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] Read:(1-100,^94),? :