24A - Traditional Dry Mead

A couple of weeks ago I made a traditional mead

Ingredients:

• 1gallon (12 pounds) orange blossom honey
• 1 pkg. Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast
• 1 tsp. yeast nutrient
• 4.5 gallons of water

This was my first batch of mead.

I made a starter a couple of hours ahead of time with the dry yeast, about a quart of water, and a teaspoon of yeast nutrient.

There seem to be varying ideas on the best way to make mead - some people boil the batch, some heat it to 160 degrees to pasteurize it, and some people don't heat at all (and somethings sulfite to kill any wild yeasts). I took the middle approach.

I heated about 3 gallons of the water to 180 degrees F and took it off the heat. I stirred in the honey and let it sit for 15 minutes. I cooled the batch to about 80 degrees, poured it into the primary, and pitched the yeast starter.

It took about 36 hours to be really active. Five days later I moved it to the secondary and saved the yeast sludge at the bottom to use as a starter for my next batch of mead.

I forgot to get the OG, but it should be about 1.085 based on the amount of honey which is at the very bottom of the OG range of a standard strength mead - any weaker and it would be a hydromel. I'm aiming for a dry mead, so my FG should be under 1.000 - maybe as low as .990. I'm probably going to do this as a sparkling, but it will be a couple more months before it is ready to bottle, and it probably won't be ready to drink until the end of the year.