Post by Blackbird on Apr 15, 2010 9:18:42 GMT -1
Yes, I make mead! Or rather, I did before moving to a tiny house with no room for brewing
I like a dry mead - I find Moniack et al really syrupy. You get a worse hangover from the sugar than from the alcohol. Yuck.
The trick is to use a good quality honey in the first place. When I was young, my Dad kept bees and the mead he made from that was sublime. But if you try to make it from cheapo supermarket value honey, the results are dire. Cheap honeys use a lot of eucalyptus honey, which makes for an unpleasant medicinal aftertaste. Mead from heather honey is the best I've ever tasted, but might give your bank manager a heart attack ;D
The trick is to add the honey gradually. Add it all at once and the yeast will get overwhelmed, stopping fermentation while there's still a lot of sugar present. Hence sickly yucky mead. Start off with a couple of pounds per gallon and keep adding more (say a lb at a time) when fermentation slows down. How much you add depends on your bank balance and how rich you like the mead. I actually like quite a thin, dry mead, so I might only use 3lbs per gallon. Some like up to 6lbs.
The other thing I've tried, which is cheaper and also nice, is to add honey as a flavouring to other wines. I made a lovely hawthorn blossom wine, racked it off after fermentation and then added 1lb of honey per demijohn. I let it sit for a fair while before bottling and the results were divine. Just a hint of honey aftertaste.
(Some commercial meads such as Lindisfarne are made like this - basically honey added as a flavouring to cheap white wine.)
Metheglin is easy - just add the flavouring in after fermentation and let it sit for a while before straining and bottling. Lemon Balm is a nice addition, as are spices such as cinnamon and ginger. Beware of cloves though - I once added far too many and it was like drinking cough medicine :/
Good luck!
I like a dry mead - I find Moniack et al really syrupy. You get a worse hangover from the sugar than from the alcohol. Yuck.
The trick is to use a good quality honey in the first place. When I was young, my Dad kept bees and the mead he made from that was sublime. But if you try to make it from cheapo supermarket value honey, the results are dire. Cheap honeys use a lot of eucalyptus honey, which makes for an unpleasant medicinal aftertaste. Mead from heather honey is the best I've ever tasted, but might give your bank manager a heart attack ;D
The trick is to add the honey gradually. Add it all at once and the yeast will get overwhelmed, stopping fermentation while there's still a lot of sugar present. Hence sickly yucky mead. Start off with a couple of pounds per gallon and keep adding more (say a lb at a time) when fermentation slows down. How much you add depends on your bank balance and how rich you like the mead. I actually like quite a thin, dry mead, so I might only use 3lbs per gallon. Some like up to 6lbs.
The other thing I've tried, which is cheaper and also nice, is to add honey as a flavouring to other wines. I made a lovely hawthorn blossom wine, racked it off after fermentation and then added 1lb of honey per demijohn. I let it sit for a fair while before bottling and the results were divine. Just a hint of honey aftertaste.
(Some commercial meads such as Lindisfarne are made like this - basically honey added as a flavouring to cheap white wine.)
Metheglin is easy - just add the flavouring in after fermentation and let it sit for a while before straining and bottling. Lemon Balm is a nice addition, as are spices such as cinnamon and ginger. Beware of cloves though - I once added far too many and it was like drinking cough medicine :/
Good luck!