Ophelia wrote:
> "Doug Freyburger" > wrote:
>
>> You mentioned mead. I brew my own. I cook with mead. It's not unusual
>> for some of the mead to get into the food. Mead goes well in food. Not
>> as well as in the cook. Mead. Mmmmmmmead.
>
> lol share your recipe for mead, please?

Short answer -

Here's a very simple way to make low alcohol dry still mead. Buy a Mr
Beer kit. Practice with it by making the beer kit it comes with. Then
use its beer directions to figure out how to make mead in it. For the
first batch make it at 6% using the volumes of sweetener in the
directions to tell you how much honey to use and it will be fast. For
the second batch double the volume of honey to make it 12% and it will
be slow. That's it.

Long answer -

First the caveat - Asking for a recipe for mead is like asking for a
recipe for wine. There are all sorts of kinds. You need to know the
brewers preferences or goals to be able to figure out if you want to try
that recipe. Meads range from high alcohol (for wine) to low, sweet to
dry, sparkling to still, fruity to pure honey. There's even an Old
Saxon vocabulary for "mead like stuff" made with stuff in addition to
honey. Odin brought mead to humanity to give us inspiration. In Old
Saxon he'd be called Wodan or Woden as in Wednesday.

My preference is low alcohol. Fortunately that means it is ready much
sooner. My prefernence is for dry. That's good because all of the
sugar in honey is fermentable by yeast so with a simple honey mead any
attempt to make it low alcohol makes it dry. My preference is for still
mead. I like to experiment with additions so some batches are fruity or
spicey others are not.

I have an addition preference that's separate. A friend is deathly
allergic to honey, as in one person does the injection into her chest
while another is on 911 while another does CPR. She likes mead. Go
figure. I will make the occasional batch of emulator using some source
other than honey. Sorghum sweet works rather well to make "mead like
stuff" that doesn't kill her.

In the directions of the Mr Beer kit it tells what volumes of sweetener
to use to make a two gallon batch of beer that's around 6% alcohol. You
can use the same volume of honey that was specified for the beer and end
up with a light mead around 6% alcohol. You can double that amount and
end up with a slow mead around 12% alcohol or you can estimate anywhere
in between for a medium alcohol mead. For the first batch I suggest
going low alcohol to get a 6% mead. It's fast and easy. Use only
honey, water, heating to boil, cooling to bring down to where it won't
kill the yeast, yeast and time. For 6% age it like it's beer then
bottle it. You can charge the bottle like you're making beer for a
slightly sparkling light mead or just bottle for still mead. That's
it.

I ended up melting my Mr Beer kit when I tried to make an apple skin
flavored honey and maple syrup batch. Not sure if that would be braggot
or methilgin. I just called it apple mead.

Now I have a five gallon kit. I still use the formula in the directions
of the Mr Beer kit. I still decide my target alcohol based on that
formula. For 6% use the volumes in the directions times 5/2 to make a 5
gallon batch not a 2 gallon batch. For 12% use twice that. For in
between use in between that.

Higher alcohol, longer aging, longer life. Lower alcohol, shorter
aging, shorter life. The 6% stuff is ready in two months and good on
the shelf for about a year. The 12% stuff is ready to be bottled in
half a year but better bottled after a full year. Then the 12% stuff is
ready to drink a year after it was started but will be better in two.
The 12% stuff is good on the shelf for at least 3+ years and it tends to
keep getting better for a long time.

None of my batches have ever lasted that long. It's too good to offer
to share the stuff with Odin and Frigga or Thor and Sif or whoever
happens to show up. Which is to say it's good enough to drink as an
experience and it's good enough to share with friends!