brewin' mead
Jun. 23rd, 2008 07:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Mondays are Laundry Day. (I have decreed it thus.)
I Finished, officially, the first garment I've ever Finished, officially-- nothing exciting, just an apron I made out of an old 18th-C-style petticoat I found inexplicably among my father's Rev War stuff. It was a badly damaged petticoat and apparently had been sacrificed to make a handkerchief out of one of the two panels. So I took the undamaged panel and picked out the seams, and then hemmed it and added another waist tie. Hurrah-- an apron. (Too narrow, and trimmed with the wrong sort of lace, and I suspect it's a cotton and *something* blend, but whatever, it's an apron.)
The corset is almost done, the shift is almost done-- made huge progress on it, but then realized I'd trimmed one side of one shoulder strap back too far. $##(*#$(*@#^@#*(&%%^!!!
Guess I better add a panel on and hope nobody looks too close.
I want to Finish a bunch of stuff off before I start work on the Blue Kirtle, which I want to make in a separate bodice and skirt, side-laced style. (Laced at *both* sides, I'm hoping.) But that eluded me; too many setbacks.
So instead, after much fuss over the laundry, I brewed three batches of mead instead.
Well, I started them.
A brief overview of my mead equipment:
Glass half-gallon jugs that "growlers" of local beer came in
holed rubber stoppers, size "6"- 4 of these
fermentation locks, the kind made from molded plastic-- it's a tube with two chambers, to let gas bubble up through water, but no air come back the other way-- 4 of these
plastic tubing, 1/2"-- 1 yd (for siphoning/racking)
B-Brite Sanitizing Powder-- 1 small plastic tub (use 1 Tbsp to 1 gal hot water to make sanitizing solution for all equipment-- much milder than bleach, and equipment does not have to sit to let chlorine dissipate
5-gallon stock pot
8-gallon stock pot (optional)
metal strainer thing (optional)
wooden spoon
thermometer (optional)
I also bought "champagne yeast" at the local homebrew supply store, and have had it sitting in my fridge for a couple of months now.
Batch 1 was the Quick Mead I've made before. It was very good, and quite fast, and I liked it, so I'm going to do it again. Unfortunately I seem to be out of fresh ginger, so I had to use ground-- bummer, as the sharp ginger flavor was my favorite part about the first batch. Oh well, too late.
This recipe is based on one from Sir Kelenme Digbie's Closett, which is some really old book somewhere. I know, my research is impeccable. (Thank you, Internet!)
4-5 qts water
about 1 lb honey
2 Tbsp coarsely chopped fresh ginger
juice of 1 lemon
8 cloves, stuck into lemon peel for easy retrieval
Boil water. Add honey, stirring as you add it. Bring to simmer, skimming foam as it rises, until no more foam rises-- approx 30 min. (It is not absolutely crucial to remove all the foam.) Add the ginger, lemon juice, and lemon peel/cloves. Simmer 15 more minutes.
Remove from heat, and cool to lukewarm-- either let sit a really long time, or stick in big sink full of cold water.
When it is room temperature, strain out the lemon peel and cloves and ginger bits. Add 1/4 tsp ale/champagne yeast, and pour into a carboy/jug, and fit a fermentation lock.
Leave in a room-temperature (70-80 deg.) location for 48 hours. Rack into bottles. Store 48 more hours at room temperature. Then refrigerate. (Optional: rack to new bottles to avoid sediment in finished product.)
Batch 2, I tried as an experiment the "Easiest Mead Ever", which apparently they tell beginners not to make because it teaches you bad habits. Whatever, why not?
Actually if this is the mead Flik had made in college, maybe I wouldn't have got so totally hallucinatorily smashed on it. That was the worst thing pretty much ever. I was seeing little fairies.
But this seems really ghetto to me and we'll see how that goes.
I'm brewing it up ghetto-style, in an old plastic juice jug with a plastic bag over the mouth of it. Yes, I am classy.
3 1/2 lbs cheap clover honey
1 lg orange, washed very well and cut in 8ths or smaller, rind on
1 sm handful raisins (about 25 raisins if you're OCD, but it doesn't really matter)
1 cinnamon stick
1 whole clove (maybe 2. Hell, I put in like eight. I didn't read the recipe that well.)
pinch nutmeg/allspice (optional-- and I again, didn't read, and added mace. WHY NOT.)
1 tsp regular old bread yeast, a la Fleischmann's, like you get at the grocery store
Dissolve honey in warm water, and put into 1 gallon carboy/jug/whatever (whatever it is should be cleaned and sanitized, we're not that ghetto and we don't want botulism or mold or whatever).
