Robin Hood's Merry Mead
02/08/1999 22:18:08 Robin Hood's Merry Mead
Category : Mead
Method : Extract
Starting Gravity : 1.101
Ending Gravity : 1.025
Alcohol content : 9.8%
Recipe Makes : 1.0 gallons
Total Grain : 2.88 lbs.
Color (srm) : 2.9
Efficiency : 75%
Hop IBUs : 0
Ingredients
Malts/Sugars:
46.00 oz. Honey
Hops: None
Notes:
Used white clover honey
rounded 1/2 tsp. GW Kent Burton water salt (or "Gypsum plus")
3/4 tsp. acid blend (citric, malic, tartaric)
0.1 ounce GW Kent yeast nutrient
.05 tsp. GW Kent Irish moss flakes (roughly)
Yeast: 1 packet Red Star Pasteur champagne yeast
Procedure
Sanitized all equipment in cool bleach solution.
Added honey, Burton salt, yeast nutrient, Irish moss, and acid
blend to 2 quarts water, brought to a boil. Boiled for 15 minutes,
skimming the proteins off the top. Cooled in snow outside in the
brewpot, then strained into 2 quarts water in the 1 gallon glass
fermentor.
When temp was 80 degrees, boiled 1/4 cup water and rehydrated 1
packet champaign yeast when water dropped below 90 degrees F.
Measured specific gravity of brew and adjusted for temperature
(1.110). Aerated (shook) fermenter then pitched yeast and corked.
Attached hose to stopper. Replaced hose with fermentation lock
a few hours later. Placed fermenter in pantry. Day 2, moved
fermenter to downstairs bathroom under sink skirt.
When fermentation activity stopped, racked to secondary.
Sanitized second fermenter, siphon hose, primary cap, and
hydrometer. Resanitized stopper and fermentation trap.
Siphoned mead to secondary and reaffixed fermentation trap.
Bottled when clear in secondary. Sanitized bottles, short siphon
hose, bottle filler, funnel, hydrometer, hydrometer tube in bleach
solution for 1/2 hour. Rinsed stuff off in hot water; bottles with
the bottle filler. Boiled caps for 5 minutes. Bottled and
capped.
8 bottles bottled as-is. Last (9th) bottle only got 4 ounces from
the bottom of the fermenter, so filled bottle rest of the way with
the hydrometer sample, using the funnel (hydrometer tube had been
sanitized for 1/2 hour with bleach solution, as had hydrometer and
funnel). Added 1 tsp. priming honey to this last bottle, along
with a few drops of the sediment-laden dregs from the secondary,
and marked the lable of this bottle. Shook fairly well to mix in
the honey.
Hydrometer measured in at 1.000. Tasted a couple drops; tastes
like wine.
Log Entries
Date Started : 01/21/1995
Date Bottled : 03/04/1995
Starting Gravity : 1.110
Ending Gravity : 1.000
Alcohol content : 14.2%
Racked on 2/15/1995.
1/21/95 Began work at 5pm, pitched around 6:30pm.
1/22/95 Bubbles began by 2:00am. Fermenter placed in pantry. Moved
fermenter to bathroom under sink skirt in the evening.
1/24/95 Bubbling once every 2 seconds at 10:30am.
1/28/95 Bubbling once every 3 seconds at 9:30am.
1/31/95 Still bubbling once every 3 or 4 seconds at 5:00pm.
2/7/95 Bubbling about once every 15 seconds at 3:00pm.
2/10/95 Bubbling once every minute at 4:30pm.
2/14/95 No observable activity at 2:30pm. The white stuff around the
rim is going away, and the mead seems to be clearing. Time to rack
soon.
2/15/95 Still no observable activity. Big pile of white yeast in the
bottom of the fermenter. Racked to secondary jug in the afternoon.
2/16/95 Moved fermenter to basement to clear.
2/25/95 Mead looks clear and ready to bottle.
3/4/95 Mead is starkly clear (water-clear) and gold. Bottled.
Tasted a drop; tastes like wine. I think.
Spring 1996. Tastes much, much better. Very nice indeed.
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