Honey-Maple Mead

Source: Joseph Nathan Hall (joseph%joebloe@uunet.uu.net)
Mead Lover's Digest #7, 3 October 1992

Ingredients:

(recipe for 2 gallons or maybe a little more) 
2 quarts maple syrup (that hurt$, as Charlie Papazian says) 
2 to 2-1/2 lbs light honey (I used clover) 
acid to taste--I think I used a little less than 1 tsp of acid blend for 
this batch.
Pasteur Champagne yeast

Procedure:

Bring honey and maple syrup to boil in enough water to liquefy. Add acid 
and a bit of nutrient if desired. (I don't think you *need* yeast 
nutrient--the maple syrup seems to have the necessary stuff in it.) Skim 
for a minute or two, enjoying the flavor of the yummy foamy stuff. :-) 
Cool. Then add water to make a 1.120 SG must. Pitch with working Pasteur 
Champagne yeast. Prepare for a moderately vigorous fermentation. Rack 
off after primary fermentation, and once again if it isn't clear in a 
few more weeks. I topped off the gallon jugs with boiled water after the 
first racking--that seemed to help settle the yeast.

Both batches I made this summer (the first with about half this much 
syrup) fermented out to almost exactly 1.000. They fermented and cleared 
at 70-72F in 6-8 weeks.

The result (that's what you've been waiting for): a beautiful, crystal- 
clear brilliant straw-colored liquid, slightly sweet, with a monster 
alcohol palate and strong bourbon notes. Smoooooth.

Then, for a stellar, absolutely world-class result, take the three month 
old young mead and prime with a small quantity of fresh yeast (1/4 pack 
or less) and about 1.25 x (or perhaps a little more) what you consider a 
normal dose of sugar for beer.  Bottle quickly and carefully, and let 
age for at least 6 months, turning and shaking gently a few times during 
the first weeks.

The sparkling honey-maple mead will wow absolutely anyone.  Serve it ice 
cold in your best champagne flutes.  I rather like the still mead on the 
rocks.  Is this heresy?


Chapter 6:  Other

Maple Mead

Source: RON.admin@admin.creol.ucf.edu (RON) 
From: Mead Lover's Digest #269  22 February 1994

Ingredients:

6 lb Canadian Honey
32 oz container of Canadian Grade A Dark Amber Maple Syrup
1 tsp. gypsum
3/4 tsp. pectin
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
1 tsp. table salt
1 tsp. acid blend
1 pkg. M&F ale yeast in 2 cup wort - yeast starter
1 oz. Saaz cube hops (1/2 boil, 1/2 fin) 

Procedure:

Added gypsum and salt to 1.5 gal filtered water, boiled, removed from 
heat, added honey and maple syrup, back to heat, hops added (10 min), 
pectin, yeast nutrient, acid blend added (25 min), yeast starter 
started, boiling well, skimmed off albumin, heat off and fin hops(45 
min), chilled in ice bath (~30min), put in 6 gal carboy, pitched yeast 
and enough water to make 5.5 gal. Racked in 2 weeks. Bottled 10 weeks 
later w/ 1/3 cup corn sugar + 1/2 cup Florida Orange Blossom Honey.

Comments:

3 weeks after bottling had a dry - light "Bristol Cream" taste. Now has 
a great light mead flavor with a tangy maplish dry undertone.

Now I think 10 lbs of honey, light boiling and a different yeast to 
sweeten it up a bit and would make for a more flavorful maple mead.

Specifics:
OG: 1.080
FG: 1.005


Chapter 6:  Other

Simha

Source: Gary Shea (shea@cs.ukans.edu)
Mead Lover's Digest #241, 7 December 1993

Ingredients (for 1 gallon):

1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
water to make a gallon
two lemons
yeast

Procedure:

