by Brianne McElhiney,  Sunset Assistant to the editor-in-chief

The first round of fermentation for our mead is done, and I am feeling great about it! 
  

We racked our honey-wine for the first time the other week, meaning we siphoned off the vibrant clear mead into a new carboy leaving the nasty looking dead yeast cells and the mysterious brown fleck at the bottom of the old one.

Vanessa and I siphoning the mead into a clean new carboy, while being careful not to disturb the sediment on the bottom of the old one.  

Before we replaced the stopper and airlock on the new carboy, preparing it for the final round of fermentation, we decided to have a little taste test.  I don't want to sing the praises (do, re, mead...)  too soon, but ours tastes pretty good compared to many of the others we have tried, both homemade and professionally made.  Perhaps the mysterious brown fleck was beneficial. 

Tasting mead-  From the left:  Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief Brianne McElhiney, photo intern Vanessa Speckman, imaging specialist Kimberley Burch.  

Our honey has menthol note from the eucalyptus trees in our area, resulting in a slight medicinal flavor in the mead, but the draught is still rather enjoyable.  Meads reach their prime a few years into aging, so we are very excited it tastes as good as it does this early in the game.  

We have now moved the mead into Sunset's wine cellar for another month or so while the fermenting subsides, then we will rack it again and bottle it for aging.  The mead will be ready to drink in a couple months, but it will be best if we let it age at least a couple years.  I'm not sure we will be able to wait that long.    

by Brianne McElhiney,  Sunset Editorial Assistant to the editor-in-chief

Mead is not just for Renaissance Faire enthusiasts anymore.  It is also for One-Block dieters!  We have made the inaugural batch of honey wine to kick off Team Mead and we are hoping and praying that in a few months it will live up to the delicious draughts we tasted at Rabbit's Foot Meadery. 

Due to lack of space in the test kitchens and the entertaining kitchen, we decided to stir up our batch in Sunset’s new outdoor kitchen.  Incidentally, it was also about 90 degrees and sunny outside.  Maybe it was the heat or maybe the  fact that it was a Friday and we were all looking ahead to the weekend, but we wandered astray from our “Initial Game Plan”.  Perhaps some would call our actions mistakes, but I prefer to think of them as improvisations. 

-Sterilize equipment with boiling water

-Combine honey and water until the must reaches a specific gravity of 1.075 using a hydrometer

-Add White Labs Pitchable Liquid Yeast to the must

-Stir for 5 minutes to aerate

-Cover with several layers of cheesecloth and let sit for another 5 to 10 minutes.  This will allow further aeration while keeping out lots of particles and natural yeasts in the air

-Siphon into carboy leaving no more than 1 inch of room at the top

-Seal with airlock

-Cover with blanket and store in warm, dry place (Sunset prop room) for 10 Days

 Desired outcome:

-3 gallons of delicious mead.

 Actual outcome:

-5 gallons of what, thus far, smells like delicious mead.

 You may naturally wonder how 3 gallons miraculously turned into 5 gallons. The directions said, “use 5.76 lbs of honey per gallon of water".  That does not mean for a 3 gallon carboy you should use 17.28 lbs. (3 x 5.76 lbs.) of honey. Due to this error we ended up adding lots  of water in order get the specific gravity to the desired level of 1.075 (to be honest we settled for 1.080, which means our mead will have a higher alcohol content than we originally planned).  Hence, how 3 gallons of mead turned into 5 gallons.  We misread a few steps here and there, although I am hopeful that it will turn out delicious. If you decided to brew your own, here are some helpful tips to prevent bumps along the way.

 Tips:

1.  Read directions very carefully.  Perhaps read them 5-10 times.  Then read them again in between each step.  We were so excited when the must reached the appropriate specific gravity we nearly forgot to add the yeast (a key element of mead).

 2. In the end, specific gravity will be more important than poundage, so don’t worry so much about the weight of honey used.   And just so you know, you will probably never need 17.28 lbs. honey for a household batch of mead.

 3.  Add honey to water versus water to honey to prevent wasting honey

 4.  Don't wear great high heels because they are likely to get covered in honey water

 5.  Don't make mead outside on a hot day because you will be miserable (the photos are a false representation of how we felt that day)

 6.  If you decide to do it outside be sure nothing falls into your mead (i.e. leaves or bugs).  We currently have a mysterious brown fleck floating around our carboy, which may or may not have potential for causing trouble (see video) 

The primary fermentation should be subsiding this week and we will need to transfer the mead into a clean carboy.  We will also be able to take the first taste test.  Stay tuned for updates.