” my mead shipment arrived damaged. Kevin called from The Brew Hut to tell me 2 out 4 bottles were shattered. Since I’d waited till almost the deadline to ship it, it was too late to replace the broken bottles… I am so disappointed….
(Decemeber) Wish me luck! I am entering a batch of my traditional mead in the Home Mead Maker Competition at The International Mead Festival (an event through the International Mead Association). It's sponsored by The Brew Hut and the final judging will be held in February at the worlds' largest and most prestigious mead competition and festival.
Make no mistake about it, if there is one competition you enter all year long,
this is the one to enter. - GotMead.com
Since I'm just a raw amateur, I thought my mead would fall into the category "Sweet Traditional Mead," but I didn't know I was dealing with a bunch of hard liners using very stringent definitions. Since my secret ingredient is ginger, to give it a little bite (you know what, but not what form or how much, so my secret is safe), it technically falls into the category "Metheglin" which is still a type of mead, it's just mead that has spices or herbs added to it. Mead is mead to me, but I guess I am just unrefined and uneducated.
Why make mead?
Experiences and sources
A very simple recipe
Correspondance about Mead
--Unknown
So I first got into making mead because I wanted to make something that was drinkable and alcoholic (mead runs 12-15%). Now, I don’t drink often, and when I do I don’t drink much, so I am not promoting alcohol abuse. Most of my mead has been shared or given away as gifts.
That said, another reason I like making Mead, going so far as to win Third Place in Mead Making at the 2002 State Fair in Raleigh (I know there were at least 4 entries) is that I can do it myself. Making Mead is very simple. I started off by reading lots of books and visiting websites about it. Some were very confusing, describing different types of acids to use such as citric, malic, tartaric, acid blend, or lemon juice, the best pH, what specific gravity (for goodness sake!) it should have, whether to use Sodium metabisulfite or Campden tablets or moss, temperature ranges…. Ugh! I just want to make a simple mixture and have it turn into mead.
So a friend of mine and I got together what we figured we needed, armed ourselves with several different recipes and spent the weekend at his lake house, boiling, sieving and pouring. We must have done it right, because when we left it was fermenting away and the room smelled like bread. When we came back a few weeks later, we found that the carboy had blown its top. The air lock was still intact, but the plastic disk that snapped on top was gone—I mean GONE. We looked all over for it, under the dresser and bed, in the hallway, in the closet…. Nothing. It is still gone to this day. I still have one bottle of that mead left. I am waiting for a very special time to open it, as it represents a very special time in my life.
Since then I have tried many different recipes and developed a few myself. Here are the most recent guys that got racked 10/04, waiting patiently.
The batch I got Third Place with was a recipe of my own, using the traditional methods of making the must (boiling and sieving) and using a secret mix of spices—mostly ginger. I made it in a 3 gallon carboy and was pleased by the taste (it was by far the best I had ever made). I tried it in a 5 gallon carboy. What a surprise! It didn’t turn out like the first batch at all. It was ok, but you wouldn’t want a second date. Disappointed, I mixed it with other meads I had to flavor it up some and give it some character. The alcohol content was fine (made my belly warm), but there was just no interest there.
I have a three gallon going now (5/04) that has about the same recipe as the first (except much more ginger) and I can’t wait to see how it turns out—this is the hard part, waiting… But it was fermenting away almost immediately, churning and frothing so much it bubbled out the air lock and I had to take it off and clean it out. Now it sits quietly, settling. It is so HARD to wait!! Update: Here it is just before I racked it the first time. Look at that color!! The taste of it raw heated my belly and had a sharp, wild flavor. It might be a little on the strong side when it is finally done.
This batch will definitely be “mead.” But I hardly ever make straight mead anymore. I have found a much faster and easier way to make mead. But, I guess it’s not really mead, its cyser. Or maybe melomel. If you are particularly interested in getting the terminology “right” I suggest you surf the internet—there’s lots of words about what mead is and how to make it as well as its history. Personally, I just like doing the hands on making of mead.
To go the simplest route, order a kit from http://www.leeners.com/meadery.html
It will have everything you need to make your first batch and then you will have most of the equipment you will need to make other batches.
