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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(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.
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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.
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The first batch of recipes are from the Mead-Lover's Digest. We've edited them for clarity, while also trying to preserve the spirit of the originals. Also, we've tried to touch the authors' original comments as little as possible, since some of them cover things I haven't covered yet in the book. I hope you find them helpful. Here's a blurb on the MLD that its coordinator asked we include:
The Mead-Lover's Digest is an electronic forum for meadmakers and mead-lovers to discuss all aspects of mead: recipes, ingredients, techniques, history. (Most of the day-to-day discussion tends to be about making mead).
To sign up for the Digest: Send e-mail with the subject “Subscribe”, with your full name and your e-mail address in the message, to: The Mead Lover's Digest
About the Digest: The Mead-Lover's Digest was created in Fall, 1992 to help people interested in mead find one another, discuss mead, and exchange information.
An issue of the Digest is sent out about every two or three days, depending on the amount of material submitted. As of April, 1997, more than 550 issues of the Digest had appeared. A typical issue is between 200 and 500 lines (about 8 – 30 KB). Distribution is worldwide.
The Digest is a non-commercial, strictly volunteer effort by/for mead folk. The caretaker of the digest is currently Dick Dunn.
And here are a few more of Dave's recipes, new to the 1995 html version of this book.
Note also that the #recipe hashtag should show all the pages within Mead Made Easy which I have tagged as recipes.
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Source: John Gorman
Mead Lover's Digest #19, 17 October, 1993
Ingredients:
- 5-6 qts honey or 7-8 qts maple syrup (bulk grade B dark)
- 5 tsp yeast nutrient
- 15 grams white wine yeast
Directions:
- Relax, don't worry, have some mead.
- Hydrate the yeast and dissolve the yeast nutrient separately in warm water for 30 minutes. Mix the honey, maple syrup, or both with first hot and then cold tap water in a large open container to about 5 gallons. Splash or spray the water to oxygenate the must so that the yeast will multiply. Pour the must into a glass carboy, then pitch in the hydrated yeast and dissolved yeast nutrient, dregs included.
- Use a blow off tube for the first few days and then switch to a water trap. In a month or so, the alcohol will kill the yeast before it runs out of sugar. If not, and the mead turns out too dry, add some more honey. It is ready to drink as soon as fermentation stops.
- Maple wine becomes crystal clear with a beautiful sherry color within sixty days. Mead will sometimes clarify in ninety days. If you choose to bottle the mead before it is clear, it will clarify in the bottles, leaving an unsightly but delicious sediment.
- Use bentonite (clay) to quickly clarify a mead any time after fermentation stops. Boil 12 ounces of water in a saucepan. While simmering, slowly sprinkle and stir in 5 tsp of bentonite. Cover and let stand for 24 hours. Add during racking. It may be necessary to rack and bentonite twice. The result is crystal clear.
Notes:
- Traditional Meads and Maple Wines have an alcohol content of 12-15%.
- Always use yeast nutrient and plenty of yeast for a strong start. The fermentation will take off with a bang and the rapidly rising alcohol content will quickly kill off any wild yeast. There is no need to sulfite, heat, or boil the must. Why ruin good honey? I have never had a bad batch of mead, except when I added acid blend.
Dave's Notes:
John's comment about acid blend here is a good one. I almost always avoid acid blend pre-fermentation. And because I mostly ferment my meads dry, I don't need to add acid to balance out the sweetness when the mead is done. But if you are making a sweet mead, a little acid blend can be added near the end. Add a small amount, let it sit for a day or two, and test. Don't overdo it.
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Source: Sir Kenelme Digbie, updated by Michael Tighe
Mead Lover's Digest #211, 21 September, 1993
Ingredients:
- 10 lbs honey
- Citrus peel (about ¾ the skin of one orange)
- Sliced ginger (about the size of a thumb)
- Yeast
Directions:
- Make a basic mead with 2 lbs of honey per gallon. Use a clover honey or a light wildflower honey for this recipe. Just before taking the must off the boil, add a small amount of sliced ginger (about the size of one's thumb for a 5-gallon batch) and then add the thinnest peel of orange skin (about ¾ of the skin of the orange). Be careful not to get the white pith of the skin—it leaves a bitter/soapy aftertaste.
- Let it cool naturally about ¾ hour (longer for larger batches) and then remove the ginger and orange peel. Put in a carboy to cool, then add yeast and let it go for three to six weeks (I usually let it go till it starts to clear). Bottle, let sit for another week or two (to charge the bottles) and then chill and serve.
Notes:
I've made this with lemon peel or grapefruit peel instead of orange peel, and all taste great! If you use orange blossom honey, use orange peel rather than some other citrus fruit—it really enhances the flavor! Grapefruit is the strongest flavor, and the most likely to be bitter/harsh, so use less of it than for orange or lemon. Leave some of the ginger and the skin in the must during fermentation for stronger flavor.
Use less ginger and less citrus skin for the first batches, and then increase the amounts till you get the exact flavor you want. (One friend used a pound of ginger per gallon! And he liked it!)
The slow-cool method (rather than using a chiller) is supposed to be part of what makes the flavor great.
I prefer mead yeasts if possible, but champagne or general purpose wine yeast works fine. This should create a slightly sweet mead with an alcohol content of three or four percent.
Dave's Notes:
Clayton Cone from Lallemand got asked about putting orange (or other citrus zest) into mead, and he pointed out that The substance involved is d-limonine, one of the oils present in orange peel. It kills micro-organisms. Including yeast. The zest of one citrus fruit per liter of must is definitely enough to kill yeast.
After much discussion on the Mead Lover's Digest, we figured that best practice was to add the citrus zest late in fermentation (you can freeze it after you take it off the fruit when initially making your mead), when you've reached the point of not being certain if the fermentation is complete or not. But if you are looking to bottle-carbonate, be aware that a lot of zest may prevent the yeast from carbonating the mead in the bottles, and you may end up with a sweet mead, rather than a bubbly one.
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Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee
Source: Microburst Brewery (Forrest Cook and Jon Corbet)
Mead Lover's Digest #123, 1 May, 1993
Ingredients (for 7 gallons):
- 9 lbs of mesquite honey from Tempe, AZ
- 2 tbsp gypsum to harden up the water a bit
- 4-ounce bottle of Madagascar vanilla extract
Directions:
- Vanilla extract added after the must cooled.
- The unfermented beverage tasted great, it's been bubbling away for over a month. I don't know how many vanilla beans are in one bottle, but I've heard that they are rather potent.
Notes:
The inspiration for this recipe came from a mead that was poured at the Beer and Steer, a large outdoor homebrewers party held in Colorado occasionally.
As this mead has aged, the vanilla flavor has become more pronounced. For the next batch, we will probably increase the vanilla extract to 6 oz. At nine months the flavor is still improving, I project that it will be incredible at eighteen months—if there is any left.
Dave's Notes:
I made a mead based on this recipe, except I went nuts with the vanilla. I had a 16 oz bottle of Mexican vanilla extract, and I put in the whole thing. I don't think it was too much vanilla, and most people agreed. The other major change was that I used a real dark “wildflower blend” of honey, which balanced the strong vanilla flavor nicely.
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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
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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!
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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.
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