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94
94/100: Mead recipes (part 1)
Name: Scrape #42 @19991
Date: Fri Sep 25 17:01:29 1992
From: The Castle ARGH! [919-782-8962]
Basic Small Mead
Source: Cher Feinstein (crf@pine.circa.ufl.edu)
Digest: Issue #267, 9/30/89
Ingredients:
2-3 cloves
2 sticks cinnamon
2 thin slices ginger
2-4 teaspoons orange peel
2 pounds honey
yeast
1/4 cup vodka or grain alcohol
Procedure:
[PAUSE] In a 1-gallon pot, simmer cloves (lightly cracked), cinnamon (broken),
and ginger. Add orange peel. The amount of orange peel will vary depend-
ing on type of honey used. Use less orange peel with orange blossom
honey, for example. Simmer.
Add water to bring volume to 3 quarts. Return to simmer. Add honey,
stirring constantly. Do not boil! Skim off any white scum. If scum is
yellow, reduce heat. When no more scum forms, remove from heat, cover
pot, and leave overnight. The next day, strain to remove as much spice
particles as possible. Pitch yeast. Replace pot cover.
Twelve hours later, rack mead to 1-gallon jug, leaving dregs of yeast.
Top off jug, bringing to base of neck. Take a piece of clean paper
towel, fold into quarters, and put over mouth of jug. Seal with rubber
band. Ferment for 36 hours, replacing paper towel whenever it becomes
fouled. Refrigerate 8-12 hours. Rack to new jug and put back in
refrigerator for 12 hours. Add 1/4 cup vodka to kill yeast. Rack to
fresh jug. Refrigerate 3-4 days. Bottle.
Comments:
This is a quickie mead, drinkable in 2 weeks, however, it does improve
with age. Aging at least a couple months is recommended. This mead is
excellent chilled.
[PAUSE]
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 2 days
Secondary Ferment: 2 weeks
Prickly Pear Cactus Mead
Source: John Isenhour (LLUG_JI.DENISON.BITNET)
Digest: Issue #177, 6/15/89
Ingredients:
20 pounds Mesquite honey
75-100 ripe prickly pear cactus fruits
2 packs sherry wine yeast
Procedure:
See Papazian's book. This recipe was based on it.
Comments:
[PAUSE] This is Dave Spaulding's version that won the grand prize at the 1986
Arizona State Fair.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.158
Final Gravity: 1.050
Secondary Ferment: 5 months
Blueberry Mead
Source: Jonathan Corbet (gaia!jon@handies.ucar.edu)
Digest: 11/28/88
Ingredients (for 6-1/2 gallons):
7-10 pounds fresh blueberries
1-2 pounds corn sugar
1-2 ounces hops (Cascades is fine)
10 pounds honey
yeast
lemon grass tea (optional)
[PAUSE] Procedure:
To make 6-1/2 gallons of mead, Boil the honey, sugar, and hops for at
least an hour (although boiling honey is not favored by most digest
subscribers, it works fine and is the method used by Papazian). Clean
berries and mash well. Put mashed berries, hot wort, and enough water
to make 6-1/2 gallons into a fermenter. Pitch yeast. After one week,
strain out berries and rack to secondary. Ferment at least one more
month and then bottle, priming with corn sugar and perhaps some lemon
grass tea. Age 6 months to a year.
Comments:
This mead usually comes out quite dry. This recipe makes 6-1/2 gallons.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 1 week
Peach Melomel
Source: Michael Bergman (bergman%odin.m2c.org@ RELAY.CS.NET)
Digest: Issue #90, 3/1/89
[PAUSE]
Ingredients:
6 pounds peaches
3/4 pint elderflowers
2-1/2 pounds acacia honey
1/30 ounce tannin
Graves yeast
1/4 ounce tartaric acid
1/4 ounce malic acid
Procedure:
Press peaches (after removing pits). Dissolve honey in 4 pints warm
water, blend in peach juice along with acid, tannin, and nutrients. Add
100 ppm sulfite (2 campden tablets). After 24 hours, add yeast starter,
allow to ferment 7 days before adding elderflowers. Ferment on flowers
for 3 days then strain off flowers and top off to 1 gallon with cold
water. Ferment until specific gravity drops to 10, then rack. Rack
again when gravity drops to 5, and add 1 tablet campden. Rack again when
when a heavy deposit forms, or after 3 months, whichever comes first.
