Nectar of the Gods
Mead...
The nectar of the Gods.
Estimated to have been produced since the Neolithic period… Oldest evidence of its existence dates to 7-8,000 years BCE in China, Europe and the Middle East. The first alcoholic beverage humanity ever consumed. Humans are a curious species (homo sapiens – wise, or knowing, man) and our innate need to observe things led to the discovery of mead accidentally, when rainwater diluted honey stored in clay based containers, and given wild yeast is in unpasteurized honey, could have ended up fermenting the sugars in the honey and ended up creating the first alcoholic beverage…
And I’m currently brewing my second/third batch! It’s a wee bit of a screw-up but, as all screw-ups are, this is a learning process.
One thing that I love about where I currently live – not only does my landlord discount my rent for all the house or property improvements I make, I can do whatever the hell I want as long as it improves the place. So, I built a permanent bottom part of a corner cabinet using 2×4’s and plywood sheets the landlord left me when I moved here last year, used the remaining paint from painting my bathroom to build this mead storage corner cabinet. I’ve yet to prepare the face frame – it still needs to be sanded down smooth, putty applied, and repainted then add the face frame and cabinet door (which will be built out of oak frame and birch backing). Sometimes this month I will finish building the top portion, leaving the center as open-air shelving.
Currently, this area holds:
- 5 gallon carboy was re-racked into secondary today with about 4 cups of strawberry simple syrup; it had 5lbs of strawberries during primary fermentation. SG was 1.09, current gravity is 0.994, estimated 12.6% abv. I tasted it today and it had very subtle strawberry flavor, more of a honey profile. I am concerned about the headspace, and was suggested to order k-metas (potassium metabisulfites) which I am hoping to get by Friday to compensate for the increased headspace. It’s currently 17 days old.
- 1 gallon carboy was re-racked into secondary this past Friday, it was a simple plain mead in primary, and had 3 cups of strawberry simple syrup added in secondary on Friday. Today, I added 3 halved Serrano peppers and will taste it every other day and remove when it hits the desired spiciness level. SG was 1.09, gravity reading at time of re-racking was 1.004, estimated 11.48% abv. It tasted like sweet rocket fuel (without the strawberry simple syrup added) – it got better with each sip, but definitely needs a lot of aging! ’twas only two weeks old at time of tasting.
Goals:
I’m gonna build a L-shaped cabinet, just the bottom portion, estimated around 5-6 feet long at the longest, sometimes this month because… welp. I ordered a 6.5 gallon primary fermenting bucket for when I add fruits and other flavors that would create significant displacement… which I will either re-rack into the 5 gallon narrow-neck bottle for flavors that don’t need a wide neck, or the 5 gallon wide-neck for those with mesh bags to add fruits or spices… Then I have two wide-neck and 1 narrow-neck 1 gallon carboys… See my problem here?
Fun Fact: a bottle of mead sold at stores for ~$30 each at 750ml a bottle… a 5 gallon recipe can produce a wee bit over 25 bottles, a 1 gallon recipe can produce a wee bit over 5 bottles. My current batch should net me about 30 750ml bottles, which would cost me about $900 at stores!!!
Sad Fact: I have to age the mead… wait for it to really develop its flavor. Waiting so SO DIFFICULT! (Wait… only when you start. Once you get going, you’ll have a steady supply… SEE! PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE!!! Well, one you gotta suffer for initially.)
I’ve got ideas for next batches:
- a simple honey mead
- Dune-inspired, cinnamon based mead
- Black Currant/Blackberry mead
- Key Lime Pie mead
- Mango-Habaerno mead
TIL VALHALA!
UPDATE: I took a taste of the spicy strawberry mead, and holy hell – it was perfect! Only two days and wow, the earthy pepper flavor was evident, and the spicy was a 2-3 on a scale of 0-5. The strawberry flavor is barely noticeable, but I’m sure it’ll present itself more as it ages. So, I removed the peppers, and took another reading – hydrometer now shows 1.010 SG. I’m totally looking forward to this one!!! I think I’ll name it Fiery Strawberry Fuel and Strawberry Fuel. mmm, well, I need to taste the 5gal batch again in a few days…
OH! On Friday, I’ll be getting a 6.5 gallon fermenting bucket so it’ll be easier for me to do 5gal recipes with mesh bags full of fruits, spices, what-have-you! Yea, best get started on the new cabinet build…