Add orange, shoving sections through mouth of jug. Add raisins and spices.
Fill jug/carboy to about 3 inches from top with cold water. (Leave room for the foam as the yeast works.)
Put the top on the jug and shake it thoroughly to aerate it and combine everything.
When it is room temperature (depending how warm the water you dissolved the honey in), add the bread yeast. Give it a gentle swirl to combine everything.
Fit the fermentation lock (or an inside-out balloon, which is roughly the same thing). Put it in a dark place, 70-80 degrees. After the major foaming stops, in a few days, add a little more water, and then leave it alone.
Do not rack (siphon to another container), stir, shake, or aerate. It prefers a warm dark place.
Leave it for 2 months or so. It will stop working, and everything will settle out leaving it clear. Siphon to clean bottles and refrigerate. (The orange slices will probably still be floating.)
I am skeptical, but the Internet recommended it very highly. If it fails I'm out about $5 in materials and will have a really gross juice jug to wash and recycle.
And Batch 3, I tried something new. Except that it's not that different from the first recipe. Just different enough to be confusing. But since the first recipe was tasty, I figure, why not?
1 qt honey
2.5 gal water
1 cup strong tea
1/2 tsp each ginger and nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1-3 lemons
mead yeast
Boil water. Add honey, stirring immediately to keep it from sticking and burning at the bottom of the pot. As the mixture comes back to a boil, skim off the white scum at the surface.
After skimming (I let it boil for like 15 minutes while I skimmed, because I was in the midst of something else; the recipe doesn't actually specify), remove from heat. Add tea and spices. Slice lemons thin and add them.
Let them steep for 30 minutes, then scoop the lemons back out.
Cool mixture to 80-85 deg. Fahrenheit-- warm room temperature-- then add yeast. (I know, the recipe doesn't say how much. I know. I'm going to go with a standard packet, which is like a tablespoon. We'll see how that goes.)
Pour into carboys/jugs, cap with airlock. After 5 days, taste. If it is too sweet, let it continue. If too alcoholic (unlikely), add more boiled honey and water. Keep tasting daily until sweetness and alcohol balance.
Siphon into bottles, and refrigerate. (If not refrigerated it will get less and less sweet, and will taste pretty nasty really.) Let stand 2-5 weeks.
Drink and enjoy. If the sediment at the bottom bothers you, siphon it again into clean bottles and seal them tightly. It will taste sweeter and be more sparkling if you do this, and won't have icky cloudy murk at the bottom.
That's what I've got to look forward to. Meanwhile, I brought up the last bottle of the previous batch of mead to drink.
That shit is strong, yo. I'm going to put that recipe in as well. I siphoned it into a clean bottle today so we could drink the last of it without dealing with the sediment.
This one apparently has won SCA awards and stuff. I screwed mine up, slightly, because I was leaving for London in the middle of it.
Incidentally I almost always take longer to brew stuff than the recipe says. It might be because I tend to do it in the basement and it's 60 degrees down there. Just sayin'.
1 gallon water
2 1/2 lbs honey
2 lemons
3 nutmegs, chopped OR 1/2 tsp ground
1 pkg Ale or Champagne yeast
Add honey to 1 gal water and bring it to a boil. Skim off the foam as it boils for about 30 minutes. Slice or juice the lemons, and add, along with the nutmeg. Mix well, turn off heat, and let stand covered until cool. Pour into jug and add yeast.
Let it ferment for 2 weeks, then siphon into bottles ('rack'). Seal or cap the bottles and let sit at room temp. for 2 weeks. Move to refrigerator. (If you leave it out more than 2 weeks the bottles may explode, so be careful.)
You can drink it at any point-- it should be frothy and pleasant.
Yeah, and I left it sitting a little longer, and no bottles exploded, but it's strong as hell. I would recommend following the instructions, because it's also a little bitter/sour. Not enough to be undrinkable, and I know Z wouldn't drink it if it was nasty (I've proven otherwise, I'm afraid, in my life, but that's OK), but it's starting to have Ambitions.
So that's my recipe fest. I really was going to go and do more sewing but I can't face it right now. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...
I Finished, officially, the first garment I've ever Finished, officially-- nothing exciting, just an apron I made out of an old 18th-C-style petticoat I found inexplicably among my father's Rev War stuff. It was a badly damaged petticoat and apparently had been sacrificed to make a handkerchief out of one of the two panels. So I took the undamaged panel and picked out the seams, and then hemmed it and added another waist tie. Hurrah-- an apron. (Too narrow, and trimmed with the wrong sort of lace, and I suspect it's a cotton and *something* blend, but whatever, it's an apron.)
