Push Button Paradise

A few random tidbits about meadmaking and my experiences doing so...

Nearly everything in home brewing is done in metric volume units. Even the "gallon" glass jugs brew shops sell, upon closer inspection, are actually spec'd as 4 liters. The only exception is the honey, sold by pounds--neither metric nor volume. But I discovered a handy and remarkably accurate conversion: 3 pounds of honey is almost exactly one liter.

Using this, one of my projects is a super simple recipe currently fermenting away. Exactly 3 pounds of orange blossom honey plus exactly 3 liters of Fiji water, making for a starting gravity of 1.100. Besides that, it's just Côte des Blancs yeast and yeast nutrients (consisting of dead yeasts and B vitamins). I checked on it after three weeks, and it's the color of Squirt soda, still mega-fizzy, and still happily bubbling away. If my estimation of the yeast is correct, it should finish up just barely sweet.

The other one I have going is another simple recipe: one 1.9 liter jug of Trader Joe's Blackberry Crush, 2.5 pounds of orange blossom honey, and topped off with water to 4 liters, and Côte des Blancs yeast (I really like this stuff) making for a starting gravity of 1.123. I started this one more recently, and the yeasties are currently extremely happy. It smells wonderful.

One that I just bottled was a hearty brew made with avocado flower honey--a thick, almost gritty honey, and lots of spices (nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice mainly). I think the avocado honey is a little denser than most honeys, because the starting mixture ended up sweeter than I expected. I don't have a starting gravity, because this all happened before I got a hydrometer. Anyway, the poor yeasties had a hard time with this one, and required lots of encouragement, not to mention repeated doses of nutrient, and keeping them in a warmer climate for the last few weeks. It's taking a long time to clear up, even in the bottles. Even young, though, it's amazing as a hot drink.

And I have one bottle left of the "Ancient Orange" recipe--my first batch since moving back to California. It has turned a beautiful golden-orange color, and crystal clear. I keep threatening to bring it to work for one of the seemingly frequent events there that involve having wine served. :) -m

posted at: 09:04 | under: 2005-12 | 0 comment(s)