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Basic Honey Mead

  • Author: Chris
  • Yield: 4-5 bottles 1x

Description

A simple and basic honey mead. Use local honey for best results.


Ingredients

Scale

 

  • 4 cups of local wildflower honey (raw preferred)
  • 5 quarts spring water or filtered water,
  • 1/2 cup of grape juice concentrate or raisins
  • 1 packet champagne wine yeast

Instructions

  1. Dissolve honey in boiled and cooled filtered water.
  2. Sanitize a 1 gallon glass fermenting jug, along with its tin cap.  Pour the honey and water mixture into the jug.
  3. Pour the grape juice concentrate or raisins into a glass.  Stir in 1 cup of water.  Allow it to come to room temperature.  If you are using raisins allow them to reconstitute. Sprinkle the yeast over top of the grape juice or raisin mixture.  Wait 30 minutes.  Stir the yeast into the grape juice and wait till it becomes frothy or bubbly.
  4. Pour the grape juice – yeast mixture into the fermentation jug.  Cap the jug and shake it for a few minutes to finish dissolving both the yeast and the honey.  Top up the jug to the shoulders with boiled and cooled filtered water.
  5. Sanitize a wine fermentation lock.  Fill the fermentation lock with boiled and cooled water.  Place the fermentation lock on the jug.
  6. Place the jug on a plate to catch any overflow.  Place the jug in a spot out direct sunlight and away from source of heat, for several weeks.  The fermentation will become active with bubbling. It may froth and overflow.

Racking off

  1. After 4 to 6 weeks you’ll notice that the fermentation has slowed down and sediment is forming in the bottom of the jug. The mead is still not clear though.  When the bubbling and frothing stop, transfer the liquid to a fresh, sanitized fermentation jug.  Sanitize the fermentation lock again and place it on the new fermentation jug.  The fermentation process will resume.

Clear the mead

  1. This last fermentation can take anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks.  When the fermentation stops, the wine will clear.
  2. When making mead with fruit the mead may not clear fully. If it doesn’t clear naturally add ¼ teaspoon of pectinase to the jug.  Replace the fermentation lock and wait.

Bottle the mead

  1. When the wine clears and fermentation stops, siphon the mead into clean, sanitized wine bottles.  Cap with a wine cork or a twist cap according to your bottles.  Label the bottles.
  2. Place the wine bottles in a cool, dark spot.  Age at least 6 months before sampling.  Mead gets better the longer it sits.

Notes

Ideally you’ll want to have enough mead in your wine cellar so that you can age it for a full year before opening the bottle.

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