Mead in my future???

[NYeric]

I have been wondering about mead for years. I have never tasted it, but always wanted to.

What is the taste like and the consistency?

What would be a good mead for a first batch?

 

[fatboy570]

All I can say is make some. I wondered about it myself for a couple years, then got a mead kit from my LHBS. I used fresh blackberries and raspberries for flavoring, loved it, and have made several batches since. They also have purees you can use if you cant get fresh fruit. www.homebrewery.com They are located in Ozark Missouri. Good people, they should be able to answer any questions you might have

 

[mizzoueng]

A basic 5 gallon sweet mead:

12 pounds unpasturized clover honey
5 teaspoons yeast nutrient
white labs (or wyeast) sweet mead yeast
3/4 cup priming sugar

Bring 1-2 gallons of bottled spring water to around 110 degrees. While water is heating place jar(s) of honey is a warm water bath.

Once water is heated slowly pour in the honey and stir in until desolved. Once all the honey is inserted and desolved remove from heat.

Cool wort to around 80, plus or minus 5 degrees

if using spring water, it should be around room temperature (70 degrees).

Add 2 gallons of spring water to fermenter, pour wort on top, use remaining spring water to bring total volume to 5 gallons. Slowly mix wort with water.

If you wort was at most 85 and the spring water was 70, then you should have an overall temperature of around 73-76 degrees.

Check the temperature to confirm. Once confirmed add in the yeast nutrient. Add in yeast, aerate, and seal fermenter and put the air lock on.

It is reccomended to use the "S-type" airlock as mead does not have a very active fermentation like beer, with the "S-type" you can watch the pressure differential in the fermenter to see if anything is actually happening. Add the water to the airlock AFTER you have attached it to the lid and sealed the fermenter. At this point the fermenter is equal to the atmosphere.

After 1 month, transfer to a 5 gallon glass carboy secondary fermenter. I am adding a teaspoon of nutrient at this point, just to make sure the yeast cells don't poop out. Also, make sure it is a 5 gallon carboy. Additional air space during secondary fermentation in meads can promote vinegar growth.

Wrap carboy in a blanket and check the temp regulary.

After 3 months take gravity readings, they should be around 1.012-1.014. Bottle mead into either wine bottles or beer bottles. Stand upright for 1 month.

After 1 month place the bottles on their side and allow to age for another 2-3 months.

If you want to know what you are getting into, go to your local liquor store and pick up a bottle. But DO NOT get the cheapest bottle there, opt for a higher priced bottle, nothing crazy, but a $25 bottle of mead should give a good indication of what you are getting into.

 

[THELAW]

my experience with unpasturiesd honey is you will get a good bit of foam at the first stage of ferment. unless you heat the honey & remove the head 1st.

i've been making mead for 4 years now. a good book is ken schrams ? the complete mead maker.

tom

 

[Moonpile]

All I can say is that every commercially available mead that I've ever had tasted like posterior! At the same time, every home brewed mead I've had (two or three of my pico 1gal batches from 10 years ago and a few here and there at LHBS) have all been COMPLETELY different in character from the commercial ones, and all way, way better.

I met a guy at the LHBS the other day who had a 15 mo old blueberry mead (made with honey from blueberry flowers, not with blueberry fruit). It was light, mildly carbonated and just awesome.

I'm picking up several 5 gal carboys this afternoon and my brewing buddies and I intend to put two or three of them to the noble pursuit of mead and cyser!

Definitely give it a try, but employ glacial patience.

Can anyone, in good conscience, reccomend a commercially available mead?

Moon

 

[mizzoueng]

I don't know about GOOD conscience, but according to beeradvocate.com Jadwiga is a mead that would be worth the time. I have had Mjod

Scored a 91 on the BA scale, heres the top review

Appearance: Balancing two cordial glasses (filled to the rim mind you) is not easy in a packed bar at 1:30 AM on a Saturday night. The brown sticky liquid was bound to drip a little onto my hands a little but as I was bumped and did my own share of bumping, a larger then usual amount managed to escape its confines. Already at room temperature, served right off the wall from a wicker bottle, the Jadwiga grew even warmer in my hands, eventually evaporating off them leaving a sticky film (we’re talking aunt Jemima syrup sticky folks). Honestly, this could have the highest sugar content of any fermented beverage I have tasted. So what were we talking about? Appearance? Right…Viscous, highly viscous dark amber body with no head and no carbonation.

Aroma: Obviously there is honey. That goes without saying but there is oh so much more. One gets the sense of walking through a hardwood forest on one of those crisp fall days that forebodes the coming winter. Maple sap dances with a dried herbs and grasses on the wind. A man swings his maul and suddenly with a loud crack, one’s nose is filled with the aroma of freshly split burr oak. Fallen apricots are crushed under feet. Having fermented on their bed of brown and red leaves for weeks, they release a boozy and slightly sour lemon smell as they squish. Very rich, earthy, and deep.

Taste: Port like complexity and fruit character (like the younger, lighter ports I’m used to as opposed to some uber aged monster). Difficult to describe individual notes. Just layer upon layer of honeycomb laced with fermented apricots and peaches, earth, and grassy herbs. Somewhere mixed in the sugary booze are black cherries.

Mouthfeel: They don’t come any thicker or oilier then this. Very sweet, but it’s a deep sweetness. Sticky. Very warming on the esophagus and stomach. Sweetness steers clear of cloying and the booze veers from being over the top, probably because of the depth and richness. Overall, quite balanced.

Drinkability: Anything more then 6oz would be a real pull for me, even after a fine meal when I think this mead would go best. Still, that seems to be how this mead was meant to be consumed so I can’t knock it.