Mead Made Easy

Blueberry Mead

(properly, a melomel)

Ingredients

10 pounds light clover honey
4 pounds frozen blueberries
1 oz Saaz hops (½ bitter, ½ finish)
1 pkg WyYeast champagne yeast

Directions

Add honey to boiling water.
Bring back to a boil, skimming any scum that forms.
Add bittering hops.
Boil 15 minutes.
Reduce heat to a low simmer.
Add fruit. Simmer 10 minutes.
Add finishing hops. Simmer 5 minutes.
Into the fermenter with it.

OG 1.080, FG 0.995.

Notes

Make it just like you would a beer. Rack into a secondary fermenter after about a week or so, and leave it in there for about a month. Leave it in the bottles for a month or so. Prime with ½ cup honey. No need for yeast nutrient as there's plenty of fruit that'll supply what it needs.

#recipe #howTo #melomel

Cold Mead

This is the more traditional (pre-1600s) way to make mead. The only thing that's changed since then is that we're (at least most of us) not living in the Old World where the wild yeasts are friendlier. New World wild yeasts haven't had as many years of coexisting with humans brewing stuff. In general, good sanitation, getting any chlorine out of the water, and proper aeration will make for good mead.

Raspberry Cooler

Ingredients

8 lbs dark wildflower honey
4 oz raspberry extract
1 lb frozen raspberries
½ oz Saaz hops
2 pkgs Red Star champagne yeast

Directions

Mix 8 lbs dark wildflower honey in 4 gallons cold water, stirring until the honey's all dissolved. Splashing it around is good, as you want to make sure the must is well-aerated.
Add 4 oz raspberry extract.
Mush up the fruit, and throw that in the fermenter, too.
Toss in ½ oz Saaz hops. This is dry-hopping, and they'll spend their life in the fermenter.
Add 2 pkgs Red Star champagne yeast, sit back, and wait.

Notes

The dark honey and the raspberry extract make an interesting combination. I'm not sure if I'd use the whole 4 oz bottle of extract again, but it's about right to balance the strong flavor of the dark honey. If you use a lighter honey, use a little less extract. Over time, the raspberry flavor kind of gives out, so this is a mead that's better without too much aging. Three to six months was good, but bottles saved longer than that were missing the raspberry flavor.

#recipe #howTo #melomel

Blueberry-Jasmine Mead

Source: Alan Derr

Mead Lover's Digest #122, 1 May, 1993

Ingredients:

10 lb clover honey (basic, grocery store variety)
2-12 oz bags of frozen Maine wild blueberries
¼ cup jasmine tea (dry)
3 tsp pectic enzyme
3 tsp yeast nutrient
1 pkg Red Star Champagne yeast

Directions:

The honey, blueberries, pectic enzyme, and yeast nutrient were added to about 2 gal of water and raised and held at 170 F for 25 minutes. I squished the blueberries and strained them about halfway through the heating process. This mixture was then poured into a carboy with water to make a bit less than 5 gallons. I then boiled about 2 cups of water, steeped the tea for several minutes and strained it into the carboy. When cool, I pitched the dry yeast (I know, I should know better than to use dry yeast...).
OK. Time passes. Fermentation happens. It stops. I taste the result. The jasmine was a bit too heavy, but I figure it will probably mellow with age. The blueberry smell, flavor, and color was kind of underwhelming. The main problem was, the resulting mead was thin-bodied and dry as a bone. Now I want a fairly dry mead, but this was way too much so.
So next, I heated:
- 2 lb clover honey
- 12 oz frozen wild blueberries
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 tsp pectic enzyme in a quart or so of water, squished and strained, and added this mixture to the carboy.
Fermentation started again (slowly) and has continued for the past couple of months. It is now crystal clear, has a beautiful purple color, nice blueberry and jasmine aromas, and a very nice mouthfeel (not to mention a fairly high alcohol content!).

Notes:

1st OG: 1.067
1st FG: 0.990 (before 2nd addition of honey)
2nd OG: 1.004 (after 2nd addition of honey)
2nd FG: 0.996

Cranberry Mead

Source: John (The Coyote) Wyllie

Mead Lover's Digest #243, 9 December, 1993

Ingredients (for 2 gallons):

1 gal Oceanspray cranberry juice. (Good jug too!)
5 lb vernal honey (clover-alfalfa)
Palmful raisins, chopped
1 tsp yeast nutrient
½ tsp acid blend
Champagne yeast

Directions:

Heat the honey with some water (1:1 is fine). Pasteurize or boil. I campden-treated the juice. Shouldn't really need it though. Add the rest of the goods, divide the juice between two gallon jugs. Divide honey mixture. Pitch yeast, bring up to a full gallon. (10/17/92)
I fermented one in a closet upstairs (60s) and one in the basement at lower 50s. They both fermented forever. In January I transferred to a secondary. The SG was 1.010. Added 2 cups/gallon dissolved corn sugar to top it up. The upstairs one was bottled 1/31. It was, and still is, cloudy.
The downstairs one was bottled 7/5. It was clearer, sweet and strong. It did finally clear. and was significantly better than the first.

