Screw The LynneSin Tea & The Zomby Coffee & BURBON (sic), who wants mead?

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[MercutioATC]

1. Was that you making 35-proof mead with honey and green tea?

How long does the process take? I have a basement that begs to be brewed in...

[TXlib]

2. No, I think that was superfly

KCDem told me about it last night.

I make my mead with raw, unprocessed honey, citric, malic and tartaric acids, grape tannin, and cotes de blanc wine yeast.

And it usually comes out 9-12% abv.

I've found that yeasts that tolerate higher percentage of alcohol (such as what is required to achieve 35 proof, or 17.5%) often have less desirable flavor profiles.

The typical process is this:

For a 5-gallon batch:

Mix 5-6 kg of honey, 1 kg at a time, with 1 qt of water at a time, using a whisk until fully dissolved. Mix the acid (about 90 g of acid blend, available at any homebrew store) and tannin (about 8-10 g) in with the first honey-water batch. Pour into a 6-gallon glass carboy (NOT plastic!) Add 6 campden tablets to sterilise must, and top off to five gallons with water (tap water's fine if dechlorinated). Seal carboy with airlock, and let sit 24-48 hrs.

After the 24-48 hr wait, prepare a yeast starter: 2 pints of pasteurised apple juice (no preservatives) in a 1 gallon glass jug. Dissolve 2 5-g packages of the wine yeast in 1/2 cup warm water for 10 min, and add to apple juice. Attach airlock. Wait for yeast activity to reach peak. Add 5 tsp yeast nutrient/yeast energizer to mead must, and pour yeast in. Aerate mead must by bubbling air through it, or better yet, oxygen. Swirl carboy to mix well. Attach airlock, and keep carboy in a closet where temp stays a steady 65-75 deg fahrenheit.

Leave alone for three months, checking periodically to keep water level in airlock.

Rack into a new carboy (preferably 5 gallon). Repeat in another 3 months. With each racking, check the specific gravity of the mead with a hydrometer. The mead is done when the hydrometer reads below 1.025, and remains constant from one racking to the next.

Bottle the mead, and allow to age for at least a year.

Everything that touches the must or the mead needs to be sanitised in an Iodophor solution.

There are some very good books on mead-making available; do an amazon search for "mead". The newest book out is supposed to be the best. (It's on my Xmas wish list, hint hint...)

[MercutioATC]

3. Thanks for the info. I'm not into making beer, but mead sounds interesting

I'll have to stop by a brewshop and look into it.