Jack Ratt Lyme Bay Christmas Mead, 75 cl

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Calculate must nitrogen requirements per TOSNA Calculator. Then plug the Fermaid O needed into the Advanced SNA Calculator to find the amount needed for Dap, Fermaid K & O.

Archaeological evidence puts mead as being one of the oldest alcoholic drinks in the world after traces of the honey-based drink were found in China from over 9,000 years ago. This means mead has been enjoyed by some of history’s ancient civilisations, from the ancient Greeks to Norse marauders. Once water and honey have warmed, remove the containers from their bath and pour the 2 lbs of honey into the gallon jug. Recap, and shake to mix thoroughly. Once tea has cooled slightly, add it (including all the lose tea) to the gallon jug as well. As the days grow colder and the wild winds start blowing down from the north, there are few things more satisfying or warming than a glass or two of something steaming, delicious, and ( ahem) alcoholic.

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Rehydrate yeast prior to pitching: Rehydrate 27.5 grams of Go-Ferm in 550 ml of 110F water, then add yeast at 104F. Let stand for 15 minutes, then gently stir to break up any clumps. Temper yeast to within 18 F over the next 15-30 min and then add to the must. Add 1/2 tsp K2CO3. One time addition. Increased the amount to compensate for the acidity of the fruit juice.

Often referred to as the “Nectar of the Gods”, the golden drink has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, with the demand from people eager to buy mead reaching new heights! We have been perfecting our fantastic meads for over 15 years and often experiment with new and bold flavours to push the boundaries of what is possible with mead. Manage Your Volume — Containers should be a bit oversized until you get to the stage you want to age longer-term. You need headspace for mixing/degassing and extra space for any large volumes being added in secondary. Once you get to aging you want as little headspace as possible. I brewed that batch and was hooked. Unlike the strawberry wine that I had made earlier in the summer, this was relatively little investment for a nice return–an effervescent fermented drink that was light and sweet and endlessly variable, depending on the type of honey and tea you used to spice it up. It wasn’t complex, it wasn’t refined, but it sure was tasty. In the simplest of terms, mead is essentially a honey wine. It is honey and water that is fermented with yeast and can also be flavoured with a range of fruits, hops, or spices and comes in both still and sparkling form.Pour a small amount of mead into a glass and swill around the glass, where you should notice that it leaves behind a coating on the side of the glass. Smell Add all ingredients to a short glass with ice and stir until sugar is dissolved, adding more sugar to taste if needed. Garnish with some orange zest. Mead can also be enjoyed warm up, and it makes for a warming treat when the weather starts to get colder, particularly when we have varieties such as Christmas Mead for you to enjoy. The ideal temperature for serving hot mead is 50 – 55°C, but you should be careful not to overheat it. If mead reaches 60°C or above, it will start to foam and then rapidly lose flavour, leaving you with an unpleasant taste in your mouth! Open the spring water and pour off 4 cups of the contents and discard. Pour out an additional 3 cups and place in a sauce pan. Recap the water jug.

