Joe's Ancient Orange Mead
So after seeing a post on /r/gameofthrones, I decided I'd like to finally give brewing my own mead a shot. Unfortunately, my mead won't be ready in time for the premiere of season 2 of Game of Thrones, but it will still be a fun project.
So, decision made, I gathered up some supplies from my local homebrew store.
Back home, laid out all my supplies and started preparing for my mead makin'.
I followed the recipe exactly, having never done this before, I wanted to get a feel for it. According to (a lot) of feedback in that thread, this is a hard recipe to mess up.
Joe's Ancient Orange Mead
Recipe Type: All Grain Yeast: Bread yeast Yeast Starter: nope Batch Size (Gallons): 1 Original Gravity: 1.100???? Final Gravity: 1.030????? Boiling Time (Minutes): 1 Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 2 months Ancient Orange Mead (by Joe Mattioli) 1 gallon batch 3 1/2 lbs Clover or your choice honey or blend (will finish sweet) 1 Large orange (later cut in eights or smaller rind and all) 1 small handful of raisins (25 if you count but more or less ok) 1 stick of cinnamon 1 whole clove ( or 2 if you like - these are potent critters) optional (a pinch of nutmeg and allspice )( very small ) 1 teaspoon of Fleishmann’s bread yeast ( now don't get holy on me--- after all this is an ancient mead and that's all we had back then) Balance water to one gallon Process: Use a clean 1 gallon carboy Dissolve honey in some warm water and put in carboy Wash orange well to remove any pesticides and slice in eights --add orange (you can push em through opening big boy -- rinds included -- its ok for this mead -- take my word for it -- ignore the experts) Put in raisins, clove, cinnamon stick, any optional ingredients and fill to 3 inches from the top with cold water. ( need room for some foam -- you can top off with more water after the first few day frenzy) Shake the heck out of the jug with top on, of course. This is your sophisticated aeration process. When at room temperature in your kitchen, put in 1 teaspoon of bread yeast. ( No you don't have to rehydrate it first-- the ancients didn't even have that word in their vocabulary-- just put it in and give it a gentle swirl or not)(The yeast can fight for their own territory) Install water airlock. Put in dark place. It will start working immediately or in an hour. (Don't use grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away in the 90's)( Wait 3 hours before you panic or call me) After major foaming stops in a few days add some water and then keep your hands off of it. (Don't shake it! Don't mess with them yeastees! Let them alone except its okay to open your cabinet to smell every once in a while. Racking --- Don't you dare additional feeding --- NO NO More stirring or shaking -- Your not listening, don't touch After 2 months and maybe a few days it will slow down to a stop and clear all by itself. (How about that) (You are not so important after all) Then you can put a hose in with a small cloth filter on the end into the clear part and siphon off the golden nectar. If you wait long enough even the oranges will sink to the bottom but I never waited that long. If it is clear it is ready. You don't need a cold basement. It does better in a kitchen in the dark. (Like in a cabinet) likes a little heat (70-80). If it didn't work out... you screwed up and didn't read my instructions (or used grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away) . If it didn't work out then take up another hobby. Mead is not for you. It is too complicated. If you were successful, which I am 99% certain you will be, then enjoy your mead. When you get ready to make different mead you will probably have to unlearn some of these practices I have taught you, but hey--- This recipe and procedure works with these ingredients so don't knock it. It was your first mead. It was my tenth. Sometimes, even the experts can forget all they know and make good ancient mead.
I setup all of my equipment in my bathtub and soaked everything overnight in a bleach/water mix (1 cap full of bleach per gallon of H2O).
Reading up on it, there are many ways to sanitize equipment; I chose bleach simply because I had a bottle (of the unscented kind) lying around.
I mixed everything up per the instructions. Looking back, if I do this again, I would cut the orange slices up into 1/8ths instead of 1/4ers. The orange slices will be easier to get out this way when cleaning up I think.
I had heated my water and honey mixture up to help the honey mix. I didn't boil it, but just wanted my ingredients to mix better. Since I had done this, I let the must (pre Yeast/fermented mead) set for about an hour before I pitched, that way it would be at, or close to, room temperature.
After it had cooled, I pitched the yeast and moved the carboy to a closet/pantry to help avoid any light. According to feedback in the homebrewtalk thread and the recipe, temperatures from 60-70 degrees will be ideal for fermenting.
Now, I wait!