My latest batch of mead rocks

[TXlib]

I started fermenting it last October, and just bottled it November 1st.

It's about 9% alcohol, and the residual sweetness puts it between an auslese and eiswein.

Yummy!

[athos1126]

1. Ohh I'd like to try some of that!

You should hook up with Trader Joe's and see if they'd carry your mead. That's one thing we don't have that we need!

[slackmaster]

5. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!

Big legal issue there. Jack-booted thugs from the BATFE will burn down your house if they catch you selling untaxed alcoholic beverages.

We home brewers can NEVER sell our stuff. I can't even serve it as a treat in my neighborhood bar on Potluck Night because the ABC could pull the place's on-sale beer and wine license.

[athos1126]

6. Ahhh!

My goodness! I totally understand, that seriously sucks.

[slackmaster]

2. My mead always rocks

Though sometimes it needs a year in the bottle to completely mellow out, like the peach metheglin I started in the summer of 2001 and bottled in December '01. It's just become good in the last six months.

Meads are SO much simpler than making good beer.

[TXlib]

4. But they take so much longer to mature.

Unless you're making lambic or barleywine.

BTW, peach metheglin? What spices did you have in it?

[athos1126]

7. Lambic!

Oh dear sweet lord, I love Lambic ales, especially raspberry.

[slackmaster]

8. Just some hops IIRC

I think that qualifies to make it a metheglin as opposed to a melomel.

The best beverage I ever made was hippocras. Recipe rougly:

7.5 pounds mesquite honey
3.5 pounds white Pinot grapes (same as used for Champagnes)
2 pounds fresh blackberries
small amount of some mild hops like Fuggles or similar

2 weeks violent primary fermentation
Racked to a clean carboy for secondary and let go about 6 months

Added boiled extract of cloves, nutmeg, and lemon zest during bottling process.

Let sit in the bottle for 11 months and served at Christmas.

It rocked.

[TrogL]

3. I must be sleepy

I was wondering what a "mead rock" was.

[Malva Zebrina]

9. Wow

I once made Meade also and let it age for three years up in the attic. It was excellent. We gave it out as Christmas presents so precious was it to us. We had two beehives at that time, and gathered the honey from the hives--delicious and made an excellent meade.

Glad you are doing it. It is fun.

[athos1126]

10. Ohh I should learn how to make it

Then I would be the most popular kid on campus! Where could one go to learn this fine craft?

[TXlib]

12. Look up "Mead" on amazon.com

There are several good books; one that just came out is supposed to be excellent.

Also, given you are on a campus, there is likely a homebrew club local to you. Seek them out, and join them. Learn from them.

Get the right equipment. If there isn't a homebrew store local to you, you will be able to find many online.

If you're making it on campus, and presumably need to go from pitching your yeast to bottling in a semester, I would recommend initial gravities of no more than 1.075.

[7th_Sephiroth]

14. I.M. me

i have the recipe

[JVS]

11. How did you make it?

I'd love to hear how it is done.

[TXlib]

13. Here's a good place to start.

http://www.solorb.com/mead/