| Mead |
1 gallon |
| Season |
Anytime, but honey is more available in the
summertime |
| Honey |
4 lbs = Sweet, 3.5 lbs = Medium Dry, 3 lbs =
Dry.
NB! Do not use more than 4 lb of honey per gallon ! Since the honey is providing all the flavour, pick a decent type. Do not recommend the blended honey or stuff like Gales. |
| Yeast |
Either a No. 3 Yellow Label, No. 5 White Label or Purple Label |
| Tannin |
1 teaspoon |
| Yeast nutrient (TronOzymol) |
1 teaspoon |
| Malic acid |
2/3 teaspoon |
| Tartaric acid |
1/3 teaspoon |
| Chempro SDP |
To sterilise all containers, bags and demijohns. - rinse with clean water after sterilisation |
| Water |
To 1 gallon, tend to leave a couple of inches to allow for any frothing and refill in a couple of months. |
| The
honey is dissolved in hot water, there is no need to use a lot of heat
or nearly boil honey, unless it has been left in a cupboard and started
to self ferment - have had this happen to a large volume of honey and
so have used some to make metheglin. Was heated to about 60 C, this is
enough to kill off any wild yeast or bacteria, without losing too much
of
the flavour. If honey is boiled, then you tend to lose most of the
flavours and may as well use treacle :) |
|
| Melomel - Using Rosehips | 1 gallon |
| Season - Autumn |
This is due to the rosehips
being ready in these months |
| Honey |
3.5 lbs - Type is less important
as the rosehips are providing most of the flavour |
| Rosehips |
Approx. 2 lbs, personally pick a
load in the autumn and let them dry in a cool place so that they can be
used anytime. |
| Yeast |
Either a No. 3 Yellow Label, No. 5 White Label or Purple Label |
| Tannin |
1 teaspoon |
| Yeast nutrient (TronOzymol) | 1 teaspoon |
| Malic acid | 2/3 teaspoon |
| Tartaric acid | 1/3 teaspoon |
| Chempro SDP | To sterilise all containers,
bags and demijohns. - rinse with clean water after sterilisation |
| Water | To 1 gallon, tend to leave a
couple of inches to allow for any frothing and refill in a couple of
months. |
| The
rosehips are left in the demijohn for approximately 3 months and then
the wine is removed to another demijohn and the water topped up. |
|
| Metheglin |
1 gallon |
| Season - Summer |
Most herbs can be obtained in a
dried form, if you wish to use fresh fennel, then you need to wait
until the autumn. |
| Honey |
3.5 lbs - Type is less important as the herbs are providing most of the flavour |
| Herbs used, generally 1 oz per
herb |
Fennel seeds and fronds
(leaves), liquorice sticks, cinnamon sticks, mace blades or 2 ground
nutmegs, angelica seeds, rosemary (1-2 tsp.), oregano, marjoram. Please
note that nutmegs are psychoactive and you can overdose on them, hence
the limit of 2 nutmegs per gallon. Tend to have either 1 large nutmeg
or 2 small ones. Herbs are generally crushed in a pestle and mortar or
you can use a herb grinder. |
| Tannin |
1 teaspoon |
| Yeast nutrient (TronOzymol) | 1 teaspoon |
| Malic acid | 2/3 teaspoon |
| Tartaric acid | 1/3 teaspoon |
| Chempro SDP | To sterilise all containers, bags and demijohns. - rinse with clean water after sterilisation |
| Water |
To 1 gallon, tend to leave a couple of inches to allow for any frothing and refill in a couple of months. |
| The herbs are left in the demijohn for approximately 3 months and then the wine is removed to another demijohn and the water topped up. The herbs have an effect on the wine by making it clear much more quickly. | |
| Simple Mead |
For Roo and people new to wine
making :) |
| Honey from supermarkets |
3 x 500 gram plastic jars of
Honey |
| Yeast |
High Alcohol yeast |
| How to make: |
Get a big pan, like preserving
pan. Pour in one pint of boiling water and 1 pint of cold water. For
the plastic jars, twist the tops through 90 degrees and use a blunt
knife to pop the tops off. Pour honey into the preserving pan, when
jars empty, fill 1/3rd with hot water and replace the tops. Shake the
jars and regularly release the pressure. When the rest of the honey is
dissolved, pour into the pan. Stir the honey and maybe add another pint
of hot water until honey dissolves. Do not heat the honey on a cooker,
