Homebrew Mead Wine

[Joe_K]

Mead is awesome! My cousin in Washington home brews that stuff. It was like 18% alcohol. Ridiculously good.

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[Tim K]

Hmm, my fermenter is going to be free in about 10 days. Looks like a fun change of pace from wine.

[sniper7]

Looks like I need to show this to my mom as she is always making wine and giving us batches but some mead sounds awesome! Great work, that stuff looks great!

[Brian]

Bottled another batch over the weekend - a great clear red color on this one. Also labeled a couple batches with some custom-made labels. This one isn't as sweet as the last (on purpose), and it tastes pretty good already - even though it's only about 5mo old. Wish I had made more than 3gal on this batch. Guess I'd better start another batch. 13% on this one but I have a few that are higher.

[jdranchman]

Nice work. I've got two carboys of mead sitting and about ready to rack again for bottling. Are you on gotmead? A few of us in the front range gm are going to try and setup a sit and sip to sample each others experiments and talk about yeast pee.

[Brian]

Nice work. I've got two carboys of mead sitting and about ready to rack again for bottling. Are you on gotmead? A few of us in the front range gm are going to try and setup a sit and sip to sample each others experiments and talk about yeast pee.

Yep, but I've been pretty much lurking only, and a couple of the other forums too. I saw a post the other day about a get together, just hadn't responded yet, but I will. sounds awesome. I've got a few I need to rack too - I need to reinforce the shelving I'm using, as it's bowing pretty bad from all the weight and I didn't want to stir up any lees moving stuff around if I could rack first instead. There's a strawberry down there that I swear clouds up if I breathe funny.

[RblDiver]

Bottled another batch over the weekend - a great clear red color on this one. Also labeled a couple batches with some custom-made labels. This one isn't as sweet as the last (on purpose), and it tastes pretty good already - even though it's only about 5mo old. Wish I had made more than 3gal on this batch. Guess I'd better start another batch. 13% on this one but I have a few that are higher.

You missed a perfect opportunity there! Should have named it "Dragon Blood Aged Mead" :P

(Even though it's only 9am, now I think I'll go pull out some mead myself)

[Hummer]

That looks fantastic, Brian, great label, too.

My young cousin visited today and toured the orchard and garage winery. He's now working at a north Boulder winery that will be showing off their mead at the Colorado Mountain Winefest in Palisade next month. Will have to try it. Usually there are some great meads and fruit wines at the winefest which draws about 8000 visitors to the Grand Valley.

Right now I'm sipping on a 2009 apple wine. Still pretty good.

I have fun making custom labels for our homemade wines, too.

[Brian]

That looks fantastic, Brian, great label, too.

My young cousin visited today and toured the orchard and garage winery. He's now working at a north Boulder winery that will be showing off their mead at the Colorado Mountain Winefest in Palisade next month. Will have to try it. Usually there are some great meads and fruit wines at the winefest which draws about 8000 visitors to the Grand Valley.

Right now I'm sipping on a 2009 apple wine. Still pretty good.

I have fun making custom labels for our homemade wines, too.

Wow, looks great. Hopefully I'll make it out there to see in person this Spring. I do like how you've tied your hummingbirds into all the labels too - at some point if I get semi-serious I will probably need to be thinking about how to provide some consistency or at least some sort of link between all the various labels.

I'd also be interested in your apple wine recipe. I have a carboy full of Ed Wort's dry German apfelwein stashed in a dark corner somewhere. My wife tends to like ciders and apple-based wines, so I try to keep her happy, but I'm thinking a dry cider may be more to my liking than hers... we'll see. It helps when she gets frustrated with all the "stuff" involved in my hobbies that's scattered all over the house if I can tempt her with something she likes.

[Brian]

Some links:

This guy runs stormthecastle.com which is full of mead ideas, among a heck of a lot of other stuff. His video is great for a beginner, and is more or less a JAOM. You can even skip the airlock if you don't have one and use a baloon with a tiny pinhole poked in it. I made my first mead with an old plastic jug and a baloon, and it turned out great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2ueyNQfnfE
http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/f...ead-making.htm

Joe Mattioli's JAOM is all over the place:
200+ pages at HBT: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=49106
76 pages at GM: http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthr...ancient+orange
WMT has a number of links too, here's one: http://www.winemakingtalk.com/joes-a...-gift-kit.html


Joe's Recipe:

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Bread yeast
Yeast Starter: nope
Batch Size (Gallons): 1
Original Gravity: 1.100????
Final Gravity: 1.030?????
Boiling Time (Minutes): 1
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 2 months

Ancient Orange Mead (by Joe Mattioli)
1 gallon batch

3 1/2 lbs Clover or your choice honey or blend (will finish sweet)
1 Large orange (later cut in eights or smaller rind and all)
1 small handful of raisins (25 if you count but more or less ok)
1 stick of cinnamon
1 whole clove ( or 2 if you like - these are potent critters)
optional (a pinch of nutmeg and allspice )( very small )
1 teaspoon of Fleishmann’s bread yeast ( now don't get holy on me--- after all this is an ancient mead and that's all we had back then)
Balance water to one gallon

Process:
Use a clean 1 gallon carboy
Dissolve honey in some warm water and put in carboy
Wash orange well to remove any pesticides and slice in eights --add orange (you can push em through opening big boy -- rinds included -- its ok for this mead -- take my word for it -- ignore the experts)

Put in raisins, clove, cinnamon stick, any optional ingredients and fill to 3 inches from the top with cold water. ( need room for some foam -- you can top off with more water after the first few day frenzy)

Shake the heck out of the jug with top on, of course. This is your sophisticated aeration process.

When at room temperature in your kitchen, put in 1 teaspoon of bread yeast. ( No you don't have to rehydrate it first-- the ancients didn't even have that word in their vocabulary-- just put it in and give it a gentle swirl or not)(The yeast can fight for their own territory)

Install water airlock. Put in dark place. It will start working immediately or in an hour. (Don't use grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away in the 90's)( Wait 3 hours before you panic or call me) After major foaming stops in a few days add some water and then keep your hands off of it. (Don't shake it! Don't mess with them yeastees! Let them alone except its okay to open your cabinet to smell every once in a while.

Racking --- Don't you dare
additional feeding --- NO NO
More stirring or shaking -- Your not listening, don't touch

After 2 months and maybe a few days it will slow down to a stop and clear all by itself. (How about that) (You are not so important after all) Then you can put a hose in with a small cloth filter on the end into the clear part and siphon off the golden nectar. If you wait long enough even the oranges will sink to the bottom but I never waited that long. If it is clear it is ready. You don't need a cold basement. It does better in a kitchen in the dark. (Like in a cabinet) likes a little heat (70-80). If it didn't work out... you screwed up and didn't read my instructions (or used grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away) . If it didn't work out then take up another hobby. Mead is not for you. It is too complicated.
If you were successful, which I am 99% certain you will be, then enjoy your mead. When you get ready to make different mead you will probably have to unlearn some of these practices I have taught you, but hey--- This recipe and procedure works with these ingredients so don't knock it. It was your first mead. It was my tenth. Sometimes, even the experts can forget all they know and make good ancient mead.