Howdy, i normally brew beer in 5 batches and my wife wants me to do a batch of strawberry mead for her...I would like to do at least a 5 gallon batch.....does anyone out there have a good recipe that they would not mind sharing?????? thanks, scotty
By the way this will more than likely produce a very potent mead that you wont notice in the taste. Caution in drinking is advised. Also, you might need to stabalize the yeast before adding the strawberry to prevent it from drying out. I didn't have too much of a problem as I am a bit lazy on racking and waited a month before racking it onto the strawberries. By then the fermentaiton was not perceptable.
Stawberry? I have a good recipie. Might be very sweet though.
20 pounds honey (better quality the better, I used local alphafa honey)
1 tablespoon yeast energizer
1 tablespoon yeast nutrient
2 packets of lavin D-47 yeast
4 gallons of distilled or bottled water.
14 pounds of strawberries.
Note the strawberry will be in the secondary and wont be needed for a couple of weeks.
First step will be to take the honey and 2 gallons of water in a stock pot and disolve the honey. Bring to temp of about 140 to 150 for about 5 min to pastorize (basically kill off the wild yeast. Scrape off the top any scum that surfaces, should be a little. While it is coming to temp put the yeast in a cup of room temp fruit juice so it is nice and active. It is also best to chill the other two gallons of water the previous night to speed up cooling time. Once the honey water got up to 140-150 for 5 min (NOT BOILING) take off of heat, then put in the chilled water to bring down the temp. Wait until it is down to at least 80-85 degree Farien height, candy thermomiters work great. When cool toss in the reactivated yeast and the yeast nutrient and energizer. Give some really good stirs to put oxygen into it. Some people like to whip the snot out of a bit of the mix in a blender and then stir it in. All a matter of taste. Then after getting good air into it transfer to the carboy and cap the carboy with an airlock that will let the co2 out. Let perkalate for around 2 weeks. Until it slows down to about 1 bubble a minute. Or when it slows to a crawl. This is when you rack it.
Step 2 will be preping the strawberries. I like to juice it. Some like to just slice it up and put it in a mesh bag. Last time I made it I pureed it and put it in a bag. If you have a juicer that would be ideal just juice the strawberries after you remove the green. Then you don't have to put it in a mesh bag.
Put the juice in the carboy that you are racking it to first and then trasfer the mead to it. Be sure to have an extra glass gallon container or two in case of overflow so you can rack the excess to it, then blend it into it later as you loose volume on the successive rackings. Then just rack again about once a month. It should be ready to bottle in about 6-7 months, racking ever 1-2 months depending on clairity and sediment. I did mine in about 4-5 rackings. After bottling be sure to let sit (or age as the term is) for at least 6 months to a year. Then you will have a very strawberry and very sweet mead. Some like to cut back on the honey and do 12-18 pounds and you can go lower on the strawberries depending on how strawberry you want it say 8-10 would be lowering it from the original 14 pounds I used. What can I say. I love honey and strawbery and very sweet desert meads.
Good luck. Remember sanitize and air dry equipment before using it.
I definitely want to try this. When you've made it before (anyone), did you really wait a whole year before you had some?
I think I'm going to try it first with strawberries in the primary. Strawberries bought. I hope I have enough honey.
I may put more strawberries in the secondary, depends on what it tastes like when I sample.
I know I definitely won't wait a whole year to try it, but i will definitely save some for a year and taste the differences.
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