#10 - Basic Mead [Extract]

While the other Mead #7 was brewing I was eager to get another Mead in the pipeline given that a Mead pipeline can be measured in years rather than months for beer. I had been reading around and felt that the previous brew had been unnecessarily complicated. I reduced the amount of ingredients and made my own guide to brewing the must so that it would be clearer in future. 

Simple Mead Recipe

•  1.2kg     pure raw honey                  (for sweet, stronger Mead)

• 5              Litres spring water            (Bottled, not tap unless chlorine free)

• 1              tsp. yeast nutrient            (Citrix Additive)

• 1              tsp. Nutmeg                       (main flavour)

• 5              tsp Mellon balls                (stuff for yeast to eat)

• 3              slices lime                           (stuff for yeast to eat)

• 1/4          tsp. Irish moss                   (to clarify Mead)

• 1/2          packet yeast                      (ale yeast)

Bring 1.5L of water to the boil. Take off the heat, add the honey and stir in until dissolved. Add the nutmeg, yeast nutrient and put back on the heat. Skim off the protein scum as it forms and boil for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to prevent boil overs if necessary. Add Irish moss and continue to boil for another 5 minutes. More scum, protein and clumps will form due to the Irish moss. Skim all of this off. Take off the heat and add all of the fruit. Allow the liquid to cool for 60 minutes.  

Add 0.5L of cool water to a sanitised demijohn; this prevents thermal shock when hot liquid added. Using a funnel and sieve, pour the mixture into the demi john and top up the liquid to the 1 gallon mark leaving enough head space for the krausen to form. Fill a sink with water and ice and gently lower the demijohn into it. This will cool the mixture to a temperature which is suitable for pitching the yeast. Add the yeast once the temperature has dropped below 25oC. 18-20 oC is preferable if you have patience. Bung the demijohn and shake the mixture to mix the yeast and aerate the mixture. Insert air lock and store in a cool, dark location for a month before racking to secondary. 

OG should be in the 1090 – 1100 range, FG should be 1000 or less

I racked the yeast after one month and took a small sample for tasting. If you compare this sample to that from brew #7, it can be seen that this one is a lot cloudier. This is to be expected as it was only fermenting for 1 month and hasn't had the same amount of time to settle. The taste from this recipe was delicious and was completely unexpected this early on! I figure the sweetness was due to an unfinished fermentation and the fact that I used ale yeast this time instead of the nasty champaign yeast. In theory the ale yeast shouldn't be able to ferment to the same level and should begin to die at 8 or 9% volume?  I don't have full faith in that assumption as it didn't work to well with the cider in brew #4. 

I am considering stabilising the fermentation to maintain the flavour as I feel it tastes great now and doesn't need any more. I will leave it go for another month and rack it again and taste it again to see what it is like. If it is still ok I will stabilise and perhaps add some bentonite to clear it further before bottling. 

Stats:
Started - 11.7.11
Racked -  28.8.11
Finished - NA
Bottled - NA
Code - 1010
Yeast Brand - Coopers Ale Yeast
Yeast Code - 19310 IPA
Y-Temp - 25.0
Beer/Product Type -   Basic Mead
Malt/Sugar Type - 1.2kG honey + limited Flavours
Volume -  5L
OG - 1091
FG - NA
Proof  - NA

#7 - Viking Mead [Extract]

Years ago, when I went to Wacken in Germany I was introduced to mead for the first time. It was absolutely delicious! From what I can remember it was definitely a sweet mead, which had a slightly red colour to it but I cant remember tasting any spices. I would speculate that it had low alcohol content (5% at a guess) as I drank a lot of it over several days and never really got drunk from it. My guess would be that it was racked to secondary with a load of cherries to give it the red colour.

I spent a lot of time searching around for a nice Mead recipe. There aren't that many sources of 'Viking' recipes and inevitably I came across a good recipe on one of the less well known mead websites. This recipe is for a 19L batch but I didn't want to brew something that large while having now idea how it would turn out. I instead attempted to scale back the recipe to suit a 5L batch.

