KINGxintheNORTH
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- Joined
- Mar 30, 2018
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Let me start with I'm new to this BUT I love mead. I also love video games and I have been looking for a solid recipe that could mimic the Blackbriar mead from skyrim. Let me also preface this with there is no actual recipe in the game or released outside of the game this is all my doing.
So I wanted to try and make a really tasty "Expensive" mead (Expensive being in the game) so I first looked at the bottle in the game and on the bottle it has some sort of thorny vine with bees in place of some sort of berry. So I assumed it could represent Blackberries because the mead in game looks a little darker than a raspberry mead. I also looked at the price in game and saw how much more expensive it is than its competitors like honningbrew mead. So I thought how could I make this mead a little more "Expensive". Now I have never experimented with tea instead of straight water in my meads before but I thought I could test it out and see if it has any effect on it. (SPOILERS it does and its great!) So I brewed a strong English black tea and used that instead of plain water. Then I looked at my fruits and flavors and thought blackberry by itself is great and all but I think I could enhance it with complementary flavors. So I looked up what goes well with blackberries and saw that lemon is a nice addition as well as fresh cinnamon. So I continued to add a whole lemon sliced and a whole lemon squeezed. Plus 4 cinnamon sticks (not the powdered kind).
What I made turned out to be a Spiced lemon tea mead. Which in my opinion was the single best mead I have made to date. It is sweet, tangy, and somewhat Spicey from the cinnamon. All around a very tasty mead so much so that it tastes great from the primary fermenter already!
Ingredients:
*This makes 1 gallon*
● 3lbs. Honey
● 1-2 Gallons of water (Depends on how much water evaporates)
● 20 packets of any dark tea (These were the one cup packets, use more for stronger tea flavor)
● 2-3 whole lemons (Depending on size) 1/8 cup lemon juice I got from 1 lemon
● 2 lbs. Fresh blackberries
● 2 large cinnamon sticks (2 inch sticks) cut into 4 small pieces
● 1 packet D47 wine yeast
ALWAYS SANITIZE BEFORE DOING THE NEXT STEPS
1.) Boil water to about 1 gallon equivalent and brew tea as instructed on label Let cool to around 74° or below.
2.) Take about 1 cup of either plain water or your tea brewed water and add your 3lbs of honey into a saucepan and heat until honey have dissolved/melted into the water (DO NOT BOIL you do not want to thicken this mixture)
3.) Slice one lemon in pieces that will both fit into your bottle but also be easy enough to take out when it's ready for secondary. Then squeeze about 1/8 cup lemon juice or 1 large lemon into a bowl. Prepare your blackberries by either squeezing them through cheese cloth and straining it after or put them in a strainer and using a spoon press them through the strainer (You really don't want many floatey bits in the mead they are hard to remove)
4.) prep your yeast by adding tepid/room temp water into a bowl and mixing the yeast into it.
5.) Add all ingredients into container but save the yeast for last (Make sure the mixture is under 74°F before adding the yeast) Give it a light shake and attach your airlock.
Let sit around a month until moving it to secondary (I forgot about mine and let it go for 5.5 weeks) I tasted it when I moved to secondary and it was already amazing but I'm going to let it sit and taste it from time to time to see when it tastes the best!
P.S. In the game there is also Blackbriar Reserve which is REALLY expensive. So I thought you could (if you have access to it) age the mead in used bourbon barrels for a caramel/oaky flavor plus a higher alcohol content.
So I wanted to try and make a really tasty "Expensive" mead (Expensive being in the game) so I first looked at the bottle in the game and on the bottle it has some sort of thorny vine with bees in place of some sort of berry. So I assumed it could represent Blackberries because the mead in game looks a little darker than a raspberry mead. I also looked at the price in game and saw how much more expensive it is than its competitors like honningbrew mead. So I thought how could I make this mead a little more "Expensive". Now I have never experimented with tea instead of straight water in my meads before but I thought I could test it out and see if it has any effect on it. (SPOILERS it does and its great!) So I brewed a strong English black tea and used that instead of plain water. Then I looked at my fruits and flavors and thought blackberry by itself is great and all but I think I could enhance it with complementary flavors. So I looked up what goes well with blackberries and saw that lemon is a nice addition as well as fresh cinnamon. So I continued to add a whole lemon sliced and a whole lemon squeezed. Plus 4 cinnamon sticks (not the powdered kind).
What I made turned out to be a Spiced lemon tea mead. Which in my opinion was the single best mead I have made to date. It is sweet, tangy, and somewhat Spicey from the cinnamon. All around a very tasty mead so much so that it tastes great from the primary fermenter already!
Ingredients:
*This makes 1 gallon*
● 3lbs. Honey
● 1-2 Gallons of water (Depends on how much water evaporates)
● 20 packets of any dark tea (These were the one cup packets, use more for stronger tea flavor)
● 2-3 whole lemons (Depending on size) 1/8 cup lemon juice I got from 1 lemon
● 2 lbs. Fresh blackberries
● 2 large cinnamon sticks (2 inch sticks) cut into 4 small pieces
● 1 packet D47 wine yeast
ALWAYS SANITIZE BEFORE DOING THE NEXT STEPS
1.) Boil water to about 1 gallon equivalent and brew tea as instructed on label Let cool to around 74° or below.
2.) Take about 1 cup of either plain water or your tea brewed water and add your 3lbs of honey into a saucepan and heat until honey have dissolved/melted into the water (DO NOT BOIL you do not want to thicken this mixture)
3.) Slice one lemon in pieces that will both fit into your bottle but also be easy enough to take out when it's ready for secondary. Then squeeze about 1/8 cup lemon juice or 1 large lemon into a bowl. Prepare your blackberries by either squeezing them through cheese cloth and straining it after or put them in a strainer and using a spoon press them through the strainer (You really don't want many floatey bits in the mead they are hard to remove)
4.) prep your yeast by adding tepid/room temp water into a bowl and mixing the yeast into it.
5.) Add all ingredients into container but save the yeast for last (Make sure the mixture is under 74°F before adding the yeast) Give it a light shake and attach your airlock.
Let sit around a month until moving it to secondary (I forgot about mine and let it go for 5.5 weeks) I tasted it when I moved to secondary and it was already amazing but I'm going to let it sit and taste it from time to time to see when it tastes the best!
P.S. In the game there is also Blackbriar Reserve which is REALLY expensive. So I thought you could (if you have access to it) age the mead in used bourbon barrels for a caramel/oaky flavor plus a higher alcohol content.
