Recipe of the day

Mead

(Advanced), Drinks

Basic Mead

Ingredients:
6 kg Honey
25 liters Water
Champagne Yeast
Yeast nutrient

Equipment:
carboy or brewing tank
waterlock
thermometer
hydrometer
Sterilizing chemicals + rubber gloves
Large kettle
Big spoon
Sifter, screen or similar

Start by sterilizing all the equipment, and remember to rinse everything to get the chemicals out.
Prepare the must: Make a 1:2 - 1:3 honey-water mixture in the kettle, heat it up to 80'C and keep there for about 10 minutes, skim off all foam that forms on the surface, and pour into the brewing tank. Repeat if your kettle is not big enough to get all the honey at once.

Pour in cold water and stir well, cool off to 20'C so you can reliably measure the gravity of the liquid with the hydrometer. The original gravity can be used as a guide to the final alcohol content and sweetness, I started with OG 1.080, and the yeat I'm using should be able to make it really dry.

If the OG is 1.090 or less, you should be able to make a good dry sparkling mead with champagne yeast, if you have too much sugar, it won't be as good with sparkles, but at about 17% vol a nice dry mead tastes more than satisfactory.

Once the fermentation is done, you need to clarify the mead, and then finally bottle it. More on this when my Mead project reaches this stage.

Posted by Antti at April 8, 2003 12:25 AM