The Ingredients for a 5L Batch of Mead

Mead Recipe

• 1.2kg pure raw honey (for sweet, stronger Mead)

• 5 Litres spring water (Bottled, not tap unless chlorine free)

• 1 tsp. yeast nutrient (Citrix Additive)

• 1 tsp. acid blend (combination malic/citric acid)

• 2 oz. sliced ginger root (1 finger's length)

• 1-2 whole cloves (optional, as desired)

• <1 vanilla beans (optional, as desired)

• <1 cinnamon (optional, as desired)

• 1 Allspice (optional, as desired)

• <1 crushed fruit (peaches, strawberries, grapes, pineapple, apple & others)

• 1/4 tsp. Irish moss (to clarify Mead)

• 1/2 packet yeast (Ale yeast )

The process of preparing the mead can be seen in the instructions on the original recipe but my main advice is don't try to make this in a 2L pot!  I ended up making the mead using 2 pots, I spilt bits of it everywhere and the entire kitchen and living room table was sticky for several days despite cleaning!

This is the stages of the mead over several months, it has a slightly red hue which goes away while the yeast is active during the initial fermentation and then is visible again once it beings to clear. In the 3rd image I was racking it for a 2nd time after 2 months ageing. It was at this point that I took my first sample.

It looks a a lot clearer in the glass than when it is in the demijohn but after the first taste I immediately regretted using the champaign yeast. It was extremely dry and I forgot to take a SG reading but I would guess it was at or below 1000 giving an alcohol content of over 12%. I don't think any amount of ageing is going to make this mead taste better. I am considering stabilising the fermentation and adding some dextrose to back sweeten but that mightn't be enough to save it. The spices mainly contributed to the aroma but it has definitely faded over time. I read somewhere that its sometimes recommended to make a 'spice tea' later and add it to the brew which I may consider the next time. Either way it is still ageing in the demijohn while I decide what to do with it.

Stats:

Started - 4.6.11
Racked - 7.7.11
Finished - NA
Bottled - NA
Code - 1007
Yeast Brand - Young's Champagne
Yeast Code - 28032013
Y-Temp - 26.0 
Beer/Product Type -  Viking Mead
Malt/Sugar Type - 1.2kg Honey + multiple flavours
Volume -  5L
OG - 1092
FG - NA
Proof  - NA

#4 - Pomegranate Honey Cider [Juice]

I can't remember where I got this recipe for this brew but it was really an experiment and my first time to make a smaller batch in a 5Litre Demijohn. I felt a bit guilty that I was making all this beer and SWMBO only really drinks very specific brands of cider. So this was my attempt to make a drink that she would like and I got her to make most of it too. :)

Everything that I used for the recipe can be seen above. I made sure to get pure pressed juice that didn't have any preservatives as this doesn't agree with the yeast too well apparently. It wasn't that much expensive than the concentrate so all was fine there.

Unfortunately after this point everything went to complete shit. I forgot to boil the sugar and honey to pasteurise them and I just dumped the two of them in on top of the juice like an animal! This didn't seem to matter in the long term as no noticeable infection occurred as a result. I gave everything a big shake, checked the temperature, took the gravity reading and then WTF 1081 !!!!! All my gravity readings up until this point had been in the 1040 - 1050 region and this one completely blew it out of the water. I had been expecting it to be on the high side but not that high,  I read around on the internet and deluded myself into thinking it would be fine and the yeast would simply die in the high alcohol content.

It didn't die.

It kept fermenting all the way down to 1004 giving a final alcohol content of nearly 11%!!! I bottled it and thought it would be fine after 3 or 4 weeks 'aging' in the bottles. It wasn't fine. When I opened the first bottle I poured it out into a glass, I didn't even have to sniff the glass I could smell it from a distance. It smelt vile. The taste was out of this world in terms of disgusting things I had consumed! I gave some to SWMBO and I thought she was going to start crying the taste was that bad!

If I was ever to attempt this recipe in the future I would take gravity readings on the 3rd or 4th day of fermentation and see what the gravity was. When it got to a value that would give a 5% alcohol content I would then stop the fermentation by killing the yeast. Unfortunately I don't know how I would carbonate the bottles if I did this.

Stats:

Started - 15.5.11
Racked - NA
Finished - 28.5.11
Bottled - 30.5.11
Code - 1004
Yeast Brand - Coopers Standard Ale Yeast
Yeast Code - 15310W
Y-Temp - 22.5
Beer/Product Type -  4L Apple Juice, 07L Pomegranate Juice
Malt/Sugar Type - 300g Honey, 300g Sugar
Volume -  5L
OG - 1081
FG - 1004
Proof  - 10.8% (Including 0.5% for priming)