Add another campden tablet. Rack again every 3-4 months, adding a tablet
after every second racking.
[PAUSE] Comments:
This recipe is based on procedures outlined in Making Mead, by Bryan
Acton and Peter Duncan. They advocate the use of campden rather than
boiling because they feel that after boiling for a long time most of the
essences of the honey are gone. Read the "Basic Procedures" section of
Acton & Duncan for more info.
Riesling Pyment
Source: Jackie Brown (BROWN@MSUKBS.BITNET)
Digest: Issue #184, 6/24/89
Ingredients:
4-1/2 pounds wildflower honey
5-1/2 pounds partial blueberry honey
2 tablespoons acid blend
1 tablespoon pectic enzyme
4 pounds Alexander's Johanissberg Riesling extract
1 pack Red Star champagne yeast
Procedure:
[PAUSE]
Boil honey, acid, enzyme and Riesling extract for 1 hour (I have since
learned that honey is best not boiled; subsequent batches have been made
by holding the mixture for 2 hours). Cool and pitch yeast. Rack to
secondary after 8 days. Bottle after 4 months.
Comments:
This is more winey than your straight mead, but very pleasant. Medium
dry and spritzig---very nice as a table wine. Those of you set up to
crush your own grapes might try a grape honey mix. A drink of noble
history!
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 8 days
Secondary Ferment: 48 days
Cyser
Source: Arun Welch (welch@cis.ohio-state.edu)
Digest: Issue #537, 11/14/90
[PAUSE] Ingredients:
4 gallons fresh cider (no Pot.Sorb)
5 to 6 pounds honey
1 gallon water
1 large stick cinnamon
5 cloves
2 pods cardamom
2 packs Red Star Pasteur champagne yeast
Procedure:
Simmer the spices in the water for 10 minutes. Dissolve honey. Simmer
and strain crud until there isn't any more. Transfer to primary, along
with cider (this should bring primary to a good pitching temperature).
Pitch yeast and wait 1 to 2 weeks for the foam to die down. Transfer to
secondary. Ferment in secondary 3-6 months. Bottle and age another 3 or
more months.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 1-1/2 week
Secondary Ferment: 3-6 months
[PAUSE]
Wassail Mead
Source: Mal Card (card@apollo.hp.com)
Digest: Issue #538, 11/15/90
Ingredients:
12-1/2 pounds light clover honey
4 teaspoons acid blend
5 teaspoons yeast nutrient
wine yeast
Procedure:
Add honey, acid blend, and yeast nutrient to 2 gallons of water and boil
for 1/2 hour. Add this to 1-1/2 gallons of cold water inthe primary
fermenter. Pitch yeast when the temperature reaches 70-75 degrees. Use a
blow off tube if you use a carboy. Allow fermentation to proceed for 3
weeks or more (up to several months). When the mead becomes fairly
clear, rack to secondary. Attach air-lock. Leave the mead to sit at
least 3 weeks. When yeast settles to bottom and is clear, it is ready to
bottle. Adding 3/4 cup of corn sugar at bottling will produce a sparkl-
ing mead. Sparkling meads should not be made with an original gravity
[PAUSE] higher than 1.090.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.100
Final Gravity: 1.000
Quick Mead
Source: Kevin Karplus (karplus@ararat.ucsc.edu), Issue #538, 11/16/90
Ingredients:
3 gallons water
5 pounds honey
1/3 cup jasmine tea
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
ale yeast
[PAUSE] Procedure:
Boil water, adding tea and spices. Remove from heat and stir in honey.
(Some mead makers boil the honey, skimming the scum as it forms). Cover
boiled water, and set aside to cool (this usually takes a long time, so
start on the next step). Make a yeast starter solution by boiling a cup
of water and a tablespoon or two of honey. Add starter to cooled liquid.
Cover and ferment using blow tube or fermentation lock. Rack two or
three times to get rid of sediment.
The less honey, the lighter the drink, and the quicker it can be made.
1 pound per gallon is the minimum, 5 pounds per gallon is about the
maximum for a sweet dessert wine. This mead is a metheglin because of
the tea. The yeast is pitched one day after starting the batch, the crud
skimmed about 10 days later, then wait 3 days and rack to secondary.
Wait 2 more weeks and bottle---about 4 weeks from start to finish.
Comments:
Yield is 3.1 gallons. Excellent clarity, fairly sweet flavor, slight
sediment, light gold color. An excellent batch.
[PAUSE]
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