While mead-drinking on the whole has become less and less common throughout the past few centuries, mulled mead is still very much enjoyed in a couple of places to this day as a traditional celebratory drink. Various parts of Sweden and Norway still enjoy warmed, spiced mead at Yule (or Christmas time), and no May Day celebration in Finland would be complete with a cup or two of this most special of drinks. Add all ingredients to a warm glass mug mixed until honey is dissolved and garnish with Star Anise & Cinnamon. Put a hose with a filter on one end into the clear part and siphon off your first home-brewed spiced mead. As dedicated lovers of all things mead-related, we look forward to the chillier end of the year for this very reason; it gives us the perfect opportunity to spend the evenings huddled before an open fire, and toasting the winter nights with a cupful of mulled mead – what could be better?This recipe is for preparing one gallon of mead. If you’d like to make larger batches, you need to scale up the ingredients, making sure they are in the same proportions. Ingredients Rinse the orange thoroughly to remove any pesticide before slicing it in eights (or smaller). Then put them inside the carboy, rinds included. Prepare Your Yeast — Re-hydrate dry yeasts and make starters with liquid yeasts. For yeast rehydration I use Startup from BSG at a rate of 1 gram per oz. of rehydration water. I typically use 1 oz. of rehydration water per 1.5 grams of yeast. I pitch yeast at 2 grams and up to 5 grams per gallon (4 L) along a specific gravity (SG) range of 1.050 to 1.150+. The rehydration process involves adding the Startup to 110 °F (43 °C) water and mixing it thoroughly. Once the rehydration water cools to 104 °F (40 °C) or below the yeast can be added and gently mixed. From here the yeast will begin to bloom up. After 10 minutes or so you can mix it again and add some of the must to both temper the rehydration water and give the yeast a little food. Often referred to as the “Nectar of the Gods”, the golden drink has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, with the demand from people eager to buy mead reaching new heights, which has certainly kept us busy! We have been perfecting our fantastic meads for over 15 years now, and often experiment with new and bold flavours to push the boundaries of what is possible with mead. I’ve produced a few more versions since that first batch—all interesting, all drinkable–and the mulling spices I currently have on hand in the pantry seemed to demand that a Christmas mead be made. I bottled it on the early side (eight days) so it’s retained its honey sweetness, with distinct cinnamon and orange notes. I think it’s going to make for a lovely glass to raise around the tree next week.

Prefer your mead pure and simple? Swap your usual dessert wine for a glass of mead to accompany Christmas pudding and mince pies. This Christmas Mead is traditional, rich, smooth honey mead blended with festive spices. The classic Christmas mead includes spice notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom sitting on top of lemon, orange zest and, of course, honey - courtesy of the mead. We hope you enjoy our delicious range of English Heritage Wines and Mead. Carefully selected they represent the very best of the fruits and flowers found in the English Countryside. Temperature Control — Controlling your temperature will produce more pleasing meads when using most wine yeasts, and in many cases it will also reduce the aging time that has historically been needed to mellow out fermentation aromas and flavors. I typically ferment meads at 64 °F (18 °C). You should use a temperature in the low end of the range that your chosen yeast will support.So how much mead should you serve in a glass? If you are drinking your mead warmed up, we would recommend around 50ml of mead in a whisky glass. If you are drinking it cool, we would say between 100 – 125ml, mirroring a traditional small glass of wine serving. Seasonal drinking traditions are a really interesting subject to delve into, as holiday parties and family gatherings often open people up to new beverages that aren’t available or of interest during other parts of the year. There’s also the added excitement around family traditions, which may seem unique to your family, but they often have common traits shared much more broadly. No matter who you are, where you are from or what you celebrate, there are common themes with the liberal usages of herbs, spices, and fruits, as well as unique, scarce, or prized ingredients in the holiday beverages from wherever you hail. Now that is something we can all celebrate!! Making Your Best Holiday Meads To continue your spiced mead explorations here’s another unique recipe worth trying. Infused with vodka and added with chocolate, this recipe offers three gallons of intense flavors to stimulate the palate. Ingredients Over the nearly 15 years I had been homebrewing I ended up developing a couple basic concepts for how I made different types of meads. For most of the draft-style meads (carbonated, lower-alcohol) I tend to flavor them in the secondary. Meads containing either apple and grape juices were often co-fermented with the honey, but most others tended to have the best presentation when raw fruit was steeped with or without spices in secondary. The bold flavors and freshness is what makes this technique stand out for me. My typical meadmaking process would be to use the yeast rehydration agent to prep the yeast before pitching, and then a staggered nutrient addition regimen (with degassing) to feed the ferment for the first few days. Depending on the time of year and temperature in my house, I may or may not choose to place the fermenter in a 64 °F (18 °C) temperature-controlled space. Once the fermentation is complete I always use both potassium sulfite and potassium sorbate as stabilization additives, whether I filter the mead or not. All of these additions are based on volume and there are a number of choices for the types and sources of nutrients that can be used. Additional tips and resources on the meadmaking process are included in the “Notes of the Meadmaking Process” sidebar at the end of this article.