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Honey Mead
PaganArcher:
1 gallon water
2 tsp cinnamon
a sprig of saffron
2 1/2 pounds of honey
1/2 cake yeast
2 tsp ginger
5 whole cloves
12 ounces fruit or juice
Bring water to a boil with all the herbs so that a tea is formed. Add honey until dissolved, then add fruit or juice (I reccommend good unfilterd apple juice). Cover tightly and boil about 15 minutes. Cool to lukewarm and add yeast dissolved in warm water. Cover with towel for two days before straining and bottling.
You may have to air this periodically to prevent pressure buildup (using corks greatly reduces the need for this)
May Odin welcome you into his Hall when the Valkyries call for you
JW_Halverson:
Only two days of fermentation before bottling is a recipe for glass grenades. Invest in a cheap airlock to stopper the glass one gallong jug that you use to brew the mead. And give it as much time as necessary to completely ferment and then give it enough time to sit until it turns clear. Clear mead means that the yeasts have fully fermented the mead and have floculated, settled out, and given up the ghost.
Other than that, his recipe sounds pretty dang good. The addition of the apple juice may be problematic since many apple juices have powerful anti-fungal compounds added. Even organic juices are treated with anti-fungals that stop your yeast from fermenting.
PaganArcher:
I've brewed the recipe many times and never had any problems at all. I first came across it for people on a budget and I couldn't afford the usual brewing equipment and it tuned out great for me.
JW_Halverson:
After 18 years of home brewing and many good and bad batches and sampling a lot of other's people's brews I have become very reserved when someone says they have a great shortcut or time saver. Same with bow building. Ain't saying it won't work, but let's just say there is a reason some things just take time.
JW_Halverson:
Starting a batch of "pyment" this week. For those of you not fully experienced in the world of meads, that is a mead made with the juice of grapes added. In this case it would be more of a honey fortified grape wine. I crushed 24 lbs of Valiant grapes and will add sufficient honey to bring the specific gravity up to 1.085 so I am shooting for a dry red with honey and floral notes. We'll see what happens about a year from now.
That should be right about the time that HatchA is over here from Ireland to hunt deer. HatchA?? You out there?
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