My very favorite honey source was Castlemark Honey, but I can no longer find them on the web. They had outstanding flavors of honey at good prices. And the honey was not artificially flavored; it was harvested at particular times of the year in particular places. I do miss that outrageous selection of honeys…
So, here is my “whatever” recipe. Anyone can make this—anyone. And it is quick—it can be ready in as little as 3 months. Might not be completely clear, but it will be drinkable.
First you need to get:
18 oz of honey (just over 1 pint)
12 oz fruit juice concentrate
A gallon of apple juice in a glass container
Yeast
Condom
Pour out 38 oz of apple juice, leaving 90 ozs. If you are making more than one batch, you can actually make another gallon from the juice you pour off if you get 2 or 3 gallons and have another glass jug.
Pour honey into the jug with the apple juice. Careful—honey is thick and can slop all over the neck of the jug, the sides, the counter, your hands and hair… it has a mind of its own sometimes.
Shake, shake, shake—shake, shake, shake—shake that bottle—shake that bottle! Do the jug dance until all of the honey is gone.
Pour in the juice concentrate and shake again.
Add the yeast. I like to mix the yeast with warm honey water and let it begin foaming before putting it in. No real reason to do this, I guess, it just makes me happy to see the yeast frothing.
Roll out your condom and place it over the opening. You will have to empty out the gasses filling it every morning, afternoon and evening for a few days if the yeast is very happy. Quite a sight to go in and see several jugs so happy to see you! Condoms fit well over the mouth of a gallon jug, but not over smaller mouthed wine bottle types. If you are going to use one of them, secure the condom with a rubber band.
Wait for fermentation to stop. This may take only a few weeks, or a couple of months. If it is too cold, it may not ferment at all. The time I had trouble with that was when I had five different gallons going in the bathtub. The bath tub is a very good place to put them at the beginning; if they over flow (which they might), it is a very easy place to clean up. Anyway, I just filled the tub part way with warm water and they got to work almost immediately.
Rack it. That just means siphoning the mead into another clean container, leaving all the solid mass on the bottom. I cheat a little here and pour the bottom contents into a tall skinny glass. By the next day it has settle again and I can have a little taste of the brew. It tastes different in its raw state than after it is racked for the final time—musty and primitive.
Here's some equipment I have come to depend on.
First, that's an auto siphon that my Father got me one Yule. I love it. It’s great for the carboys, but not much good for the gallon jars. I usually put the racking tip (do yourself a favor and get one of these; keeps the racking cane tip from resting in the dregs at the bottom) and bucket clip (keeps the racking cane from moving all around and stirring up the dregs before you rack) on next. Then attach the hose (5/16 is the most common and you need 4-5 feet of it) and you're ready to rack!
During the last raking, put in one Campden tablet per gallon. Yeah, I know, it’s adding a chemical and some folks say it affects the taste, but I have had bottles of mead explode. These tablets kill every thing—good and bad yeast, etc, so there is no chance of activity beginning again, tuning the mead skanky (believe me, you do not want skanky mead!!) and shooting glass and mead all over your kitchen (or dinning room, or where ever you put it).
Don’t forget the clean up. Here my lovely assistant, Alyse, cleans the carboys (bleach will clean up anything, just be sure it’s all washed out well). Cleaning the tubes, racking canes and auto siphon can be difficult, but not too bad if you do it right away. Awfully hard to get dried mead out of these items. Wipe up any spilled mead, as it gets very sticky.
So after a while longer when you are satisfied as to its clarity, it is time to put it into its final bottles. I like to use old beer bottles that have the wire and rubber stoppers. I also use any bottle that is small and has a screw cap (pop bottles are fine). What ever you use, keep in mind that when you open it next time you need to drink all the mead in the bottle in a reasonable amount of time, so smaller bottles might work better. If you don’t the “bad yeast” will get in there and have a party, making the mead truly awful. Be sure the bottles are sterile.
About the honey : I have used a variety of honeys. It is just fine to use the clover honey at the supermarket, especially when you are just starting. Later, if you get into it, you will find yourself stopping at Farmer’s Markets and roadside stands to check out honeys. I like the darkest that can be found. I am still looking for rhododendron honey; I have been told that it is the darkest with the most character, but no one likes it so it is not commercially produced. I still have faith that some day, at some out of the way fruit stand in the middle of nowhere, there will be a couple of pints or a gallon of this stuff.
