Jon Foster

Do we have any home brewers here?

We make a small amount of beer and a lot of wine, mead and soda pop.

Jon.

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edk

have been making beer and cider for a couple of years, really enjoy experimenting with ingredients to improve the brew. how do you brew your meade?

Jon Foster

I've tried making cider a few times without much luck.

I have a few mead recipes I really like but for the most part a standard mead is just honey, water and yeast. It's pretty much the same as making wine. Some people will heat the honey before pitching the yeast too.

I can post a recipe if you want but I'll have to do it from home...

Jon.

edk

that'd be great. the cider brews we made were from kits (wort in a can), but the last one we made turned out great, good tip we picked up, add pear concentrate to the brew a day or two before bottling, makes a huge diference.

Thunder9

My family used to make something called Scrumpy years ago, It was just apples but a particular sort from a friends farm in Hereford. It was frequently cloudy and you drank a pint of it and felt fine until you went out into the cold night air, at which time you had a quick visit to the floor. It was quite bitter but you got used to it. Some recipes, we were told even had the addition of meat for some reason, but we thought that was probably just a freak the young guys out sort of thing. If I ever move where I can get the right apples and they don't cost $3.00 a lb, I might give it a shot myself.

Jon Foster

I had to do some searching in my notes for the recipe but here it is:

This was the first mead I had ever tasted and it was fantastic. I think the first time I had it, it was about 3 years old and superb. The next time I had it, we figured it was on it's 5th year of aging and man was it ever fantastic!

The recipe is: Gift of the Magi Holiday Cyser.
5 Gallons preservative-free apple cider
11 Pounds of clover honey
3 Cinnamon sticks
1 Teaspoon dried orange peel
6 Whole cloves
Red Star Champagne yeast
3/4 Cup corn sugar, for priming

Boil cider, honey cinnamon sticks and cloves together for 60 minutes. Add orange peel with 15 minutes remaining in the boil. Cool, transfer to glass primary fermenter and pitch yeast. Rack to a secondary fermenter after 2 weeks. Bottle with 3/4 cup corn sugar.

The recipe notes say: This Cyser keeps getting better. It ages and matures very nicely. We bottled with priming sugar for a sparkling Cyser. The cinnamon and cloves were not detectable and the orange peel was barely noticeable. This mead has alcohol (14.7%) and makes a nice after dinner drink.

Yield: 5 gallons Starting
SG 1.125
Ending SG 1.014
Fermentation temp. 65 degrees F.

My notes: I had a huge boil over when the orange peel was added. Surprised the heck out of me! I also do my primary in my plastic fermentation buckets. Then transfer to a glass carboy when the fermentation calms down. I also use 6 cinnamon sticks and 12 whole cloves. I couldn't really taste it in the original so I figured what the heck... The original batch I had did not have any priming sugar added to it so I've never done it either. It is simply fantastic without being carbonated and lastly, I usually use the cheap honey from Sam's Club.

Jon.

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edk

great recipe Jon, I'll have to give it a try. thanks for sharing.

Jon Foster

If you try it let us know how you like it. It's an old recipe but it seems to work pretty well. I think I have 5 gallons left from a batch I started 6 or 7 years ago.

Jon.

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