This is the recipe and process for a quick little mead I make, it's a ever so slight variation on Joe's ancient orange mead (look on gotmead.com).
Recipe for 12L
-5kg orange blossom honey (I use cold extracted and but it in a 5kg tub for $30)
-3 oranges (What ever ones take my fancy, this time Valencia)
-3 cinnamon sticks
-3 cloves
-3 sachets of tandaco dry yeast (yep bread yeast)
-3 handfuls raisins
First I clean and sanitize everything (my fermenter (3 gal glass), my mixing container (a 25L plastic fermenter), a spatula, chopping board and knife, jug, and a lees stirrer.
I warm the honey in a warm water bath in the sink, then poor it into my mixing fermenter and get the last bits out with my spatula. I then use a jug to get the water level to 12L. Now comes the fun bit, I get my lees stirrer and attach it to a drill and beat the heck out of it until all the honey is mixed (2 min) and then keep beating for about 5min to aerate the must.
I then move the must over to my glass fermenter and add the rest of the ingredients, seal it up and leave it for 4 months.
It has worked a treat every time, but I'm using Melbourne water this time instead of rainwater so we will see. In the end i usually get about 16 bottles or so. When bottling time comes i have a self priming racking cane that i attach to a popper bottle (one for wine not beer, it fills from the top). I use a hand corker and cork all my bottles.
Hope this is of some help to people looking into making mead.
Recipe for 12L
-5kg orange blossom honey (I use cold extracted and but it in a 5kg tub for $30)
-3 oranges (What ever ones take my fancy, this time Valencia)
-3 cinnamon sticks
-3 cloves
-3 sachets of tandaco dry yeast (yep bread yeast)
-3 handfuls raisins
First I clean and sanitize everything (my fermenter (3 gal glass), my mixing container (a 25L plastic fermenter), a spatula, chopping board and knife, jug, and a lees stirrer.
I warm the honey in a warm water bath in the sink, then poor it into my mixing fermenter and get the last bits out with my spatula. I then use a jug to get the water level to 12L. Now comes the fun bit, I get my lees stirrer and attach it to a drill and beat the heck out of it until all the honey is mixed (2 min) and then keep beating for about 5min to aerate the must.
I then move the must over to my glass fermenter and add the rest of the ingredients, seal it up and leave it for 4 months.
It has worked a treat every time, but I'm using Melbourne water this time instead of rainwater so we will see. In the end i usually get about 16 bottles or so. When bottling time comes i have a self priming racking cane that i attach to a popper bottle (one for wine not beer, it fills from the top). I use a hand corker and cork all my bottles.
Hope this is of some help to people looking into making mead.
