A Collection of Mead Recipes

Purple Haze Mead

recipe copyright (C) 1989 Forrest Cook and Jonathan Corbet

Brewed 7/21/89
Bottled 9/9/89
Size 7 U.S. gallons

9 lbs Alfalfa's wildflower honey
10 lbs fresh blended blueberries (turned to jello while it waited)
1 oz cascade leaf hops (boiling)
1 tbsp gypsum
1 tsp ascorbic acid
1 big pinch irish moss
1 pack red star champagne yeast
7/8 cup corn sugar (bottling)

OG 1.050 @ 100 deg F
FG 1.021 @ 72 deg F

Comments: Tasted extremely good at bottling, aged nicely.
Still hazy after all these years.

Strawberry Splash Mead

recipe copyright (C) 1989 Forrest Cook and Jonathan Corbet

Brewed 5/13/89
Bottled 6/23/89

Size 7 gallons

8 lb Alfalfa's Boulder clover and wildflower honey mix
2 lb Madhava western wildflower honey
2 lb fresh pureed strawberries
6 cups corn sugar
0.5 cup lactose
1.5 oz cascade leaf hops (boil)
2 tbsp gypsum
1 pack red star champagne yeast (started in diluted must)
1 tea strainer lemon grass tea added when transferred to carboy
1 cup corn sugar (bottling)

OG 1.052 @ 109 deg F (started in white pail)
IG 1.004 @ 70 deg F (moved to carboy)
FG 0.998 @ 73 deg F

Comments: Tastes sweet at first, has a sour aftertaste, very promising.
Aged nicely, use more strawberries next time.

Late this summer, some friends brought back a bunch of mangoes from Florida. A couple of us mead-makers got to make melomels from them. I just tasted my test bottle, and it's very promising...drinkable, no off-tastes, and it's holding true to the mango character. I'll sketch the recipe I used, and also ask if other folks have tried something like this. Mangoes not being a typical Colorado fruit (!), I could stand to learn more about how to use them.

I did it as dry and sparkling. The main ingredients, for a *3* gallon batch
(NOTE: NOT 5 gallons) were:

6.5 lb ripe peeled/sliced mangoes (the giant ones)
6.5 lb honey, mostly medium character
3 oz ginger
Red Star "Prise de Mousse" yeast...I've had great results every time I've
used this yeast with a melomel.

The starting date (pitching) was 6 Sep, bottled at 68 days, and I consider
it drinkable now with no reservations. That seems fast.

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 added after the must cooled.
The yeast was Lalvin Canadian champagne yeast.
3/4 cup corn sugar added at bottling time for carbonation.

The unfermented beverage tasted great, it bubbled away for over a month.
I don't know how many vanilla beans are in one bottle, but I've heard that the raw beans are rather potent. After 6 months it tasted like it could use about twice as much vanilla. After a year it was beginning to mellow out but still needs more aging. After two years the flavor was excellent and the stock was dwindling. This mead was inspired by a vanilla mead that was poured at a beer and steer party many years ago. We have, in turn, inspired others to brew vanilla meads, all have been excellent.

Ingredients: (for ONE gallon batch only multiply as needed)

5 lb Strawberries
3 lb Honey
3/4 tsp Yeast Nutrient
1 tsp Acid Blend
1/4 tsp Irish Moss
6 cups Water
1 pkg red star champaine yeast
optional Pectine Enzime (helps to get that red glass like clearness)

Boil and skim honey/water mix in pot for 15 mins. Let cool to 160 degrees and add chopped strawberries (1/4" pieces) continue to cool until temp safe to pitch yeast Rack for the first time after the friut has lost most of its color and add a little pectine enzime, about 5 drops works for me, keep racking as sediment builds up on bottom. Should be as clear as glass after about 65 days (from pitching).

P.S. Through painstaking research I have found that if a small amount of godiva chocolate liqure is sipped and mixed with a drink of strawberry mead (mine works) it brings a BIG SMILE to the drinkers face, and has caused some women to swoon.

While doing a little reading on the history of food, we found this recipe for Honey Wine From "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee:

As late as the 17th century, honey-based alcoholic beverages were the object of some connoisseurship. The English courtier Sir Kenelm Digby collected his favorite recipes for various food and drink, and better than 100 of them, nearly half of the total, are formulas for mead, metheglin, hydromel, and so on. Sweet grape wines have turned these onetime staples in curiosities.

