Home made mead

[bardo]

Hey, its to hot to be working hard today so i have only taken care of the things that need attention and been sipping on some home made mead, this batch turned out very nice indeed, i don't drink much and my third glass is getting me somewhat tipsy, anyhow thought i would share the recipe which is not precise to any traditionally beverage, since my first batch i just go with what ever and see how it goes. This time around i used 1 kg local honey, i small squirt of molasses, rice malt syrup and maple syrup, approx. 3 and a bit litres of water and 10 grams of brewing yeast. The method is boil some water then take of the heat, add the honey etc (you can add berries as well but i am yet to try that) stir well till it is fully dissolved, set aside covered till it is under 40 degrees, then add the yeast and stir, then add to a demijohn with a bung and a whats you call it, the valve air lock thing lol, wait a few weeks or until the airlock thing isn't bubbling much or at all, don't disturb the sediment at the bottom and poor out into bottles or a clean demijohn, try it periodically until you go yum, i find it is good to go within a month, if you bottle it and it is still fermenting make sure to release some pressure every so often. This is my second year making it and it is great, feels cleaner then commercial grape wine, some say it also pre dates grape wine, anyhow i find it a joy to enjoy your own one of a kind brew : ) Anyone else make there own brews? if you want to share some recipes or experiences with home made brews please do : )

This mead comes out at around $3.50 a litre and is delicious, maybe to delicious  : )

 

[Sallubrious]

I might have to give that a go one day. I've brewed everything else so why not.

I don't know if this applies to Mead Bardo, but when brewing beer it's a fairly well accepted that the yeast should be pitched below about 28 deg C. preferably a bit lower around 26 Deg C. Some purists pitch the yeast at even lower temps to allow for the exothermic reaction that occurs when the yeast digests the sugars in the wort in an effort to keep the brewing temp in the ideal range.

The theory is that yeast pitched at higher temps will create more undesirable esters and fusels that are not ideal to have in the final product. Some of those esters and fusels are said to contribute to headaches and hangovers the next day after drinking.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Sallubrious

[Strontium Dawg]

Yeast is a topic all to itself.

If you are brewing smallish batches like bardo, the thermal mass isn't too great so it will cool down fairly quickly, and at the pitching stage the yeast is really just reproducing. I don't think you'd get too much diacetyl production during this phase. 

Even 28 degrees is pretty warm so you'd definitely get some funky flavours going if you kept it that warm I'd say! Often if you leave the brew on the yeast cake for a while ( say another week or two ) before decanting the yeast will clean up a lot of undesirable flavours and cloudiness from proteins that are still floating about.

I've never made Mead either, but I reckon a champagne yeast might be good, probably get better attenuation and a dry finish. Plus it drops out of suspension nicely when chilled.

Bardo, you could add a secondary fermentation step to really refine it too.

I'm interested in making a Yule Mead with some "special" ingredients, I'll post it here if I get it going.

[Sallubrious]

The laundry tub is a good way to keep brewing temps down in summer. Put the demijohn in & fill the tub with water to just below the level of the mead in the demijohn.

Glaukus hinted at this, you might be able to fit the demijohn in the fridge when it's finished fermenting, that will help settle the trub before you rack the brew or pour it off etc. It's well worth buying or making a racking cane and racking it rather than pouring it off. Some people put their brew in a deep freeze for a few hours to get the sediment to completely settle onto the trub and clear it up before racking. Racking is just siphoning the brew off the trub (yeast that has settled) to get a clearer end product.

[Strontium Dawg]

Another good tip for clearing and flocculating the yeast out is to dissolve a tablespoon of gelatin in about 50ml of water and add that to your brew near the end of fermentation. It doesn't need to be sterile at this point as the alcohol will keep any bacteria (well, most bacteria! ) under control. The gelatin will settle into a blob at the bottom and it will grab onto suspended particles. It really clears up a brew well.

[SayN]

pitch the yeast, settle the trub and rack that brew. and dont forget to floculate!   I feel like such a newb...  but i'm keen to give this a go too. 

 

i remember picking up some bottles of mead from Mudgee Honey many, many years ago (do they still exist?).  It was quite nice, but the real deal was their honey mead liqueur... omfg.

[bardo]

Heaps good advice everyone thank you : ) I was just pouring it off while trying not to disturb the sediment.

