Hey-ho.
I have decided to try my hand at mead! I've had some before, and it's tasty. And I've heard word that it can go quite well with rum!
Now, I don't mean to brag, but one could say that I am rather experienced at drinking rum.
I've done a few fusions before, usually just infusing vodka, gin etc with a flavour to make a drink I want to make (cinnamon and apple vodka, not so great at first, but leave that cinnamon stick in it for an entire year? Perfect!). I made a chai latte cocktail out of the apple and cinnamon vodka and some other infusions in the end, tasted pretty good! This will be the first time I actually make my own booze, though.
So, what better way to spend a day in winter, and then hopefully have something interesting to drink by Christmas?
If you haven't come across mead before, it is a fermented honey wine, usually with fruits or spices added during either the primary or secondary fermenting stage.
But most of you should know what it is, what with being in the UK and it apparently being reasonably popular over there.
I like the idea of it, because I don't have to do much!
So I went to my local brew shop, where he gave me a good deal on a bunch of carboys (the big glass bottles, otherwise known as demijohns), some yeast, nutrients, airlocks and a few other bits and pieces. Cost so far: $125 (this is outlaid by the fact that everything but the yeast and nutrients are reusable. I already have plans for the two spare carboys I have.)
Then, gather your ingredients. Cost so far: $214.76
I have decided that for my first batch, I shall try four different meads; a standard honey mead (1.25kg of honey, 3L of spring water, 1 1/3 cups of lemon cordial, half a packet of cider yeast and half a packet of nutrients.), a mixed berry mead (standard mead plus 500g frozen berries), a vanilla mead (standard mead plus a vanilla bean and some vanilla flavoured sugar), and lastly a chocolate mead (standard mead plus 85 grams of Cadbury Drinking Chocolate and an entire orange).
The honey is by far the most expensive part of this entire enterprise. Those four tubs cost me $56.10! For 5kg of honey! The next batch that I do, I will put the extra effort in and pick up some locally produced honey, or perha- no wait. I just remembered that one of our neighbours on our farm property is using one of our paddocks for his bees!
So that'll be the source of the next batch, haha. Can't believe I forgot that until just now. Ah well, I'm too impatient to wait until I go up next or my dad comes back down, anyway.
Next step is to pasteurize your honey. Drop 6L of spring water in to a big pot and bring it up to about 80°C.
You can skip this step if you want to, but it gives you a better chance of having a clean batch of mead. Heating the honey to above 40°C will kill off any bacteria and yeast in the honey (pretty good possibility of this), however if you bring it to the boil you will lose a lot of the aromatic part of the honey, hence 80°C. My induction stove is a bit twitchy so I managed to get the water to about 75°C while not having to constantly stir it to stop the honey water burning.
Next add 1 1/3 cups of lemon cordial. I added the cordial to take off some of the sweetness of the mead. These will mainly be drunk with spiced rums so a drier mead will work well (in theory). The amount of cordial is a little random but that was just the easy way to divide the amount that I had 4 ways.
At this point you should have dropped your tubs of honey in to some hot water to thin it out and make it easy to pour. Lucky you planned ahead!
Once it's softened up, slowly pour it in to the water while stirring, to make sure it doesn't catch on the bottom. Bring the honey water up to 80°C again and keep it there for about 20 minutes to ensure that any bacteria and yeast dies off. Again, you can skip this step, but it helps to make sure you don't have bad bacteria in your brew.
Once it's heated through, put it aside for many, many hours. You need the yeast and the honey water to be roughly the same temperature, while being below 30°C to make sure you don't kill the yeast. Having too big a variance in temperature can also shock the yeast and kill it, so it's easier to just let everything get to room temperature.
This step took so long it was about 6PM by the time it was ready to pitch, so I only managed to get two of the batches done last night.
It was at this point that I noticed that the yeast I had bought was technically out of date by 4 months. With things like wort and hops, this would be more of an issue, but the yeast has been in a sealed foil packet in a fridge, so I don't think it'll be an issue. I'll know within 3 days if it is, as nothing will have happened!
The other two I pitched this morning.
Anyway, throw all your nutrients and yeast in the carboy, add fruits as necessary. And then split the honey water evenly between the carboys. I may have screwed this part up by just measuring out 3L in to the standard mead, and then topping off the berry mead with the rest. I ended up with a really full berry mead, and a not so full standard mead. You don't want to leave much headroom at the top of the bottle, as the more oxygen that's introduced, the more vinegar you make!
So I had to top the standard mead off with some more spring water.
The level of the standard is good, and now that it has yeast cake on top, is doing fine. The berry one is a bit too full, you will see how close to the top it gets in a bit.
Now that everything is together, put the bung in the top and give it a few good shakes (warning: it's heavy!) to get everything excited. Then slap your airlock on the top and set them in a cool, dark place to ferment.
To get to this step took a long time, so by the time I had heated up the second batch and put it aside it was about 8PM. Add on another 4 hours at least before the honey water was cool enough to pitch, and I'd be up rather late making lots of noise! So I figured I'd leave it until this morning.
