(I think of mead and beer as food, especially the home-made kind-that si why this is here in this thread)

I just made a batch of Mead yesterday, with Wild Clover Honey, Sage, Yarrow, and a few other odds and ends. Yum. Made a batch last week with some fresh St. john’s Wort. Both should be ready to rack in 2 months…

1 Gallon of Mead-
About a gallon of Clean Water
Just under 2 cups honey (15th a gallon)
Handful of Fresh Sage
Handful of Fresh Yarrow Flowers
pinch of lemon
yeast

Bring water to a boil, then bring down. Add honey to non-boiling water, stirring, then add herbs and let sit with the lid on until body-temp)

About that time (body temp) add a healthy pinch of champaigne yeast to a small cup of honey water (also at body temp). let yeast rise for about 15 min, then pitch into cooled gallon and add to carboy. cap with airlock and watch it fizzle! ready to drink in 2 months-2 years.

I really like the book “Sacred and Healing Beers” from Stephen Buhner. it has some amazing recipes and lore from many cultures over thousands of years.

I’d put some picts up, since my carboys are so pretty, but flickr hates me, so i’ll just post these instead…

That stuff sounds amazing..

they will be.

Yarrow becomes mildly psychotropic when fermented. and sage is so yummy.

I like the way mead tastes, but I always get a wicked headache after I drink it.

Pfffft, where do you get the airlock caps?

I’m afraid of imbibing mead. What if I wake up the next morning with Grendel’s mom?

You’ll bee her bitch.

Steamboater - 15 July 2009 05:25 PM

Pfffft, where do you get the airlock caps?

Blub, Blub…Is that brewshop that used to be on Wall St (asheville brewers Supply?) and moved to Patton(?) still around? I havent been there in a bit, but thats where i bought a lot of stuff many years ago. I prefer the “s” kind. I also buy my champagne yeast there.

Steve-Drink more water. Most mead is well over 15% alcohol, and still has a good bit of honey-sugar in it. It’s often similar to drinking champagne.

Thanks.  I used to brew beer quite a bit but have had limited space up until recently to do so.  The last one I made was a huge hit. It was java porter (idea borrowed from Mountain Sun brewery in Boulder, Co.)  Ready to get back at it.

Asheville Brewers Supply

Also Hops and Vines sells equipment and grains and pretty much most of what you need for home brewing.

Speaking of mead I still have a couple bottles of mead I made for my wedding. I used (for 5 gallons) 7lbs of local sourwood honey and 7 lbs of raspberries and added a little lemongrass and ginger (technically thats melomel) but I find cutting the honey about in half produces a much cleaner tasting (read as less sweet) and more complex mead…I’d be interested to try your batch sounds quite yummy.

brebro - 15 July 2009 05:46 PM

I’m afraid of imbibing mead. What if I wake up the next morning with Grendel’s mom?

This allusion made my day.

I find mead a bit on the sweet side, but psychotrophic mead sounds like something I must try.

The (PFKaP) - 15 July 2009 08:47 PM

Steve-Drink more water. Most mead is well over 15% alcohol, and still has a good bit of honey-sugar in it. It’s often similar to drinking champagne.

Champagne also gives me a wicked headache. In fact, a lot of booze does, which is probably why I’m not much of a drinker. But mead is tasty, and every once in a great while, I’ll buy a bottle.

I’d heard that about yarrow, but never actually tried it.

Kava’s a great ingredient to experiment with too.

Steve, you should try the apple wine me and my friends make.

We do it in 55 gallon barrels (usually 2 at a time) using fresh, local, homemade cider that we press ourselves, champagne yeast, organic sugar, and sulfites (which help wines last longer than a year and which you may be allergic to, Steve, and the reason for your headaches? If that’s the case, try something that’s sulfite-free.).

We keep the barrels in a friend’s basement swaddled in electric blankets to keep the yeast active and stir it every day.

It gets up to 17% abv (pretty much as high as you can go without distillation) and tastes sublime. And, as long as you don’t mix it with any other alcohol, is guaranteed not to give you a hangover.

We serve it at solstice and equinox parties by filling up the water dispensing carboys and giving everyone their own wine bottle. We warn people how strong it is, and sure enough, the ones who say ‘It’s cool, I can handle it’ inevitably end up being the ones dancing naked through the woods in the wee hours of the morn.

When we want something a little stronger with out the hassle of classic distillation, we do what’s called ‘cold distillation’, which simply means placing the wine in the freezer which separates the water from the alcohol (by freezing it) which can then be removed. The resulting ass kicker of a beverage we lovingly call ‘apple jack’.

We haven’t made it in a couple of years and just recently depleted our stash, so it looks like we’ll be cranking it out again this fall.

Nothing like making your own booze.

I second the psychotropic mead tasting .... I drink for health reasons and since honey impacts our health I can add mead to the list ... the mead I have had in the past has been slightly sweet ... so you say champagne yeast is the better yeast .... do many people do the wild yeast thing

The wild yeast thing is a gamble you are going to lose, unless you live in Belgium…Champagne yeast works the best for mead, you need a strain that can handle the high alcohol content that mead produces, and you aren’t going to get that with a wild strain, and will most likely end up with something that is bad, very bad.

i had one success and many, er, not successes with wild fermentation.

its a lot to invest in materials to lose, but still is fun to try…