biggrigs173

Recipes 

I have been home brewing beer for some time now and would like to make the cross into mead making. I currently live in Sicily and bought 8kg, roughly 18 pounds, of delicious wild flower honey from a local bee keeper. Help me turn it into mead! I am looking for someone to help me come up with a basic recipe to make a five gallon batch. I would like to make something basic that will show off the flavors of the natural honey. Any help you guys can provide will be most appreciated.

sonofgrok

Recipes 

Do you want a sweet or dry mead?

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"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." ~Ernest Hemingway

Arpolis

Recipes 

Try this for a simple traditional recipe:

5 gallon traditional

5.5 kg of honey (just over 12 lb)
2.5tsp of DAP (yeast nutrients)
3tsp of yeast energizer
Water to 5 gallons

Yeast starter

2cups water
1/2 cup honey
1/4 tsp DAP
10 golden or normal raisins torn in half
yeast Lalvin K1V-1116

First make your starter. Mix it all together and sprinkle the yeast on top, do not stir it in. Let this sit 8 hours.

Next mix all of the other ingredients lack 2tsp of yeast energizer. You will mix that in 1 tsp at a rime 24 & 38 hours after yeast pitch.

Once your starter and must is ready then pitch the yeast but strain the raisins out. Make sure to aerate the must a lot at the start and twice a day for the first 5 days. A wine whip chucked into a drill works wonders. If you are cheap like me you can make a wine whip out of a coat hanger.

Let this sit at minimum 2 months.

Then rack off the lees into a new Carboy and top off with a little water to reduce head space or rack into smaller containers.

Let this sit another month to let any additional yeast drop out. Once clear enough to read newspaper through then do a final racking onto 5 crushed Camden tablets and 2.5tsp of potassium sorbate. That will stabilize the mead so if you choose to back sweeten with more honey then fermentation will not start up.

Taking gravity readings while back sweetening, 1.01 = semi sweet, 1.02 = sweet, 1.03 = desert mead. I like my wines/meads between 1.01-1.015.

This can start to get food in as little as 8 months and will get real good after 1 year of aging.

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A painting says a thousand words. But a painting while on good mead just looks funny!

vespa2t

Recipes 

Honestly, if this is your first go at mead, do some 4l batches first to try different things rather than make 20l. The honey won't go bad as you have a smaller batch going.

Buona fortuna

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-Paul O.
Vintage Vespa, Classic Mini Cooper, and Fermentation. Thats my life.

biggrigs173

Recipes 

I would like to do a dry mead. Vespa2t, are you in Italy?

Onihige

Recipes 

He can make a 20 liter batch and THEN split it. Seems smarter, to me at least.

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This isn't a beer belly, It's a fuel tank for a love machine.

vespa2t

Recipes 

Can't try different yeasts and ferment temps if you do that...

And no I'm in Kansas... Been to Sigonella a bunch of times for work though

__________________
-Paul O.
Vintage Vespa, Classic Mini Cooper, and Fermentation. Thats my life.

biggrigs173

Recipes 

Have you ever found a place to get homebrew supplies over here? The shipping costs from Midwest are adding up fast.

Onihige

Recipes 

I could ask an Italian friend, whom I help with his first mead. Kinda weird helping a guy who grew up on a wineyard. :P

Edit: Not Sicily, I think, but domestic shipping should be cheaper and faster: http://www.mr-malt.it/
Edit2: And if that NOT cheaper. DAMN you Americans! That store is 60% cheaper than the stores in Sweden. :P

__________________
This isn't a beer belly, It's a fuel tank for a love machine.