no need for it. Decant to a previously sterilised demijohn and add in the nutrients and stuff from the MEAD recipe, nutrients this time were a desert spoon measurement. Dissolve them in hot water and pour into demijohn, check temperature of demijohn, add in some more water upto the point where the vertical sides slope upwards or 3-5" depth. Add the yeast, mix in with the liquid, fit air lock. Fill the airlock with water and not sterlising solution, so that if the airlock removed badly it does not contaminate the wine. |
| Afterwards |
Leave some place warm and when
the mead stops frothing, add more water and when sediment occurs,
remove until none left, make up the water to keep the demijohn full. Total time to make the wine and write these instructions - less than 2 hours :) |
| Strawberry Melomel |
4
Gallons - August 2008 |
| Strawberries |
12 pounds from Sainsbury's on
special offer, was raining lots and kneeling in the dirt for hours to
save £5 did not appeal. Washed, cored and frozen until ready to use. Defrosted overnight in clean fermenting bin and pured in a food processor - the bags will leak juice. |
| Honey |
Some bulk honey from Flitwick,
not well filtered which can give better flavour - 2.5 lbs per
gallon, all in at the start |
| Malic & Tartaric acid |
Trying less acid than usual, so
1/4 teaspoon each per gallon from now on, but as strawberries have
their own acid, used 1/2 tsp of each |
| Yeast nutrient (TronOzymol) | 4 teaspoons |
| Earl Grey Tea |
2 teabags well brewed to give
tannin, gone off the powdered stuff that seems hard to dissolve |
| Yeast |
High Alcohol tolerance |
| Pectolase |
4 teaspoons |
| How to make ? |
Dissolve the honey with a kettle
of boiling water to wash the honey off the weighing pot into the
preserving pan, stir until dissolved, some extra heat might be needed.
Pour into the fermenting bin. Heat up the strawberries as
still very cold from the freezer, when warm drop into the fermenting
bin. When lukewarm to the touch, add the pectolase and yeast, stir well. Move to somewhere warm, but under 25 Celsius. Water to 3 gallons max Stir DAILY ! if not stirred daily, good chance of the crust having a bacterial infection of it's own. Should this happen, it is too late and best to bin the batch. |
| upto 1 week later |
Strain the pulp and wash it into
another fermenting bin of the same size, ensure you keep the volume
well under the 4 gallons, when looks ok, decant into 4 pre-sterilised
demijohns and fit airlocks |
| Update: 2008 wine drunk in 2009 | Wine is nice and clear, can taste both the honey and the strawberries, not using any acid this year, will leave the acid in non fruit meads :) |
| 8x 400g punnets of strawberries,
cheaper to goto a farm and pick it yourself, but that takes a few
hours. Removed the green tops, pureed what was left and heated in jam
making pan did not bother freezing the strawberries this time, simply pureeing seems enough :) 2.5 lbs per gallon tastes a bit weak - added another 1b per gallon |
| Apricot & Ginger Melomel |
1 Gallon |
| Apricots |
Used 3x 500g punnets from
Sainsbury's, washed cut in half to remove the stone and frozen for use
later |
| Ginger |
6 ounces, sliced and diced |
| Ingredients |
As above - 1/4 tsp of malic and
tartaric, treat as above |
| Ginger Mead (2009) | 1 Gallon 3.5 lbs honey, 3/4 teaspoon of malic/tartaric acid combined, 800g ginger - half pre frozen half fresh - if freezing wash out all the mud first ! |
| Pear Melomel (2009) using pears from
Clive's tree |
4 gallons |
| About 16 pounds of pears, plus
12 pounds of honey. The pears were cleaned, pips removed etc a week or two ago, and frozen. Defrosted and pured in a food processor, honey dissolved in 1.5 kettles of near boiling water 4 tea bags, 4 tsp of yeast nutrient and 4 of pectolase. Made upto about 3 gallons and left in the front room, stirring every morning No acid added High alcohol yeast prepped in bottle for a few hours first |
| Orange Mead (2011) | 6 kg of both sweet &
seville oranges, remove the pith and pips, use everything else. Usually
frozen to break up the cells. Puree the orange flesh and rind, used a
few tea bags for tannin, added 4 tsp of nutrient and some
pectolytic enzyme Bulk ferment with 1/2 the honey for a week, moving the must on the top of the wine into the bulk of the wine in the morning and evening |
| After a week, strained via a
fruit press and then a muslin bag after finding the fruit press not a
perfect fit Honey is 2.5 pounds per gallon, fermenting well now :) |