People talk about the old Grimoires and books of magic having “blinds”–instructions left out, or added, to botch attempts by the uninitiated. This may or may not be true, but I have become convinced that many mead-making recipes DO include such blinds, and I think it’s fucking bullshit.\u00a0 Below is my method.\u00a0 If your recipe calls for something more complex, think twice.\u00a0 If something looks stupid, it probably is.\u00a0 If someone tells you that it’s too hard, or too expensive, or too messy to do yourself … they want into your wallet, or into your pants.\u00a0 Maybe both.<\/p>\n
I’ve been meaning to write this up anyway, to streamline the recipes I post.\u00a0 It has been made critical by an unfortunate accident in a good friend’s first attempt at mead-brewing.\u00a0 I don’t know where she got it, honestly I don’t want to: I’d have to flame the shit out of their comments section, and maybe even put in a bad word for them with Him Who Watches Over My Homebrew.<\/p>\n
I’ll update this with pictures the next time I start a batch.\u00a0 In the meantime: knowing is half the battle.*<\/p>\n
Satyr Magos’ Process For Turning Honey, Water, Yeast, and Misclanea Into Damn Fine Mead<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n My process is mind-bogglingly simple.\u00a0 In fact, most of the time I skip half these steps.\u00a0 This process has thus far worked for every recipe I’ve tried in my almost three years of homebrewing.<\/p>\n 1. (Optional) Start with my honey, and mix it 1:2 with water in a big pot on the stove.\u00a0 Don’t boil it, just get it hot enough that a light foam begins to rise to the surface.\u00a0 That foam is wax and other impurities–skim it off.\u00a0 In addition to purifying the honey, this step offers an opportunity get the most out of ingredients that will benefit from the heat+water combination (herbs &c.).\u00a0 Put a lid on your pot and let it cool to the point where it’s safe to either either suck-start your siphon or pick up the pot with your hands.\u00a0 Move on to step 2 while you wait.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 Pour your yeast into a container of orange juice (whatever quantity is appropriate for the recipie you are using).\u00a0 Let this sit to the side while you work.\u00a0 By the time you’re ready to add this to the mix, it should be happy and frothy.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Pour your honey+water mixture into your carboy in whatever way is most convenient.\u00a0 (If you skipped step 1, start by putting about 2x your volume of honey in the carboy first.\u00a0 Use warm water, and mix the honey in as you add it.)\u00a0 I like to use my racking hose and\/or a funnel.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Add your initial flavoring elements (any that did not get added in step 1.)–that is, all the ingredients other than the water, honey, and yeast.\u00a0 Mix this up well.\u00a0 For a one gallon batch, I cap the bottle and shake it vigorously.\u00a0 For a five gallon batch, I grab the bottle by the top and rock it in circles along the circumference of the base (this is less complicated than it sounds: wobble it in a circular fashion).<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 (Optional)\u00a0 Add enough water to bring the carboy up to 2\/3 full.\u00a0 Mix well.<\/p>\n 6.\u00a0 Add the yeast.\u00a0 Mix welll.<\/p>\n 7.\u00a0 Add enough water to almost fill the carboy, but leave an inch or two of space at the top for the must to get frothy.\u00a0 You can top it off the rest of the way when the initial fermentation (the frothing) is finished.\u00a0 Mix well.<\/p>\n 8.\u00a0 Apply air-lock.\u00a0 Leave in warm (60-80 deg. F, depending on your yeast) dark place.<\/p>\n 9.\u00a0 (Optional, but gets better results) Mix daily for the first week.\u00a0 Rack at 1-3 weeks, at 6 weeks, at 13 weeks, and as needed thereafter.\u00a0 Add flavoring elements as needed, as whim takes you, or as recipe directs.<\/p>\n 10.\u00a0 (Optional for 1-gallon batches) Bottle any time after 6 months (3 months for fast-brewing Small Mead recipes), or as recipe directs.<\/p>\n 12.\u00a0 Toast Dionysus.<\/p>\n 13.\u00a0 Drink Copiously.<\/p>\n * Why, yes, I am a child of the 1980s.\u00a0 Why do you ask?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People talk about the old Grimoires and books of magic having “blinds”–instructions left out, or added, to botch attempts by the uninitiated. This may or may not be true, but I have become convinced that many mead-making recipes DO include such blinds, and I think it’s fucking bullshit.\u00a0 Below is my method.\u00a0 If your recipe … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[155],"class_list":["post-365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedonism","tag-mead"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-5T","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}