*Making Mead*
Ingredients for five gallons of dry mead:
- 13-1/2 pounds light honey
- 1/4 TSP Powdered yeast extract
- 1/2 ounce champagne yeast
- 1/2 ounce sherry yeast
This is a terrific mead that only takes about five months to ferment out.
If you'd like it sweeter, add an ounce of potassium sorbate and another pound
or so of honey boiled in a cup of water to the batch after it's completely
done and you're ready to bottle it. Keep the fermenter tightly covered!
Combine the honey with 1 gallon of water. Boil for 15 minutes and skim off
the foam. Add the honey-water to a sanitized fermenter and then add cold
water to make five gallons. Add the yeast and yeast extract when the
honey-water has cooled below 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Try to keep it at a
temperature between 69 and 80 degrees! Stir daily.
Rack the mead into a secondary fermenter when the liquid clears, fill the
fermenter to the top with fresh water, and attach an airlock. As soon as
the liquid becomes crystal clear and the last of the lees have settled,
stabilize and bottle it in dark bottles. Grolsch beer bottles with pressure
caps work wonderfully. Be sure to sterilize them first.
Mead, like all wine, should be stored sideways (bottles laid down), for
storage.