Saturday 11 April 2015

More Mead, Coming Up!

About 1½ week ago, I was cleaning a glass wine fermentation container (I simply cannot find a proper English translation for it), while at the same time cleaning some bottles.

BAD idea!

I tipped over a bottle with my elbow, and in fell directly on top of the container, resulting in much misery.

It was not a complete disaster, as I had two unused containers in store, but, never the less, I decided to have a look at the interweb to see if I could find some cheap second hand ones.

And just a couple of days later, I found an offer of
seven containdrs at DKK 75 each (many wanted up to DKK 200 for used ones, which is more than I am willing to pay).

I immediately responded to the ad, and was lucky to be the first person intersted.

As it turned out, the guy selling them has a wife who is a beekeeper, and I was able to negociate a sweet deal regarding honey (effective from the first batch this spring).

I stored the seven new containers in the attic, and went about my business, readyieng another container for tha next batch of mead to be stored a full year before being bottled.

Below is a pic of the siphoning ikn process.

The first time I did this, some of the mead overflowed (the class container cannot hols quite as much as afull plastic container, it seems), so this time, before filling the glass container, I siphoned some mead into bottles to prevent spillage.

When the plastic container was empty, I poured the content of most of the bottles into the galss container as well, bus as it turned out, I had a full bottle's worth of mead in excess, which I shall have to consume (oh, the sacrifices one must make!).

I have had a batch fermenting for 3 weeks now, and I set about starting another batch yesterday, making the yeast-starter.

This morning, I started boiling hte first half of the brew, and I have just now removed the pots from the stove.

As you can see below, no mead-brewing without enjoying a glass of the liquid gold!

The mead I am consuming today is the excess from siphoning as described above, and although is hasn't had time to mature, it tastes very fine, indeed.

I am going to designate the mead I mature for a year as 'Huskarle-mead', as it will be the best mead I can make with common baking yeast.


When I have the first 4 or 5 batches of Huskarle-mead maturing in glass containers, I shall start experimenting with other types of yeast; I have found a vendor of brewing gear that sells various types of yeast that should give a higher alcohol-percentage, and I am curious as to how that influences taste.


That is all from Argonor's Mead Brewery for now!

I hope I have not bored the hell out of all my readers with this, but as the motto of Attic Attack is 'Mead and Dice!', I think my endeavours in bringing this sacred beverage to the gaming tables are well worth recording!






4 comments:

  1. Nice to have a little view into your other "hobbies", I don't mind the sidestep at all. :)
    I find the (home) brewing process quite interesting, but as I have absolutely no use for the final product, I have no cause to try it myself. So I guess I'll be enjoying the brewing magic vicariously through your posts... (As an aside: Regular baking yeast, that actually works for mead? Cool.)

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    1. Baking yeast works absolutely fine, and yields an alcohol-percentage around 15. When you say you would have no use for the end product, is that because you do not consume alcohol at all, or because you don't like mead? Both are, of course, absolutely legit reasons for not brewing ;o)
      On a side note, mead can be used for marinating mead, and the subsequent roasting eliminates the alcohol.

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  2. It's because I don't consume alcohol, I actually find mead rather pleasant smelling.I could brew it for guests and friends, but without being able to sample the quality and taste myself, I wouldn't feel right serving them untested produce...
    Mead marinade is an interesting idea, though! Sounds mouthwatering.

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    1. I've also tried using it instead of honey and red wine when preparing red cabbage for roast duck or other 'winter'-dishes, but for this purpose it actually isn't quite sweet enough. My wife sometimes use it for pastry instead of port or cream sherry, with good results.

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