Honey Mead: Bees and Beers

Ingredients

We’re aiming for a first, simple batch of 5 litres, using local bee honey.

• 5L of Brewing water: the water from the faucet is quite hard, therefore the ion contents are dilluted by mixing it with distilled water in a 2/1 ratio.
• around 1 kg of local honey
• Applejack’s Mead Yeast
• Juice from a lemon
• Half a cup of strong tea (Earl Grey)

Brewing

Mix honey and water and bring to a boil. Make sure the total volume at the end is still 5L.

Add citric acid and tea while the brew is still hot.

Cooling

The brew was cooled to around 25°C, using a cooler.

Gravity measurement

• Specific gravity measured: 1.040
• Alcohol percentage expected: 3.94%

Primary and Secondary Fermentation

Both fermentations are done in a carboy in the dark at RT. No off-tastes due to autolysis of the yeast are expected unless we leave the brew for longer than a month, but I sure don’t have that patience 😉. For the first few days, the top is just covered with a cloth as a lot of CO2 production is expected. After that a water lock is placed on the brew after possibly topping the carboy off with more sterilized water.

• sanitization carboy, airlock and tools used
• yeast pitched and airlock placed