The Cracked Pot

100 Mile Mead

It’s thick, it’s green and it’s bubbling. Does it comfort you to know that’s it’s just my home made booze? Didn’t think so.

Bubble Bubble, toil and trouble.   My mead making experiment is finally under way, but it didn’t start off quite so well.   In fact, it was a complete gong show and went a little something like this:

• Go to Dan’s Homebrewing supply to get equipment kit, yeast and hops. Leave half the kit on the counter.
• Drive out to Chilliwack (1.5 hours each way) to buy locally produced honey direct from the grower. Get lost on the way, sample several types of honey, and end up with a basic clover honey.
• Get home, realize I still need to get blueberries and apple cider to pull off the recipe.
• Drive to three stores which are either closed or don’t have the right kind of apple cider. Give up for the night.
• Start drinking.
• Get up early the next morning, mitigate hangover, and drive to store to get apple cider. Forget to get blueberries. Get home, go back, buy blueberries.
• Get home. Realize I don’t have a pot large enough to fit everything on the stove. Drive to Chinatown to get extra large stainless steal stock pot.
• Get home, realize mistake from Dan’s Homebrewing supply, and curse because they are closed already.
• Sit on the kitchen floor while laughing head-off and wonder if this mead will ever get made. .

And I’m really not exaggerating. The good news is, the rest of the process went off without a hitch. The recipe I used is called “Crazy Good Mead”- it’s a blueberry melomel with hops, courtesy of Dave’s picks.  I think I’m going to call my batch the 100 mile mead- not just because all of the ingredients were grown within 100 miles of my home, but because I probably drove that far to get everything in the end.

The basic process is frighteningly simple- boil everything, let it cool, add the yeast and wait (and wait and wait and wait). It’s so easy, even a Viking could do it.

100 Mile Mead (Blueberry Melomel)

• 10 lbs honey(clover honey)
• 1 oz Saaz hops
• 2 lbs frozen blueberries(mine are from the Fraser Valley)
• 1 gallon apple cider (all natural, no-preservatives, non-alcoholic)
• 1 pack champagne yeast (I used Sweet Mead Yeast, as recommended by Dan’s Homebrewin

Process:

Bring about 3 gallons of water to a boil in a really large stock pot. Add the honey, and stir until it’s dissolved. Bring the must back to a boil, being careful not to boil it over. You can do this by stirring it. If it starts to boil over, turn down the heat. Add 1/2 oz hops. At this point, the must begins to look like something out of a witch’s cauldron, and it smells warm and sticky sweet.

Boil for 15 minutes, skimming off any scum that forms (it’ll be beeswax, bee parts, and such from the honey, not anything you’ll want to drink).Play with your mead horn while you wait and get the blueberries ready by putting them in a hop-boiling bag. Reduce the heat to keep it at a simmer. It shouldn’t boil again from this point on.

Add the blueberries, mashing the bag around a bit over the pot before you dump it in–you want to break the fruit up, to extract the juice more easily. At this point, your kitchen should smell like fruity koolaid. Simmer for 10 more minutes then add the remaining hops (about 1/2 oz). Simmer for 5 more minutes and get the fermenter ready by putting the apple cider in it. Be sure to splash the cider around to aerate it and give the yeast oxygen to develop.

Add the hot must to the cider (I kept the bag of blueberries in it for good measure), and bring the fermenter up to 5 gallons total by adding cool water. When you pour the must into the fermenter, it’ll splash, which will also help aerate the must. Seal up the fermenter and wait for it to cool (overnight), or use your handy-dandy wort chiller constructed out of copper tubing wrapped around the fermenter and attached to a garden hose with cold running water.

When the must in the fermenter has reached about 70 degrees F, toss in the yeast. The yeast I used came with a mini pack inside with yeast nutrients in it already, so I mixed the two up and activated the yeast nutrient before adding it to the must.

It took a long time for the yeast to really get going, but sure enough it started to bubble and ferment. It’s now smelling ultra boozy and I’ve reached the 5% alcohol mark. Ever so eager, I even tried a little taste the other day. Despite the tangy flavour from the suspended yeast in the mead, it’s not too bad… I think it’ll be damn good when it’s done!

Now I just need to wait for the fermentation to finish and the alcohol level to reach it’s peak. Then I’ll rack it (siphon) into a carboy with a few oak chips in it, and age it for about 6 months to mellow out a bit. Then bottle, slap a cool label on it and get sloppy with some friends.

Wassail!

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