Notes:

Some of this broth lasted a full year. The last bottle disappeared with my folks at X-mas, celebrating their survival of the Pasadena fires. It is very sweet, and tasty. Nicely balanced. It has become lightly carbonated—even though it's corked. Nice touch though. Light red/orange color, clear, fruity nose. It has a full body, almost syrupy, and is quite strong!

#recipe #melomel #metheglin

Grapefruit Melomel

Source: John (The Coyote) Wyllie

Mead Lover's Digest #214, 24 September, 1993

Ingredients:

7 lb Clover Honey
6 (medium) grapefruit
1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
Dash of acid blend
½ oz cascade hops (used as finishing hops)
1 tbsp pectic enzyme
1 tbsp sparkalloid
Champagne yeast

Directions:

Mix honey into a couple gallons heated water.
Bring to a boil.
Skim scum.
Grate peel from grapefruits and juice them.
Add peel, hops and acid blend to boil.
Add juice when heat goes off.
Cool by adding cold water.
Pitch yeast.
Ferment for a month.
Rack to secondary.
Add pectic enzyme and sparkalloid.
Ferment until done
Rack again, and bottle with ¾ cup corn sugar.

Notes:

It was a grapefruit melomel mead brewed in Feb, `92. I didn't take gravity readings, but it was a pretty light mead. It was bottled maybe two or three months later. After a month or two in the bottle it had carbonated, but smelled like vomit. Had a sour citrusy aftertaste. Not pleasant.

I put it away for a long time, and a year later it was clear, sparkling, and smelled nicely citrus. The pukey smell had cleared. It did taste like grapefruit, but more gently so. It may have been a bit too acid. A nice champagne-like presentation. You could even make raisin submarines in it. (If you've never tried this, drop a wrinkly raisin in a glass of clear sparkly mead, and be amazed!!! Fun for the whole family! Up and down!) The take-home lesson here was: age is a good thing. Be patient! Some meads are very harsh young, but can age beautifully, and become quite enjoyable.

Dave's Notes:

See also my notes from the Citrus Mead in which I discuss how citrus zest can kill yeast and stop a fermentation.

#recipe #metheglin #melomel

Jamaica Blue Mead

Source: Guy McConnell

Ingredients:

6 lb clover honey
1 lb orange blossom honey
1.5 lb corn sugar
2 oz fresh, minced ginger root
3 tsp ground cinnamon
3 tsp yeast extract
1 gal fresh blueberries
2 lemons, halved
Wyeast #1214 Belgian Ale Yeast
0.5 cup orange blossom honey (bottling)

Directions:

Put honey, corn sugar, and yeast extract in brewpot with water.
Simmer for 10 minutes, skimming foam with kitchen strainer.
Add ginger root and simmer for 10 more minutes without skimming.
Remove from heat, squeeze in lemons, and throw into brewpot.
Cover and let stand for 15 minutes.
Strain out lemon halves and ginger.
Add blueberries, chill, pour mixture (blueberries and all) into primary fermenter, and pitch yeast.
After 7 days, rack off of fruit into secondary and age for one to two months.
When fermentation is complete, prepare a `tea' by simmering cinnamon and honey in water for 15 minutes in a covered pot.
Cool, add to bottling bucket, and quietly siphon in must.
Bottle and age for a couple of months or so.

Notes:

This makes a nice, light, sparkling beverage that is a brilliantly clear rose-purple color. The flavor is of blueberries kissed with cinnamon. A wonderful change of pace for a summer drink at about 5% alcohol by weight.

Mulberry Mead (Morat)

Source: John (The Coyote) Wyllie

Ingredients:

6 lb fresh picked mulberries
5 lb snowberry honey
3 lb corn sugar
2 cups raisins- chopped
2 tsp sodium-bisulfate
Pris-de-Mouse yeast

Directions:

Pick through berries, remove leaves, grubs...etc.
Process berries.
Add hot water to honey to dissolve.
Add sugar and processed raisins.
Mix processed berries and sugar mix.
Add sodium-bisulfate (campden), mix well and leave overnight.
Next day, add water to bring up to 5 gallons.
Pitch yeast (7/1/93).
Racked a couple of times.
Bottled on 9/2/93 with ¾ cup corn and demererra sugar (mixed).

