Mead

I've spent the last while reading about mead. There are a lot of almost magical properties claimed for this drink. I haven't tasted proper mead since there aren't many commercial examples around. Bunratty make a mead but I've been told it's more a wine with honey added than a proper mead. There are many Polish meads which are supposed to be great so I will get a Polish friend to bring one back next time they are home. I had a Polish honey liquor which was lovely.
I want to taste mead and so decided I'd have to make my own. I ordered two books from amazon about mead making which haven't arrived yet so I decided to just go ahead and make it anyway. I got a very basic mead recipe from a forum and decided to try that before I start making melomel and metheglin.



MEAD RECIPE
One gallon batch
900g honey
Juice of half a lemon
150ml of strong black tea
1 tsp yeast nutrient

I put the ingredients in a pot with about 5 liters of water and heated it to 70 degrees celcius and held it there for about 15 minutes to pasteurize it. It's currently cooling as I type.

I made two of the above recipe and the plan is to ferment in two demi johns with two different yeasts. The first will be a champagne yeast, Lalvin EC1118. The second will be Muntons premium gold beer yeast.



Note the knitting in the background. The idea is to see what the mead tastes like with the two different yeasts. The beer yeast should give up at a lower alcohol level than the champagne yeast and also should give a sweeter mead. The champagne yeast should give a dryer mead which I suspect I'll like more.

The primary fermentation should take about a month. Then I'll rack them to bottles for a secondary fermentation and aging. I'm thinking about making each secondary into a different type of mead by using spices and fruits in the bottle. The mead should be ready for when I get home from my honeymoon which is when you're traditionally supposed to drink it.