Citrus Mead
Source: Michael Tighe (tighe@inmet.camb.inmet.com)
Mead Lover's Digest #211, 21 September 1993
Ingredients:
10 lbs. honey
Citrus peel
sliced ginger
yeast
Procedure:
Make a basic mead with 2 lbs of honey per gallon. Use a clover honey or
a light wildflower honey for this recipe. Just before taking the must
off the boil, add a small amount of sliced ginger (about the size of
one's thumb for a 5-gallon batch) and then add the thinnest peel of
orange skin (about 3/4 of the skin of the orange). Be careful not to
get the white pith of the skin, it leaves a bitter/soapy after-taste.
Let it cool naturally about 3/4 hour (longer for larger batches) and
then remove the ginger and orange peel. Put in a carboy to cool, then
add yeast and let it go for three to six weeks (I usually let it go till
it starts to clear). Bottle, let sit for another week or two (to charge
the bottles) and then chill and serve.
Comments:
I've made this with lemon peel, grapefruit peel as well as orange peel,
and all taste great! If you use orange blossom honey, use orange peel
rather than some other citrus fruit - it really enhances the flavor!
Grapefruit is the strongest flavor, and the most likely to be
bitter/harsh, so use less of it than for orange or lemon. Leave some of
the ginger and the skin in the must during fermentation for stronger
flavor.
Use less ginger and less citrus skin for the first batches, and then
increase the amounts till you get the exact flavor you want. (One friend
used a pound of ginger per gallon! And he LIKED IT!)
The slow-cool method (rather than using a chiller) is supposed to be
part of what makes the flavor great.
I prefer mead yeasts if possible, but champagne or general purpose wine
yeast works fine.
This should create a slightly sweet mead with an alcohol content of
three or four percent.
Chapter 2: Methyglyn -- Mead with Spices
Earl Grey Metheglin
Source: J. Hunter Heinlen (STBLEZA@grove.iup.edu)
Based on a wine recipe by Tom Gressman
Mead Lovers Digest #171, 10 July 1993
Ingredients:
4 gal. grape juice
8-10 lbs. honey
4 largish oranges, sliced into eigths or sixteenths
other citrus fruits usable to taste
8-12 packets of Earl Gray tea
Your Favorite Wine or Mead Yeast (I use Montrachet)
Procedure:
Simmer juice and honey together until honey is dissolved (skimming
dross, etc.) If you normally boil, then, by all means, boil. When you
turn the heat down, add the oranges and tea in a clean hop bag or
something similar (I used a clean cotton sock). Let them steep in warm
must for five minutes. Transfer into carboy, let cool to a comfortably
warm temp, add yeast, and lock the carboy. Let ferment as a normal wine
at a cool temp.
Comments:
Needs to age at least 6 months. Should not need additional sugars or
yeast nutrient. Before cutting fruit, dip in sulfite solution or
similar to sanitize, and then rinse. Can ferment out fast (11-14 days).
I've tried rasberries with excellent results (though it was a bit
beerish until about six months), and cherries, apples, or grapefruit
with mixed results.
Chapter 2: Methyglyn -- Mead with Spices
Lavender Mead
Source: Leigh Ann Hussey (leighann@sybase.com)
Mead Lover's Digest #5, 1 October 1992
Ingredients (1 gallon):
4lb honey
1/4t citric acid
1 pint lavender flowers
1/2t tannin powder
1/2t champagne yeast
1t yeast nutrient
Procedure:
Boil together honey and 1/2gal water for 5 min. Put flowers with citric
acid and tannin in a gallon jug and pour the hot liquid over. Let cool
in a sink of cold water to room temperature, then add yeast and nutrient
and further water to make a gallon plus a pint. Add the airlock. Let
ferment 1 week, then strain out flowers. Set the lock on again and
ferment until all quiet. Bottle and age.
Second Ferment: 112 days
Based on H.E. Bravery's Rose Mead, from HOME BREWING WITHOUT FAILURES.
Chapter 2: Methyglyn -- Mead with Spices
Nutmeg Metheglin
Source: Ken Schramm, communicated by
Daniel F. McConnell (Daniel_F_McConnell@mailgw.surg.med.umich.edu)
Ingredients:
15 lb honey
28 gr whole nutmegs, freshly ground and infused in the boil
2, 3-inch cinnamon sticks
2T ascorbic acid
2T citric acid
1/2T yeast nutrient
1/2t Irish moss
water to make 5 gallons
10 gr Epernay II yeast
5 gr Pasteur Champagne yeast
Procedure:
Boil 35 minutes, chill to 80F, then pitch yeast. When fermentation is
complete, prime with 3/4 c dextrose.
Comments:
Use FRESHLY ground whole nutmeg.
This requires at least 2 years in the bottle to be at its best. After 2
years the mead is vinous and semi-dry, pale yelow in color with a good
sweet/acid balance. Cinnamon appears first in the nose, followed by the
nutmeg. There is an almost citrus aftertaste. Spices are balanced and
subtle rather then assertive.
Best served at 45-50F.
Specifics:
OG 1.104
FG 1.000
Chapter 2: Methyglyn -- Mead with Spices
Vanilla (Float like a butterfly, Sting like a
bee)
Source: Microburst Brewery (Forrest Cook (cook@stout.atd.ucar.edu)) and
Jon Corbet)
Mead Lover's Digest #123, 1 May 1993
Ingredients (7 Gallons):
9 Lbs of mesquite honey from Tempe, AZ
2 Tbsp gypsum to harden up the water a bit
1 4 ounce bottle of Madagascar vanilla extract
Procedure:
Vanilla extract added after the must cooled. I think the yeast was a
Canadian champagne yeast with a french name.
The unfermented beverage tasted great, it's been bubbling away for over
a month. I don't know how many vanilla beans are in one bottle, but I've
heard that they are rather potent.
Comments:
The inspiration for this recipe came from a mead that was poured at the
"Beer and Steer", a large outdoor homebrewers party held in Colorado
occasionally.
As this mead has aged, the vanilla flavor has become more pronounced.
For the next batch, we will probably increase the vanilla extract to 6
oz. At 9 months the flavor is still improving, I project that it will be
incredible at 18 months if there is any left :-)