The corset is almost done, the shift is almost done-- made huge progress on it, but then realized I'd trimmed one side of one shoulder strap back too far. $##(*#$(*@#^@#*(&%%^!!!
Guess I better add a panel on and hope nobody looks too close.
I want to Finish a bunch of stuff off before I start work on the Blue Kirtle, which I want to make in a separate bodice and skirt, side-laced style. (Laced at *both* sides, I'm hoping.) But that eluded me; too many setbacks.
So instead, after much fuss over the laundry, I brewed three batches of mead instead.
Well, I started them.
A brief overview of my mead equipment:
Glass half-gallon jugs that "growlers" of local beer came in
holed rubber stoppers, size "6"- 4 of these
fermentation locks, the kind made from molded plastic-- it's a tube with two chambers, to let gas bubble up through water, but no air come back the other way-- 4 of these
plastic tubing, 1/2"-- 1 yd (for siphoning/racking)
B-Brite Sanitizing Powder-- 1 small plastic tub (use 1 Tbsp to 1 gal hot water to make sanitizing solution for all equipment-- much milder than bleach, and equipment does not have to sit to let chlorine dissipate
5-gallon stock pot
8-gallon stock pot (optional)
metal strainer thing (optional)
wooden spoon
thermometer (optional)
I also bought "champagne yeast" at the local homebrew supply store, and have had it sitting in my fridge for a couple of months now.
Batch 1 was the Quick Mead I've made before. It was very good, and quite fast, and I liked it, so I'm going to do it again. Unfortunately I seem to be out of fresh ginger, so I had to use ground-- bummer, as the sharp ginger flavor was my favorite part about the first batch. Oh well, too late.
This recipe is based on one from Sir Kelenme Digbie's Closett, which is some really old book somewhere. I know, my research is impeccable. (Thank you, Internet!)
4-5 qts water
about 1 lb honey
2 Tbsp coarsely chopped fresh ginger
juice of 1 lemon
8 cloves, stuck into lemon peel for easy retrieval
Boil water. Add honey, stirring as you add it. Bring to simmer, skimming foam as it rises, until no more foam rises-- approx 30 min. (It is not absolutely crucial to remove all the foam.) Add the ginger, lemon juice, and lemon peel/cloves. Simmer 15 more minutes.
Remove from heat, and cool to lukewarm-- either let sit a really long time, or stick in big sink full of cold water.
When it is room temperature, strain out the lemon peel and cloves and ginger bits. Add 1/4 tsp ale/champagne yeast, and pour into a carboy/jug, and fit a fermentation lock.
Leave in a room-temperature (70-80 deg.) location for 48 hours. Rack into bottles. Store 48 more hours at room temperature. Then refrigerate. (Optional: rack to new bottles to avoid sediment in finished product.)
Batch 2, I tried as an experiment the "Easiest Mead Ever", which apparently they tell beginners not to make because it teaches you bad habits. Whatever, why not?
Actually if this is the mead Flik had made in college, maybe I wouldn't have got so totally hallucinatorily smashed on it. That was the worst thing pretty much ever. I was seeing little fairies.
But this seems really ghetto to me and we'll see how that goes.
I'm brewing it up ghetto-style, in an old plastic juice jug with a plastic bag over the mouth of it. Yes, I am classy.
3 1/2 lbs cheap clover honey
1 lg orange, washed very well and cut in 8ths or smaller, rind on
1 sm handful raisins (about 25 raisins if you're OCD, but it doesn't really matter)
1 cinnamon stick
1 whole clove (maybe 2. Hell, I put in like eight. I didn't read the recipe that well.)
pinch nutmeg/allspice (optional-- and I again, didn't read, and added mace. WHY NOT.)
1 tsp regular old bread yeast, a la Fleischmann's, like you get at the grocery store
Dissolve honey in warm water, and put into 1 gallon carboy/jug/whatever (whatever it is should be cleaned and sanitized, we're not that ghetto and we don't want botulism or mold or whatever).
Add orange, shoving sections through mouth of jug. Add raisins and spices.
Fill jug/carboy to about 3 inches from top with cold water. (Leave room for the foam as the yeast works.)
Put the top on the jug and shake it thoroughly to aerate it and combine everything.
When it is room temperature (depending how warm the water you dissolved the honey in), add the bread yeast. Give it a gentle swirl to combine everything.