Notes:

My girlfriend has a tree outside her house. Birds eat the fallen berries, become intoxicated and get hit in the road. So I thought I should remove some of the berries, save a couple birds. They were deep purple to red. The mead tasted good at bottling. It slowly became sparkling, and now is like a light sparkling burgundy. Quite fruity, but has a wine-like quality. It is fairly dry, but does have a berry-sweetness I find very enjoyable. It cleared beautifully, and has a deep red color, but easy to see through. The thing that surprised me was how good it was young. I rarely have meads taste good young (see grapefruit recipe!), but this one did!

Specifics:

OG: 1.070
FG: 0.990

#recipe #morat #melomel

Royal Colors Melomel

Source: Dave Suda

Ingredients (for 7 gallons):

19 lbs alfalfa or other lightly flavored honey
10 pints blueberries
4 oz lemon juice
10 g Flor sherry yeast

Directions:

Heat 5 gal of water to 160 F (70 C)
Add the honey, mashed blueberries, and lemon juice.
Raise the must to 180 F (80 C), hold for 15 min, then chill.
Rehydrate the yeast in 1 cup of 90 F (35 C) water for 5 min.
Divide the must into two 4-gallon food grade plastic buckets and pitch half the yeast in each.
Ferment for one week and rack off the fruit into a 5 gal carboy and two 1-gallon jugs.
Allow to ferment to completion and clear (in my case this took eight months), racking every four months.
Bottle with ½ cup corn sugar per 5 gallons.

Notes:

This is a semi-dry blueberry melomel that took a first place at the 1992 Mazer Cup. The mead is a beautiful purple with an intense blueberry aroma when young. As it ages, the fruit aroma becomes more brandy-like.

Specifics:

OG: 1.099
FG: 1.009

Strawberry Melomel

Source: Dick Dunn

Mead Lover's Digest #171, 10 July, 1993

Ingredients:

6 lbs clover honey
4 lbs alfalfa honey
12 lbs strawberries
Red Star Prise de Mousse yeast
4 oz dextrose (bottling)

Directions:

Start the yeast in about a pint of water with a few tablespoons of dextrose. Be sure the starter solution and jar are sterile, and at 70-80 F before adding yeast. This yeast should start quickly—a few hours at most.
Clean and hull the strawberries; chop into a few pieces. (Don't crush them or you'll have an impossible mess at racking.) Put them into a sanitized plastic-pail primary.
Bring 4 gallons of water to a full boil. Remove from heat and immediately add the honey; stir thoroughly. (This will sterilize the honey without cooking the flavor out of it.) Cool to about 150-160 F, pour over the berries in the primary fermenter. Cool to pitching temperature (below 80 F) and add yeast starter. Stir thoroughly to mix and aerate.
Every day or two, push the floating mass of strawberries down into the fermenting mead (the equivalent of a winemaker's punching down the cap).
After the strawberries have become very pale—probably ten days or more—strain out as much of the strawberry mass as possible, then rack into a glass carboy. Be prepared for the racking tube to clog. (A stainless Chore Boy over the bottom end of the tube will help.)
Ferment to completion. If necessary, fine with gelatin. Prime with the 4 oz (by weight) of dextrose dissolved in water; bottle using crown caps.

Notes:

12 lbs strawberries in a 5-gallon batch seemed like a lot at first, but it has worked out right. This gives a pronounced strawberry nose and taste, nothing subtle about it. You could use as much as 15 lbs (3 lbs/gallon) of fruit. I used frozen strawberries...naturally, these are mushier and more likely to create pulp that's hard to manage in the primary, but they also release juice more readily.
The blend of honey was intended to not to mask the strawberry flavor. This turned out not to be an issue; you could shift the balance more toward the alfalfa or other stronger honey. Keep in mind that strawberries don't have a lot of sugar in them. They contribute flavor but not much fermentable.
The mead fermented out in about eight weeks. I have no real idea what the true starting gravity was; it's just not possible to get a useful number with the fruit in it. It finished at 0.991.
We were serving the mead and getting good reviews at sixteen weeks from the start of fermentation (eight weeks after bottling). After almost a year from start, the strawberry character is still holding true.

Dave's Note:

After some discussion on the Mead Lover's Digest, Micah Millspaw suggested adding a small amount of vanilla extract, and his mead did extremely well in the competition it was entered into. He suggests about 1 Tbs vanilla extract per gallon of mead. He also suggested using ale yeast, which is a suggestion I agree with.