26A - Metheglin (spiced mead)

Ryan made a yummy honey liquer, krupnikas, a couple of months ago. I'm trying to replicate that flavor in this spiced mead.

Ingredients:

• 60 grams dried mandarin peel (4 mandarin peels)
  
• 15 grams lemon peel (1 lemon)
• 4 cinnamon sticks, broken in half
• 8 cardamon pods, lightly crushed
• 7 whole cloves
• 1.5 nutmeg nuts, crushed
• 3/4 tsp. white pepper, lightly crushed
• 3/4 tsp. black pepper, lightly crushed
• 1 oz. ginger, peeled and sliced
• 1 gallon (12 pounds) wildflower honey from Millers Honey
• Yeast starter with Red Start Premier Cuvee yeast and yeast nutrient
  
• 1/2 gallon (6 pounds) clover honey from Costco
  

Simmer the dry spices in 1.5 quart of water until fragrant. Add ginger, simmer 5 more minutes, put aside.

I had a yeast starter I made a couple of days ago from the yeast residue from my last batch of mead. I took that out of the fridge to warm up.

Bring 4 gallons of water to 180 degrees. Turn off water. Add honeys and spice mixture. Stir. Let it cool down to 70 degrees, pitch the yeast.

OG - 1.103 (the floating thermometer was floating horizontally on top!). This is right near the top of the range for a standard mead - 1.120 would be a sack mead.
FG - I'm shooting for a semi-dry - 1.010 range.

This is probably going to be very slow - probably a couple of years before it is drinkable.

This should be very different than the other mead - the orange blossom is very light and delicate, while this is very dark, rich, and spicy. I plan on making the orange blossom as dry as I can make it and sparkling, while this one I'll try to leave a little sweet and probably do still. They should be interested to compare to each other.