Honey Wine

Hydromel as I Made It Weak For the Queen Mother. Take 18 quarts of spring-water, and one quart of honey; when the water is warm, put the honey into it. When it boileth up, skim it very well, and continue skimming it, as long as any scum will rise. Then put in one Race [root] of Ginger (sliced in thin slices), four Cloves, and a little sprig of green Rosemary. Let these boil in the Liquor so long, till in all it have boiled one hour. Then set it to cool, till it be blood-warm, and then put to it a spoonful of Ale-yest [yeast]. When it is worked up, put it into a vessel of a fit size; and after two or three days, bottle it up. You may drink it after six weeks, or two months.

Thus was the Hydromel made that I gave the Queen, which was exceedingly liked by everybody.

Standard Mead recipe - 5 gals

15 lbs honey
1 Tpsp gypsum
4 tsp acid blend
1/2 oz. yeast extract
1/4 tsp Irish moss powder
1/2 oz champagne yeast -re-hydrated @ 100 to 105 degrees F

Two Traditional Polish Meads

Trojniak - ("Triple" -refers to water to honey ratio) - 5 gals
22 lbs honey
3 gal water
10 tsp citric acid
2 tsp tartaric acid
1.5 tsp tanin
4 tsp yeast nutrient

Czworniak -("Quadruple" - refers to water to honey ratio) - 5 gals.

17 lbs honey
4 gals water
1 tsp tartaric acid
1 tsp tanin
4 tsp yeast nutrient

Additives to Polish Mead

hops - 2 ozs
1 tsp ginger
part of a stick of cinamon
1/2 stick vanilla
pinch of nutmeg
6 cloves
2 pepper corns
lemon skin
orange skin
champagne, sherry or Madiera yeast - rehydrated at 100 degrees F.

Directions

Boil water, add honey and citrus skins. Tie hops and spices in a cloth with a small stone so that the cloth bag sinks to the bottom. Boil the liquid and skim until clear. Remove from heat, allow to cool. Place liquid in primary fermenter, add rehydrated yeast. Skim, then rack to secondary fermenter. If using hop pellets, several rackings may be required. Allow several weeks, or at least two to three years for the Czworniak or Trojniak respectively. The sugar reading should be zero or less upon completion of fermentation. Bottle and age at least one years. Original recipe calls for aging between seven and one hundred years.

Basic Metheglyn

(Took First Prize at Homebrewers Competition)

Put three pounds (1 quart) light honey to about a gallon of water and heat to just below boiling. Skim off as much as you can of the white froth & discard. Add a palmful of whole cloves, a handful of stick cinnamon, and a couple of palmfuls of whole allspice. Add the zest (thin outer peel) of one medium-large orange. Remove and discard the white pith from the orange and crush the remainder into the pot. Add one cup double-strength black tea (two teabags to one cup boiling water).

Keep the whole mess at steaming (NOT BOILING) temperature for two to five hours. Cool to lukewarm ("baby-bottle" or "blood" temperature) and strain or rack (siphon) into one or two large bottles, filling only to the "shoulder" of each bottle. Add one or two tablespoonfuls of dry yeast to each bottle and attach airlock. (Mead is the ONLY fermented product it is not only safe, but often preferable to use bread yeast to manufacture). You may want to leave the bottles "unlocked" for 12-24 hours to give the yeasty-beasties a headstart. Leave in warm, but not hot, place for 7-21 days, or until airlock "breaks." Rack into clean bottles.You may top up with clean water, if you wish. This lightens the flavour and assists in the mellowing process. DON'T use processed city water! Age in cool spot for AT LEAST six weeks -- it can safely go for a year. Rack once more when it looks clear, and be sure always to leave all the GUCK in the bottom of the bottle whenever you rack. ENJOY IN MODERATION -- NOTHING is as bad as a mead hangover!

Wylde-Rose-Petal Metheglyn

Use basic recipe as above, but reduce cloves to 5 or 6 large -- count 'em -- and add one whole nutmeg, split in half, and one or two one-pint ziploc bagfuls of fresh (or frozen) rose petals. Wild roses are the best for this, as they are more fragrant; the red o pink have more flavour than the white. When you pick, go for the newly opened or just opening flowers; take ONLY the petals; pack 'em as tightly in the bags as you can. They store well in the freezer until use (but not overlong). This recipe makes a smaller volume of product than the basic, but the bouquet and flavour are unique and delightful and the colour is GORGEOUS!

Honey Bucket Bracket

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 it's 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. It was a dark and stormy New Year's Eve.

Recipe:

25 lbs of Honey Malt (17 degrees L) 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 Tablespoon 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 yeilded about 8 gallons of wort, whose specific gravity was 1.112. The actual hopping rate was estimated at 22 IBU, not includng 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. In truth, the batch always tasted a little funny, and I can't really say that I care for Bracket/Braggot. Because I used Honey malt, I called this brew Honey Bucket Bracket. Dark as the night, and thicker than sin!

Judges comments:

Enjoy!
Rich Webb