Mead Made Easy

cyser

Ingredients

  • 10 lbs honey
  • 1 oz Saaz hops
  • 2 lbs frozen blueberries
  • 1 gallon apple juice (buy the no-preservatives kind)
  • 1 pack champagne yeast (I used Red Star)

Directions

  • Bring about 3 gallons of water to a boil.
  • Add the honey, stirring until it's dissolved.
  • Bring the must back to a boil, being careful not to boil it over. You can do this by stirring it. If it starts to boil over, turn down the heat.
  • Add ½ oz Saaz hops.
  • Boil for 15 minutes, skimming off any scum that forms (it'll be beeswax, bee parts, and such from the honey, not anything you'll want to drink).
  • While it's boiling, you can get the blueberries ready, by putting them in a hop-boiling bag.
  • Reduce the heat to keep it at a simmer. It shouldn't boil again from this point on.
  • Add the blueberries, mashing the bag around a bit over the pot before you dump it in—you want to break the fruit up, to extract the juice more easily.
  • Simmer for 10 more minutes.
  • Add the remaining hops (about ½ oz).
  • Simmer for 5 more minutes, getting the fermenter ready by putting the apple juice / cider in it.
  • Add the hot must to the cider, and bring the fermenter up to 5 gallons total by adding cool water. When you pour the must into the fermenter, it'll splash, which will aerate the must. This gives the yeast the oxygen they need to get started.
  • Seal up the fermenter and wait for it to cool (overnight, perhaps).
  • When the must in the fermenter has reached about 70 degrees F, toss in the yeast, put the airlock back on the fermenter and wait.
  • This recipe will take about a month to ferment at 65 degrees or so. If the area you have set aside for your fermenter is warmer or cooler than that, your time will vary. Warmer temps make for faster fermentation. Cooler temps make for slower. If you've got a hydrometer, you can wait for the specific gravity to drop below 1.0. If not, just wait for it to bubble no more than once every five or ten minutes. If it's bubbling more often than that, let it sit longer. If the airlock goes dry, put more water in it. If you get a real vigorous fermentation and it either fills the airlock with foam or blows it clear off, don't worry. Just find the airlock, clean it up, refill it with water, and pop it back on the fermenter.
  • A couple notes here while you're waiting for your melomel to ferment: when I brewed this, the original gravity was 1.075. This is a chance to use your hydrometer if you bought one. If not, don't worry about it.
  • When fermentation slows, it's time to bottle.

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Source: John (The Coyote) Wyllie

Ingredients:

  • 4 gal fresh pressed cider (from an orchard)
  • 5 lbs honey (used local clover/alfalfa)
  • 1 tsp acid blend
  • Handful chopped raisins, or ¼ tsp grape tannin
  • 1 tbsp yeast nutrient
  • Irish moss (or other clarifier)
  • 2 tsp pectic enzyme
  • 4 campden tablets (sodium metabisulfite)
  • Epernay yeast (or champagne)

Directions:

  • Pour the cider into a sterilized 5-gallon carboy. Allow it to splash to aerate.
  • Treat overnight with campden tablets. Crush and predissolve.
  • Add the raisins to the carboy.
  • Next day heat the honey in < 1 gallon of water (160 deg 1 hr, or boil if you choose).
  • Add all other ingredients to the syrup and then add to the fermenter.
  • Use some of the treated juice to hydrate the yeast, and pitch the starter after it bubbles.
  • After a few weeks, rack to a secondary.
  • Add more finings if needed (isinglass is good) and top up with juice or honey syrup.
  • I've generally liked to let cysers, and ciders, age for a pretty long time. Most have been in fermenters for at least four months.
  • You can bottle still, or sparkling. Use ½ to ¾ cup corn sugar and champagne bottles for a nice sparkle. These have taken a long time to gain a good bubble level. They have been stored cold (55). But well worth the wait!

Notes:

A potent and pleasing fruity wine. Once mature, a clear, bubbly champagne-like mead. My dad really enjoyed this one, and he usually drinks nicer wines. I was flattered. He kept grabbing the bottle at dinner!

If you rack several times you can eliminate most of the sediment, and only have a fine layer in the bottle. I prefer to keep the priming down, because they seem to continue fermenting slowly for a long time. I've had a batch carbonate without priming! So much for a still wine! You could stabilize and sweeten to taste if you choose. Bottling with teas is a nice addition. I've used cinnamon, but I'd bet ginger, or a tad of clove would be nice.

Specifics:

  • OG: ~1.070 Will vary depending on source of cider.
  • FG: 1.000.

Dave's Notes:

As I've commented elsewhere in the recipes, with what I've learned over the years, I would add the acid blend to this recipe after the first or second racking, rather than at the beginning. As this recipe can ferment quite dry, very little acid is needed to balance it, so taste first, and only add what's needed.

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This is called Hangover Cyser because I'm usually making it while hungover, not because of any particularly ill effects it has.

Source: Dave Polaschek

Ingredients:

  • Gallon glass jug of apple juice (plastic is no good, since you're going to be fermenting in this jug)
  • Pint jar of honey (1.5 lbs)
  • 12 oz can of fruit juice concentrate (no preservatives). Grape and Cranberry are among my favorites. I've avoided citrusy things so far.
  • Heaping tablespoon yeast energizer
  • Red Star Champagne yeast

Directions:

  • Pour 48 oz of apple juice out of the bottle. This is about enough to ease the hangovers of two people.
  • Drink some of the apple juice you've poured off.
  • Pour the honey into the apple-juice jug along with the yeast energizer.
  • Drink some more apple juice.
  • Shake like the dickens until honey is dissolved, or head spins too much. Repeat until the honey is completely dissolved.
  • Drink some more apple juice.
  • Add the can of juice-concentrate.
  • Shake the jug again. This time should be easier.
  • Finish the apple juice you've poured off, and add yeast to the shaken mix, which should be about at the shoulder of the gallon jug. Attach airlock, and get on with your life.
  • Between a month and three later, the fermentation will be done, and you can bottle. If fermentation stops early, rack and add more yeast energizer and yeast.

Notes:

  • We first made this while we were writing this book initially. The recipe didn't make the first (paper) edition of the book, but the result turned out good enough that I had to write the recipe down. It's also an easy enough recipe that when he saw me make this, Tim Mitchell said “Hey! Even I can make mead like that!”
  • There are only a few things you can do wrong with this. One is to add too much honey. The recipe as listed above makes for a starting gravity of about 1.120, which is about as high of an initial gravity as you want to use. If you're going to add more honey than that, do it in stages.
  • The result of this recipe is a fairly strong, fairly smooth drink. Cranberry juice concentrate makes for a tasty holiday wine. Grape and apple flavors mix nicely, too. Just remember that whatever kind of juice you add needs to blend with apple, and you'll be fine.

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