Well folks I know it has been a long time since the last post but I haven't forgotten you.
Well I broke down and finally setup to make a batch of Honey Wine a.k.a. Mead also known as the “Nectar of the Gods”.
This is a very ancient type of wine made back before the middle ages. The wine is basically pure honey with occasionally added things like herbs or fruit to make different variations of the wine.
Mead is almost certainly the oldest alcoholic beverage known to man and likely discovered before the wheel was invented. As long as there have been bees and honey there has been mead. Mead occurs naturally when honey is mixed with water and yeast. A chance occurrence of mead was likely produced during the Stone Age when honey became wet from rain and wild yeast in the air settled into the mixture.
Honey by itself cannot sustain fermentation because of it’s pure content, but by adding things like citrus, or herbs, or adjuncts Honey can sustain fermentation by providing some nutrients to the yeast along with the pure sugar found in the honey.
In the 21st century we just simply add 4 oz of Yeast nutrients which is a mixture of citric acids, and other chemicals the yeast can use to live while converting Sugar to Alcohol.
To make Mead it is a very simple process of Adding 12 lbs of Honey (a little more than a Gallon) to a large stock pot ( 12-15 quarts is a big enough pot ) then add a lot of water to bring the volume almost up to the top of the pot (nearly filled, leave some room for stirring etc.) Then bring the mixture of Honey and water up to 160 degrees F. slowly and stirring to completely dissolve the honey into the water. DO NOT BOIL the mixture!!! Just bring the Temp up to 160 degrees for about 5 minutes, and then pour it into the primary fermentor. The process of bringing the honey solution up to 160 degrees is called pasteurizing. This will kill off any stray bacteria, or virus’s that might be hanging in with the Honey. Some mead makers will tell you that store bought Honey doesn’t need to be pasteurized but because this stuff will be fermenting in my home, and for a long time, I would rather err on the side of caution and make sure the mead has a good healthy chance of becoming wine without turning into some weird science experiment.
Once the mixture has been added to the primary fermentation bucket, I top up to 5 gals with some fresh room temp spring water. Depending on how cold your Room Temp spring water is you may need to cool the mixture a bit so you can pitch the yeast. Yeast cannot be pitched if the temperature of the Must is over 105 degrees F. it will die if introduced to such high temps. My must was over 125 degrees, so I just set the bucket into a sink of Ice-water and stirred the mixture occasionally to bring the temp down to 100 degrees. I then added the yeast, put on the top of the bucket, and set up the airlock.
All while this was going on I made a batch of Black Raspberry Merlot from Island Mist wine kits. We love the Island Mist wine fruit kits, and have had excellent results from these kits. While drinking a bottle of Green Apple Riesling made from a previous Island Mist wine kit. We set up to make the Black Raspberry Merlot. I would tell any of you that if you want to make one of these kits I would say, just follow the instructions and you cannot go wrong. With one exception, the recipe calls for 6 gals of water. Do yourself a favor and only make 5 gal batches. This will increase the flavor of the wine, and the fruit in it and you will have a great tasting fruit wine. I found that if you try to make the 6 gals like the instructions say, your wine may come off tasting a little watered down. Even the folks at Island Mist will tell you to make 5 gal batches and not 6 gals.
So following the instructions and using only 5 gals we quickly had the Merlot in the primary fermentor, and the yeast starting to ferment. By the end of the evening he Merlot had already started fermenting, and by morning both the Mead and the Merlot were bubbling away happily.
Next week we will transfer the merlot to the secondary fermentation container, and if the mead is happy we will do the same. But it might take a bit longer for the mead. Mainly because there is so much more sugar.
The Starting Specific Gravity for the Mead was 1.078, and the starting SG for the Black Raspberry Merlot was 1.048 (as per the instructions) notice how much more the mead is compared to the merlot.
Ok that is all for now check you next week when we go to the secondary fermentation……
