Any Mead brewers in the house?

[BonnetMaker]

Unfortunatley my hives didnt survive the winter a year ago, but when I had a regular supply of honey we made a fair bit of mead, melomels and metheglin.
I intend to recolonise the hives next year and hopefully will be making a lot more mead again then. Delicious stuff.

We also use a fair bit of honey in making liqueurs, honey and bilberry works very well for example.

[Teufel Hunden]

FINALLY, some progress.

I exchanged the 20 liter stock pot for this 40 liter one. Also, FINALLY my chocolate stout ingredients came. I'll brew that up this week after I get some copper to make my wort chiller.




The mead is safely tucked away so it can age. I'll have to get pics later, but to find a recipe I like, I've got several 1 gallon jugs, each with a different recipe. I figured once I found one I really liked, I could experiment with the various types of honey I brought in.

The RUM. I've got a few different types of molasses I'm trying, as well as some various sugars to make my own caramel. I'm guessing the caramels might all taste similar to each other, but you never know. I've got some raw cane and processed white. My still should be here soon, and the oak barrels are, of course, back ordered for a little while. I've been trying some spice combinations on store bought un-spiced rum, and I think I've got some good stuff coming up. Can't wait to try it on my own rum.

[DeWayne Ross]

Avid brewer here.
Sack meads, sweet meads, methglins, and melowmels, you name it.
My personal favorite is to lightly spice with hopps grown in my own garden.

Have an experimental batch getting ready to bottle soon, wild honey and watermelon with toasted french oak chips 3 months before bottleing. Only two gallons in case I don't like it.

[Droid]

I haven't brewed my own, but would love to. As soon as I get out of my apartment and into a proper house I will be attempting ale and mead. I look forward to hearing about it all turns out.

[Joshua]

Havent brewed in over 8 years... but about 4 years ago drank my first and last mead, it had been sitting for 4 years in a closet. It tasted fantastic. I used mint blossom honey from West Virginia, and had boiled crushed mint leaves in the wort at the finish (kinda like finish hops).

Drinking 3 gallons of mead in as many days makes for a headache that would make Thor puke.

[NewEnglander]

My personal favorite is to lightly spice with hopps grown in my own garden.

Oooh. I'm just about to plant hops for the very first time. I'd never considered including them in a mead. Any recipe hints to share?

[Teufel Hunden]

Any recipe hints to share?

***, I'd also like to hear about some hops mead.

[Mickey]

Oorah, Teufel

Great topic. Got a lot of ideas from it. I've played with a lot of different honeys and occasionally throw in some fruits here and there, and haven't really found a favorite. I love them all. While I play a lot with yeast in beers, I've only ever used Pasteur Champagne yeast for mead. Always had great results, so I never even considered trying a new one. I probably should. I hopped some mead once and didn't care for it. I used too much but I think in smaller amounts it would really add something great to the right type of mead.

My wife came up with a stout recipe about 15 years ago that is one of the yummiest stouts I've ever had. As soon as I can dig up my recipe book I'll throw the recipe up for you to play with. Keep mean to make some more for her soon. I recently found I have Celiacs so I can't do normal beer anymore. I'm going to restart again with sorghum and see what I can come up, as I'm getting bored with making wines again.

Looking forward to the results of your experiments and how the rum turns out.

[Teufel Hunden]

I can't wait for this to be done. My whole house smelled like chocolate cake all day... I can't believe it smelled that good. Before I added the chocolate and dry malt extract, it smelled like a weak coffee... quite different than everyone around here told me beer smells. I was expecting something horrid, especially after the DME was added. Even the neighbors thought I was making a cake over here.

Oorah, Teufel

Great topic. Got a lot of ideas from it. I've played with a lot of different honeys and occasionally throw in some fruits here and there, and haven't really found a favorite. I love them all. While I play a lot with yeast in beers, I've only ever used Pasteur Champagne yeast for mead. Always had great results, so I never even considered trying a new one. I probably should. I hopped some mead once and didn't care for it. I used too much but I think in smaller amounts it would really add something great to the right type of mead.

My wife came up with a stout recipe about 15 years ago that is one of the yummiest stouts I've ever had. As soon as I can dig up my recipe book I'll throw the recipe up for you to play with. Keep mean to make some more for her soon. I recently found I have Celiacs so I can't do normal beer anymore. I'm going to restart again with sorghum and see what I can come up, as I'm getting bored with making wines again.

Looking forward to the results of your experiments and how the rum turns out.

OOOOH RAH. int:

I've heard of people really liking that champaign yeast. I'll try some later one when I'm experimenting with melomels I think.

I'd love to try out your stout recipe when you post it. I'm making another batch tomorrow with a different chocolate, and some slight variations in hops. then I'll have two of these guys ready for tasting hopefully around the same time. After that batch, I'll just need some more yeast, and I'll have enough ingredients for one more 5 gallon brew.

[Mickey]

Teufel,
here is my original stout recipe. Lots of room to play with this, especially in the sugars. Changing them around is a lot of fun. I have added cocoa powder to it too for a decent chocolate stout. I can't remember the exact weight of the liquid malt, (the first recipe was John Bull) but it was somewhere between 3 and 5 pounds. The reason I used liquid and dry for this one is because it was all I had available at the time. All DME or LME works just fine. If you bottle instead of keg, prime as normal, though I found that using DME instead of corn sugar makes a nice difference, just takes a little longer, though corn sugar doesn't make it bad at all.

By the way, if you get a good chocolate stout, put some of it into a chocolate cake batter and you'll have some awfully good eatin.

STOUT

1 can dark liquid malt extract
5 lb dark DME
1 lb barley (grain)
8 oz Roasted barley (grain)
8 oz. Chocolate malt (grain)
8 oz Crystal malt #10 (grain)
8 oz. Dark molasses
6 oz. Dark corn syrup
6 oz. Dark brown sugar
2 oz. Ground espresso beans
5 tsp Vanilla extract (pure, not artificial)
1 ½ oz Northern Brewer hops (whole)
1 oz Hallertau hop pellets
1 oz. Cascade hop pellets
10 grams Pasteur Champagne Yeast
1 vial Isinglass

• Steep grains for 10 min. in 2.5 gallons water. Turn heat on and hold for 30 min. at 150 degrees. Raise to 170 degrees for 10 minutes and remove grain, squeezing liquid into kettle. Rinse grain with 1 gallon 170 degree water. Boil with DME, all sugars, coffee beans, ¾ oz Northern Brewer hops and ½ oz of the Hallertau hops for 30 min.

• Add remaining Northern Brewer and Hallertau hops, ½ oz Cascade hops and boil for another 20 minutes.

• Add the liquid extract and boil for 8 minutes.

• Add the remaining Cascade hops for 2 minutes, remove from heat, remove hop bags and cool.

• Add water to make 6 gallons. Add the yeast and vanilla at 80 degrees. O.G. 1076.

• After 2 days, racked to secondary with isinglass. S.G. 1026.

• After 6 days, kegged. Final Gravity 1022.