About the apple juice: Go ahead and buy the apple juice in a glass container—you can use a plastic one, but it might leave a taste in the mead. After you have bought a few glass gallon apple juices, you can reuse them and buy the cheaper stuff in the plastic containers. I have used the pulpy juice and like it best because I do not have to add any yeast nutrient (it’s not really necessary, anyway, just gets the mead off to a quick start).
About the juice concentrate: I have used peach (very sweet), apple, cranberry (nice color), even orange juice (not as bad as you might think). Of them all, I really like the raspberry the best so far. A friend used strawberry-kiwi, but we haven’t tasted that batch yet. Be creative after your first couple of batches!
About the yeast: Yes, brewer’s yeast is best, and I particularly like the Champaign yeast, but… well… I have used baker’s yeast. Other than making a VERY sweet mead, it was just fine. Yep. Baker’s yeast. But I still prefer Champaign—it makes a dryer mead with a higher alcohol content.
About the condoms: You can go ahead and get an air lock, but if you just want to dip your toe in and see if you like making mead before diving into the deep end and getting all sorts of equipment and supplies, try this out. Works just fine and I still use them. Be sure to get the Non-Lubricated ones—you do NOT want spermicidal jell in your mead!
Drop me a line and tell me how your batch turned out!
~~~~~~~~~
Hey Gryph,
Our mead, meaning our gallon and Megan's gallon, is still looking extremely unaroused, in fact it looks quite flaccid. Help us turn our mead on Gryph it looks so sad. LOL
C&T and Meg
Dear C&T and Meg;
Mine had the same problem. It must be kept warm! I put mine in a pan of hot water and it very quickly looked perky and I had to empty the condom. It simply will not ferment unless it's nice and warm. 70-75 degrees is good. A heating pad would be work; you could put one between the two and put a towel or blanket around them and that would take care of it nicely.
Gryph
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Gryphon,
What fruit concentrate do you recommend for the Quick Mead recipe?
Trina
Dear Trina,
My very favorite is Raspberry/grape. Folks also like Cranberry (nice color) and I have done Peach (makes a very sweet mead). My friend Ninian was actually adventurous enough to try orange juice concentrate and, believe it or not, it wasn't bad. So let your imagination run wild!
Gryph
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey, Gryphon,
Is the honey with honeycomb in it good to use?
Raven
Raven;
Nope. The comb is mostly wax, with a few other substances mixed in. You'll have to remove what you can, then make sure you strain the rest it out before you start. Basically it just takes up room good honey could be taking and throws off your measurements.
Gryph
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi!
I came across your site (somehow- I'm not sure how now, but I liked it and book marked it) some time ago, and thought I'd drop a question your way....
I have used several different mead recipes from the web to make mead now. (I should note that I have a long history of wine making and such) But for some reason the mead always turns out 'sour'.
My current batch I even went so far as to use special "mead yeast." Went to rack it today - I got a bit in my mouth from the siphon and WOWZA it was so sour it could easily pop your eyes out of socket :))
What do you think I'm doing wrong? Does mead hate me? ....I love it.... :(
Thanks for your time :)
Hrafn Osborne
Hey there, Hrafn!
Not being able to see your set up, I’ll take a couple of guesses.
First, are you SURE that all your equipment is clean and sanitized? I live like a pig myself, so I have to take special care to wipe off table tops I am using, rinse out all tubes, racks and bottles I will be using with bleach, then rinse several times (have to get rid of the bleach). Wild yeast is much stronger and robust than wine or mead yeast, but it does not produce the rich flavorful urine that we all like drinking. Instead it produces disgusting stuff that well deserves the name a friend of mine coined… “skanky.”
The only time any of my mead turned out “skanky” was when I put some in a bottle as a gift for a friend, but did not use a good quality cork. Since air could get in, so did the “bad yeast.” The guys had a party in the bottle, ate up the last of the honey in the mead and ruined the bouquet. I was shamed and embarrassed, but learned a lesson.
Make sure you have everything sparkling clean, use champagne or mead yeast and an air lock or condom (being careful not to let any outside air in when you empty the condom), and drop me another line.
Oh, does your fermenting begin right away or does your must just sit there stubbornly looking at you for a while? Might be a tad too cold. I have used an electric heating pad on low to keep the must happy. Happy must makes happy mead, which makes a happy Gryphon!
Gr~