Combine sugars, add water to make 1 gallon, boil.  Squeeze two lemons 
into the mix and throw them in, quartered.  When it's cooled enough add 
1/8 tsp of yeast (I used bread yeast).  Allow to ferment for a day or 
two at ~65-70F.  Bottle, adding a few raisins and a tsp of sugar to each 
bottle.  Allow to sit at ~65-70F until the raisins are sitting at the 
top (<1 day). refrigerate or place in quite cool place comments: drink in a couple weeks. so far i have only done one batch and i drank it over the course of two weeks. it keeps getting better and better. plastic calistoga bottles are what i've been using, they work great and seem to have no flavor. this is a finnish drink called 'sima' or maybe 'simha', made only for may day celebrations. the recipes for it that i've seen (and made) are all pretty much like this. chapter 6: other honey bucket bracket source: richard b. webb 
Mead Lover's Digest #313, 30 May 1994

Ingredients (for 8 gallons):

25 lbs Honey Malt
39 grams Saaz hop flowers
130 grams shredded ginger root
1 tbl Irish Moss
12 lbs. blackberry honey
1 tbl acid blend
Red Star Montrachet dry yeast

Procedure:

It was a dark and stormy New Year's Eve.  25 lbs of Honey Malt (17 
degreesL) were mashed at 156 degrees until starch test showed complete 
saccrification.  The mash was sparged at 164 degrees.  This wort was 
brought to a boil.  The color contribution of this malt was estimated at 
approximately 60 degrees SRM.  39 grams of Saaz hop flowers (at 6.0% 
acid) was added for a proposed 60 minute boil.  130 grams of shredded 
ginger root was added for a proposed 15 minute boil.  1 TBL of Irish 
Moss was added for a proposed 10 minute boil.

At the end of the 60 minutes, I added 12 lbs of Schneider's blackberry 
honey.  Heat continued, even though the wort wasn't boiling.  After 25 
minutes, the boil resumed, and I added 1 TBL of acid blend.  After 
another 10 minutes of boil, the heat was turned off, the imersion cooler 
was inserted, and cooling was begun.

I used Red Star Montrachet dry yeast in this batch.  The first package 
was added when the wort was still too hot (oops!), so another package 
was added later, before obvious signs of fermentation had begun.

All of the above yielded about 8 gallons of wort, whose specific gravity 
was 1.112.  The actual hopping rate was estimated at 22 IBU, not 
including the acid added.  The final gravity reading was 1.052, with the 
resulting alcohol at approximately 6.4%.

Racking occured on 13 Jan 94.  Bottling took place on 25 Jan 94, giving 
just under one month of fermenting.  Priming sugar consisted of 1/2 cup 
corn sugar, 2 cups of water, and 1 tsp ascorbic acid.

Never having had a Bracket/Braggot before, the taste was rather 
interesting.  It is an exceedingly sweet beer, not mead-ish at all!

Because I used Honey malt, I called this brew Honey Bucket Bracket.  
Dark as the night, and thicker than sin!

Comments:

Michael Hall, who was one of the judges at the Duke's of Ale Spring 
Thing competition held recently in Albuquerque, New Mexico, wanted the 
recipe of the mead that I had entered.  It took honors for the best mead 
of the competition.  This is my attempt at supplying the recipe.

It's not actually a mead, but something called a bracket or braggot.  
The American Mead Association is of very little use in supplying a 
definition of the style, only saying that the mix has to have at least 
half of its fermentables comming from the added honey.

The idea was to make a batch of beer and a batch of mead and slam the 
two together.  Thus a beer was made (at a very low hopping rate), and a 
lot of honey was added to it.

Judges comments:
Michael Hall gave it 42 points.
Good honey expression! Roasted malt comes throught too! Fairly clear, 
good head retention. Good honey taste. Good roasted malt taste. Nice 
complex taste. This is the most interesting mead we've tasted! Nice 
balance of mead and beer. Very good idea! I could drink a lot of this 
(slowly...) on a winter night.

Bill Terborg gave it 45 points.
Complex nose. Very nice. Great color and very clear. Very nice - 
complex, malt strong, yet honey in background. Good balance - sweet & 
acid. Great mead! Publish the recipe so we can all enjoy! 

William deVries gave it 37 points.
Good solid honey/malt aroma. Nicely balanced, almost smoky. Honey exudes 
throughout, bitter component masks the modifying sweetness, but not too 
badly. Malt flavor aids the complexity. Nice even flavors cause a 
pleasant and lasting impression.