I screwed up this step as I was planning on adding the vanilla beans in the secondary fermentation stage, but then threw them in on auto pilot.
I guess we'll see what happens.
All four lined up. Standard, Berry, Chocolate, Vanilla.
You can see how much fuller the berry one is. I was a little concerned about the mass of fruit blocking the CO2 getting out, but it was bubbling away okay this morning.
I was expecting a slow start as it's pretty cold here at the moment so the yeast won't activate as fast, but the standard is going along strong. Because it was watered down to make up the volume difference, I expect it to be finished first and have less ABV (less honey). It certainly seems further along with it's yeast cake than the berry one.
I noticed a big glob of bacteria-iness in the berry one this morning.
I'm reasonably certain it's just the nutrient + yeast as for the first two I dropped in it on top of the must and then mixed it. I think the fruit stopped it separating more when I shook it. The second batch I put the yeast in first and then poured the must on top, which mixed it in better. I cleaned the bottles out the same way using a brewers sanitiser (it's just bleach, btw) so if it was actual bacteria I think it would have appeared in all of them?
I also had to drain some of the water from the airlocks as they were over full. Will have to keep an eye on them as I think they might be too full still.
I shall watch them closely for the next 3 days or so and I will know whether the yeast is working it's magic. Seems to me that it's all good, though!
Anywho, I'm really looking forward to the berry and chocolate meads, I think they have a good chance of turning out really interesting. The chocolate must (the mixture before it has fermented) smells pretty awesome already.
Well, that's about it for now, I guess. Not much more to do at this point other than play the waiting game. Apart from the initial 3-5 day period to ensure that all is going well, the next date of interest will be in about 2 weeks or so, when the airlock bubbling slows down to about 30 seconds between bubbles. Then it will be time to rack the mead in to a new container and leave the yeast cake behind, and then start ageing it. It may need to be racked a second or third time as well, to get to the clarity I want.
I'm okay with it being a bit cloudy, but if it's too cloudy, it's still fermenting and then I'll probably have issues when I bottle it, haha.
Once the two weeks are up and I've racked the batches in to new carboys (having two spares will come in handy for this), I plan on using the two spares to play with some rum with some woodchips and other bits and bobs.
Standard Mead Pitched: 6PM 29/07/2015
Mixed Berry Mead Pitched: 6PM 29/07/2015
Chocolate Mead Pitched: 9AM 30/07/2015
Vanilla Mead Pitched: 9AM 30/07/2015
Cheers,
Matt
I have decided to try my hand at mead! I've had some before, and it's tasty. And I've heard word that it can go quite well with rum!
Now, I don't mean to brag, but one could say that I am rather experienced at drinking rum.
I've done a few fusions before, usually just infusing vodka, gin etc with a flavour to make a drink I want to make (cinnamon and apple vodka, not so great at first, but leave that cinnamon stick in it for an entire year? Perfect!). I made a chai latte cocktail out of the apple and cinnamon vodka and some other infusions in the end, tasted pretty good! This will be the first time I actually make my own booze, though.
So, what better way to spend a day in winter, and then hopefully have something interesting to drink by Christmas?
If you haven't come across mead before, it is a fermented honey wine, usually with fruits or spices added during either the primary or secondary fermenting stage.
But most of you should know what it is, what with being in the UK and it apparently being reasonably popular over there.
I like the idea of it, because I don't have to do much!
So I went to my local brew shop, where he gave me a good deal on a bunch of carboys (the big glass bottles, otherwise known as demijohns), some yeast, nutrients, airlocks and a few other bits and pieces. Cost so far: $125 (this is outlaid by the fact that everything but the yeast and nutrients are reusable. I already have plans for the two spare carboys I have.)
Then, gather your ingredients. Cost so far: $214.76
I have decided that for my first batch, I shall try four different meads; a standard honey mead (1.25kg of honey, 3L of spring water, 1 1/3 cups of lemon cordial, half a packet of cider yeast and half a packet of nutrients.), a mixed berry mead (standard mead plus 500g frozen berries), a vanilla mead (standard mead plus a vanilla bean and some vanilla flavoured sugar), and lastly a chocolate mead (standard mead plus 85 grams of Cadbury Drinking Chocolate and an entire orange).
The honey is by far the most expensive part of this entire enterprise. Those four tubs cost me $56.10! For 5kg of honey! The next batch that I do, I will put the extra effort in and pick up some locally produced honey, or perha- no wait. I just remembered that one of our neighbours on our farm property is using one of our paddocks for his bees!
So that'll be the source of the next batch, haha. Can't believe I forgot that until just now. Ah well, I'm too impatient to wait until I go up next or my dad comes back down, anyway.
Next step is to pasteurize your honey. Drop 6L of spring water in to a big pot and bring it up to about 80°C.