I will try adding the yeast at a lower temp next time and see how that goes I will also experiment with champagne yeast, What I can say is it was a little stronger than I thought, I drank a couple litres of it and no food in my gullet so yeh It probably would have been funny to watch, stumbling around and saying who knows what, I know at one stage I was hugging the ground crying going on about how evil this place is and yeh would have been funny to watch, I felt I let out some negative shit and for that I feel good but dam embarrassing lol  I am just glad I got of the internet when I did lol. The night eventuated into spewing and ranting and a hung over followed, maybe due to adding the yeast at higher temps but im pretty sure the quantity was a major part of it lol

Hey Glaukus what would be involved in doing a second fermentation? and yule mead with special ingredients, interesting haven't heard of it, found this http://www.normandescendants.org/yule-mead/ looks interesting, its awesome experimenting with it, i may try adding a couple of datura leaves in a brew sometime, i do like puffing on it whilst having a drink, not often but always awesome when i do, like walking through the sun rays, i can see all the rays of light in bliss and wonder, last time i did it i woke up the next day to my mums boyfriend tapping on my van window (i was living in a van for a while, no running water or electricity was awesome, i quit my job and lived in the work vehicle lol) anyhow i was struggling to pry my eyes open, he was calling me by my name which was weird cause he usually calls me crack lol he was telling me to wake up, when i opened my eyes he was standing there talking, then i look away for one moment, look back and there is no one around, i thought that was very interesting, This place is so fascinating, amazing and well its everything i could and can think it to be,  not that i really have anything to compare it to but still i find this place 100% interesting .

[Strontium Dawg]

Haha lol bardo, you crack me up!

 

A secondary fermentation is when you decant off the settled yeast, then clean out your demijohn, pour it all back in and allow to keep fermenting again.

 

I read a tale of someone who makes metheglin which is basically Mead, but they add hbwr once it's got a bit of alcohol going. I don't know if I'd be game to go a tropane brew by the sounds of it!

[bardo]

HBWR brew sounds good : ) I wouldn't  recommend people use tropane alkaloids, I personally have never experienced any negative long term effects from them, I had a brew that was a little strong a couple of times and it can last 3 days no shit 3 days of confusion, I could hear what people where saying to me but had to guess what the meaning of the words were, when I replied to people I just hoped what I was saying was relevant to the convo lol and the dryness of the mouth and throat was near unbearable there was nothing I could do to ease it, it was dry even while I was drinking water.

 Complete insanity, I had a convo with a dude who appears never existed, was talking to him about music and guitars, I know there is so much I don't remember of those experiences but it is strange how the plant seems to want you to use more when experimenting with it, like it begs me to have just a little more, just one more puff lol, for me it always starts off awesome with amazing euphoria but the dry mouth is to much, there is such a fine line between interesting and oh no what have I done, the first stronger brew I had lasted so long I ended up saying to myself well this is just how I am now, I will just have to try and get through existence like this and hope for the best lol

A friend a long while ago told me he had a mate who tried it and from that time onward he thought he was a robot Jac01201 or something like that, he claimed his existence was to collect data, that should have turned me away but I became more curious and had to know what this is all about, glad I experimented with the brew but I doubt I will ever be drinking another brew again, the two strong ones was enough, the first one should have been enough but I wanted to confirm the effects and try understand the plant better.

[Strontium Dawg]

Yeah it's a common tale of woe. One of my buddies spent a few days running away from an imaginary pursuer in the bush after a strammonium brew.

[waterboy 2.0]

I remembered it...lol...for the planthead brewers if they havent crossed it

Sacred and herbal healing beers: the secrets of ancient fermentation

http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=B65AB397B9EE68368C99CE75B56B3A58

 

EDIT - ontopic.... CHAPTER TWO: The Mead of Inspiration, Mead, Honey, and Heather......Page 36

Edited November 28, 2016 by waterboy 2.0

[bardo]

Looks like an interesting book, I tried to download it but wouldn't work so I just grabbed a copy from ebay, under 30 bucks so why not, Thanks for the link : )

[Sallubrious]

Thanks for that link WB, it worked for me.

 

In the preface the author writes about how restrictive modern life has become and how our options for exploration into alternative states have been removed in many areas. He goes on to write this.

 

Quote

To eliminate the dark will not leave only the light but will result in a uniform grayness that knows neither triumph nor failure.

 

It seems like he'd fit in well around here.