kevin (11/02/82)
Mead (a fermented drink made from honey) The basic ingredients of mead are honey, water, and yeast. The variety I make is spiced, so is more correctly referred to as "methglin." The proportions of the honey and water determine the final strength and sweetness of the drink, also how long it takes to make. The ratio ranges from 1 lb. honey per gallon of water for a very light "soft-drink" to 5 lbs. per gallon for a sweet dessert wine. The less honey, the lighter the mead, and the quicker it can be made. I've successfully made a 1 lb/gallon mead in as little as three weeks, while my strongest mead (5 lb/gallon) was not bottled for six months, and could have stood another few months before bottling. Here are sample quantities for a "small mead": 3 gallons water 5 pounds honey 1/2 pkg ale yeast. 1/3 cup tea 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp ginger 1/2 tsp allspice 1/2 tsp cardamon I use tap water for brewing, but if your tap water has off-flavors, then you might want to get a bottle of clear spring water. The honey may be almost any cheap honey. Strongly flavored honeys (orange blossom, buckwheat, wild flower (in some areas)) generally work best. Clover honey works well, but very light honeys (like alfalfa) generally lack flavor. If making a true mead (without spices), the flavor of the honey is more important, and only strongly flavored honeys should be used. The yeast is important. Baking yeast is bred for fast carbon dioxide production, and is not at all suitable for brewing. Some home cider makers may be used to just letting the sweet cider stand a few days to ferment on its own. This technique relies on the wild yeasts present in the air, on the cider press, and on the skins of the apples. It doesn't work for mead. The wild yeasts result in off-flavors, which the honey is not strong enough to mask. For strong, still meads (3 lbs honey/gallon or more) I use a white wine yeast, while for a lighter beverage I use ale yeast. A beer yeast should work as well as an ale yeast, but I find top-fermenting ale yeasts more fun to work with. WARNING: the "brewer's yeast" sold in health-food stores is dead yeast, it will not be usable for brewing. Tea is an important addition to the mead. It provides tannic acid, to give the drink a bit of bite. It is particularly important for sweet meads, which can otherwise have a rather syrupy taste (like Mogen David wines). Any sort of tea will do--I've used genmai cha (a very light Japanese green tea), lapsang souchong (a smokey Chinese tea), China Rose (a black tea with rose petals), jasmine, oolong, and others. If you want to use Lipton's, that should work as well. Other ingredients commonly used are 1/4 cup orange juice (or juice of 1/2 lemon), fruit, cloves, and other spices. I've used bay leaves, cloves, rosemary, anise, and galingale, in addition to the spices listed above. Be careful not to over-spice the mead! It is probably safer to use less of fewer spices, until you've had some experience. The equipment you need is a large pot (I use a 20 quart canning pot), a 5 foot plastic tube to use as a siphon, and strong bottles. In addition, a 5 gallon water bottle with a stopper and fermentation lock is a very useful piece of equipment. Everything you use should be sterilized to prevent the growth of vinegar-forming bacteria. There are chemical sterilizing agents available from wine-making supply stores, but I prefer to sterilize everything in boling water. I'll mention sterilizing over and over. It is the single most important part of brewing mead rather than vinegar. If making a still, wine-type mead, any sort of bottle will do for the final bottling. However, this recipe is for a fizzy "ale-type" mead, so strong bottles are essential. Champagne bottles and returnable pop bottles are usable, disposable bottles of any sort are not. I once had an apple juice bottle explode in my room, embedding shrapnel in my pillow from 9 feet away. Don't make the same mistake--use strong bottles!! Steps to making the mead: 1. Boil the water, adding the tea and spices. 2. Remove water from heat and stir in honey. (Note, stirring implement should be sterilized!) Some mead brewers boil the honey in the water, skimming the scum as it forms. This removes some of the proteins from the honey, making it easier for the mead to clarify. However, I don't mind a bit of cloudiness, and prefer the taste of unboiled honey. If you're buying a clear honey from a supermarket, it may already have been cooked a bit to remove pollen and sugar crystals, in which case, a bit more cooking probably won't change the flavor much. 3. Cover the boiled water, and set it aside to cool (to blood temperature or cooler). This usually takes a long time, so I overlap it with the next step. 4. Make a yeast starter solution by boiling a cup of water and a tablespoon of honey (or sugar). Let it cool to blood heat (or all the way to room temperature) and add the yeast. Cover it and let it ferment overnight. The yeast should form a "bloom" on the surface of the liquid. (Of course, the cooling and fermenting should be done in the pan or other sterilized vessel.) 5. Add the yeast starter to the cooled liquid. Cover and let ferment. After a few days, it is useful to siphon the mead into another container, leaving the sediment behind. Here's where the 5 gallon bottle comes in handy. A fermentation lock provides a way to close the bottle so carbon dioxide can get out, but vinegar-forming bacteria and oxygen cannot get in. Remember to sterilize the bottle and the siphon first! 6. Ferment for a few weeks in a warm, dry place. When a lot of sediment has collected on the bottom of the bottle, siphon off the liquid (without disturbing the sediment). This process is known as "racking," and helps produce a clear, sediment-free mead. Again, make sure all your equipment is sterilized. 7. For a fizzy mead, siphon into strong (sterilized) bottles a bit before fermentation stops. With the strength given here 4 weeks is about right. The exact time depends a lot on the temperature, the yeast, the honey, ... . I use plastic champagne corks to seal the bottles (sterilized, of course!). Crown caps are also good. Real corks should only be used for still beverages, since the amount of carbonation is unpredictable. Too much carbonation and you'll pop the corks, too little, and corks are hard to remove from champagne bottles. Don't wire on the corks, unless you're willing to risk an occasional broken champagne bottle. Still meads should not be bottled until fermentation has completely stopped. I generally wait until the fermentation has stopped, and the mead has cleared. This can take more than six months for a strong wine mead. 8. Age the mead in a cool place. Note, ferment warm, and age cool. I keep the champagne bottles upright in the cardboard box they came in. That way, if a cork pops, there is something to absorb the overflow, and if, despite my care, a bottle breaks, it won't set off a chain reaction. 9. Drink and Enjoy! The light quick meads should be served chilled (like beer), while the wine types are better at room temperature.