You can skip this step if you want to, but it gives you a better chance of having a clean batch of mead. Heating the honey to above 40°C will kill off any bacteria and yeast in the honey (pretty good possibility of this), however if you bring it to the boil you will lose a lot of the aromatic part of the honey, hence 80°C. My induction stove is a bit twitchy so I managed to get the water to about 75°C while not having to constantly stir it to stop the honey water burning.
Next add 1 1/3 cups of lemon cordial. I added the cordial to take off some of the sweetness of the mead. These will mainly be drunk with spiced rums so a drier mead will work well (in theory). The amount of cordial is a little random but that was just the easy way to divide the amount that I had 4 ways.
At this point you should have dropped your tubs of honey in to some hot water to thin it out and make it easy to pour. Lucky you planned ahead!
Once it's softened up, slowly pour it in to the water while stirring, to make sure it doesn't catch on the bottom. Bring the honey water up to 80°C again and keep it there for about 20 minutes to ensure that any bacteria and yeast dies off. Again, you can skip this step, but it helps to make sure you don't have bad bacteria in your brew.
Once it's heated through, put it aside for many, many hours. You need the yeast and the honey water to be roughly the same temperature, while being below 30°C to make sure you don't kill the yeast. Having too big a variance in temperature can also shock the yeast and kill it, so it's easier to just let everything get to room temperature.
This step took so long it was about 6PM by the time it was ready to pitch, so I only managed to get two of the batches done last night.
It was at this point that I noticed that the yeast I had bought was technically out of date by 4 months. With things like wort and hops, this would be more of an issue, but the yeast has been in a sealed foil packet in a fridge, so I don't think it'll be an issue. I'll know within 3 days if it is, as nothing will have happened!
The other two I pitched this morning.
Anyway, throw all your nutrients and yeast in the carboy, add fruits as necessary. And then split the honey water evenly between the carboys. I may have screwed this part up by just measuring out 3L in to the standard mead, and then topping off the berry mead with the rest. I ended up with a really full berry mead, and a not so full standard mead. You don't want to leave much headroom at the top of the bottle, as the more oxygen that's introduced, the more vinegar you make!
So I had to top the standard mead off with some more spring water.
The level of the standard is good, and now that it has yeast cake on top, is doing fine. The berry one is a bit too full, you will see how close to the top it gets in a bit.
Now that everything is together, put the bung in the top and give it a few good shakes (warning: it's heavy!) to get everything excited. Then slap your airlock on the top and set them in a cool, dark place to ferment.
To get to this step took a long time, so by the time I had heated up the second batch and put it aside it was about 8PM. Add on another 4 hours at least before the honey water was cool enough to pitch, and I'd be up rather late making lots of noise! So I figured I'd leave it until this morning.
I screwed up this step as I was planning on adding the vanilla beans in the secondary fermentation stage, but then threw them in on auto pilot.
I guess we'll see what happens.
All four lined up. Standard, Berry, Chocolate, Vanilla.
You can see how much fuller the berry one is. I was a little concerned about the mass of fruit blocking the CO2 getting out, but it was bubbling away okay this morning.
I was expecting a slow start as it's pretty cold here at the moment so the yeast won't activate as fast, but the standard is going along strong. Because it was watered down to make up the volume difference, I expect it to be finished first and have less ABV (less honey). It certainly seems further along with it's yeast cake than the berry one.
I noticed a big glob of bacteria-iness in the berry one this morning.
I'm reasonably certain it's just the nutrient + yeast as for the first two I dropped in it on top of the must and then mixed it. I think the fruit stopped it separating more when I shook it. The second batch I put the yeast in first and then poured the must on top, which mixed it in better. I cleaned the bottles out the same way using a brewers sanitiser (it's just bleach, btw) so if it was actual bacteria I think it would have appeared in all of them?
I also had to drain some of the water from the airlocks as they were over full. Will have to keep an eye on them as I think they might be too full still.
I shall watch them closely for the next 3 days or so and I will know whether the yeast is working it's magic. Seems to me that it's all good, though!
Anywho, I'm really looking forward to the berry and chocolate meads, I think they have a good chance of turning out really interesting. The chocolate must (the mixture before it has fermented) smells pretty awesome already.
Well, that's about it for now, I guess. Not much more to do at this point other than play the waiting game. Apart from the initial 3-5 day period to ensure that all is going well, the next date of interest will be in about 2 weeks or so, when the airlock bubbling slows down to about 30 seconds between bubbles. Then it will be time to rack the mead in to a new container and leave the yeast cake behind, and then start ageing it. It may need to be racked a second or third time as well, to get to the clarity I want.
I'm okay with it being a bit cloudy, but if it's too cloudy, it's still fermenting and then I'll probably have issues when I bottle it, haha.
Once the two weeks are up and I've racked the batches in to new carboys (having two spares will come in handy for this), I plan on using the two spares to play with some rum with some woodchips and other bits and bobs.
Standard Mead Pitched: 6PM 29/07/2015
Mixed Berry Mead Pitched: 6PM 29/07/2015
Chocolate Mead Pitched: 9AM 30/07/2015
Vanilla Mead Pitched: 9AM 30/07/2015
Cheers,
Matt
