Thursday, October 4, 2012

Brewing Mead

For a while now, I've been fascinated with the idea of brewing up a mead, which is essentially fermented honey water. I looked up some instructions, and what struck me was how simple it was. In short:

Take 10-18 pounds of honey (depending on how dry or sweet you want your mead to be), and then mix in about 4 gallons of water. I grabbed 10 pounds from Mikolich Honey at the Little Italy Farmer's Market the day before.


Bring the entire concoction to about 190º farenheit and leave it there for at least twenty minutes to pasteurize it. While that's happening, skim off the foam that forms on top, as this is full of nasty junk you don't want in your mead.


Cool your must (the word for unfermented mead. Cue the 'more you know' rainbow!) down to 70-75º so that you can pitch the yeast. Then move the must to the sanitiized carboy. If you look carefully, you might see a wild, bearded 'Groth' assisting with this part of the operation.


Pitch the yeast! Then store in an appropriately cool spot (70º for this particular yeast) for a month before racking to a secondary fermenter. Some folks have suggested racking to a tertiary fermenter after another two months, and then aging it for a year. We'll see if we follow that particular plan, as it seems to be rather a long time to wait for a tasty beverage.

Special thanks to Groth and Ashok for being the brew crew for this one!

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