Fit the fermentation lock (or an inside-out balloon, which is roughly the same thing). Put it in a dark place, 70-80 degrees. After the major foaming stops, in a few days, add a little more water, and then leave it alone.
Do not rack (siphon to another container), stir, shake, or aerate. It prefers a warm dark place.
Leave it for 2 months or so. It will stop working, and everything will settle out leaving it clear. Siphon to clean bottles and refrigerate. (The orange slices will probably still be floating.)
I am skeptical, but the Internet recommended it very highly. If it fails I'm out about $5 in materials and will have a really gross juice jug to wash and recycle.
And Batch 3, I tried something new. Except that it's not that different from the first recipe. Just different enough to be confusing. But since the first recipe was tasty, I figure, why not?
1 qt honey
2.5 gal water
1 cup strong tea
1/2 tsp each ginger and nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1-3 lemons
mead yeast
Boil water. Add honey, stirring immediately to keep it from sticking and burning at the bottom of the pot. As the mixture comes back to a boil, skim off the white scum at the surface.
After skimming (I let it boil for like 15 minutes while I skimmed, because I was in the midst of something else; the recipe doesn't actually specify), remove from heat. Add tea and spices. Slice lemons thin and add them.
Let them steep for 30 minutes, then scoop the lemons back out.
Cool mixture to 80-85 deg. Fahrenheit-- warm room temperature-- then add yeast. (I know, the recipe doesn't say how much. I know. I'm going to go with a standard packet, which is like a tablespoon. We'll see how that goes.)
Pour into carboys/jugs, cap with airlock. After 5 days, taste. If it is too sweet, let it continue. If too alcoholic (unlikely), add more boiled honey and water. Keep tasting daily until sweetness and alcohol balance.
Siphon into bottles, and refrigerate. (If not refrigerated it will get less and less sweet, and will taste pretty nasty really.) Let stand 2-5 weeks.
Drink and enjoy. If the sediment at the bottom bothers you, siphon it again into clean bottles and seal them tightly. It will taste sweeter and be more sparkling if you do this, and won't have icky cloudy murk at the bottom.
That's what I've got to look forward to. Meanwhile, I brought up the last bottle of the previous batch of mead to drink.
That shit is strong, yo. I'm going to put that recipe in as well. I siphoned it into a clean bottle today so we could drink the last of it without dealing with the sediment.
This one apparently has won SCA awards and stuff. I screwed mine up, slightly, because I was leaving for London in the middle of it.
Incidentally I almost always take longer to brew stuff than the recipe says. It might be because I tend to do it in the basement and it's 60 degrees down there. Just sayin'.
1 gallon water
2 1/2 lbs honey
2 lemons
3 nutmegs, chopped OR 1/2 tsp ground
1 pkg Ale or Champagne yeast
Add honey to 1 gal water and bring it to a boil. Skim off the foam as it boils for about 30 minutes. Slice or juice the lemons, and add, along with the nutmeg. Mix well, turn off heat, and let stand covered until cool. Pour into jug and add yeast.
Let it ferment for 2 weeks, then siphon into bottles ('rack'). Seal or cap the bottles and let sit at room temp. for 2 weeks. Move to refrigerator. (If you leave it out more than 2 weeks the bottles may explode, so be careful.)
You can drink it at any point-- it should be frothy and pleasant.
Yeah, and I left it sitting a little longer, and no bottles exploded, but it's strong as hell. I would recommend following the instructions, because it's also a little bitter/sour. Not enough to be undrinkable, and I know Z wouldn't drink it if it was nasty (I've proven otherwise, I'm afraid, in my life, but that's OK), but it's starting to have Ambitions.
So that's my recipe fest. I really was going to go and do more sewing but I can't face it right now. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 02:55 am (UTC)When we buy cider, Z (the boyfriend) always insists we buy the kind with no preservatives, because he can taste them and they taste funny. So, of course, despite the fact that I love cider like nothing else, we rarely have it in the house. So I tend to kinda... hoard it.
Which means, of course, that the last few cups are pretty heavily fermented by the time we get to them.
Z likes that, though, so I figure it's probably harmless.
I should do it on purpose, though.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-25 01:11 am (UTC)It also makes me think those things are the perfect temperature controlled environment, too bad they're so small.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 07:22 pm (UTC)Actually not screwing it up in the first place would have been more realistic. When people were making their clothes, they wouldn't have not known how to finish an armhole on a simple garment.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 10:26 pm (UTC)THbbbppttt. Tedious.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 10:42 pm (UTC)