Dick Dunn's Winning Mead Recipe
By Mark Tumarkin
Dick's recipe has been selected as the official Mead Day recipe. Mead Day, is a new AHA event, similar to Big Brew Day. The idea is for multiple sites, in multiple locations, to brew mead on the same day and time. This is a great way to be part of the larger brewing community, after all, brewing together brings folks together almost as well as drinking together. Duh, I guess we'll be doing that too when Hogtown Brewers participates on this first Mead Day, on August 3rd. We'll be making both mead and beer at Wayne Smith's brewery. Hope to see you there.
<editor's note> From the MLD - Mead Lovers Digest </editor's note>
Subject: recipe for Mead Day From: rcd@talisman.com (Dick Dunn) Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 14:38:03 -0600 (MDT) Apology to Bob Farrell who asked for this two digests ago. (Yeah, I get behind on reading the MLD just like anybody else. Sometimes the extent of my mead activity is shoveling the spam out of the incoming digest material.) Here's the recipe and side notes I gave the Zymurgy folks. You'll note that it uses the "old fashioned" plastic-pail primary and calls for putting the fruit in the primary instead of secondary. I expect to get hassled for that; I'll just point out that it is a lot easier for beginners or brewers to follow that method, and a lot less likely to create one of those "racking from hell" events. This recipe originated as "Rock City Razz" when we lived in Boulder. When we moved north (but continued growing raspberries) it became "Twin Peaks Titillation". I don't know what name (if any) the Zymurgy folks will put on it. Dick ========================================================================== "Twin Peaks Titillation" Dry Sparkling Raspberry Ginger Mead Ingredients for 5 US gallons (19 l) 12 lb medium honey (about 1 gallon), minimally processed 5 lb raspberries 3 oz fresh ginger root 1 pkg champagne or dry-mead yeast 4 oz dextrose (for priming) If your yeast requires smacking, whacking, or rehydrating, prepare it according to package directions. If starting with fresh berries, freeze them for a day. This helps break down the fruit and release the juice. Slightly thaw the berries and dump them into a clean plastic-pail primary fermenter (a food-grade bucket). Slice the ginger very thinly. Bring 4 gallons of water just to a boil in your brewpot. Remove from heat for a few minutes. Pour in the honey and stir thoroughly to mix. Add the ginger slices. Let this cool until it's below 160 F, then pour it over the berries in the primary. Stir well to break up any still-frozen fruit and to aerate a bit. Cool to the proper pitching temperature for the yeast (usually 75 F or below) and pitch. Fermentation should be visible within a day. Keep the fermenter covered, either with a lid and fermentation lock or a plastic sheet tied over the top. Ferment for a few days, checking daily and pushing down the "cap" of berries with a clean spoon. When the berries have lost a lot of color, or no more than five days after fermentation started, skim out as much of the fruit as you can get easily. Let fermentation continue in the primary until it slows noticeably and isn't producing a large head, probably 7-10 days. Gravity will be 1050 or below by this time. Then rack into a glass carboy and fit with a fermentation lock. Now is the time to be patient! Put the mead in a quiet spot and let it ferment. Bubbles through the lock will tell you how fast it's fermenting. When it's near done, the blorp-rate will slow way down and the mead will start to fall clear. Check with a hydrometer. It's not done until the gravity is below 1.000. Depending on yeast and temperature, this can take from under two weeks to over two months. For bottling: Take 4 ounces (about 2/3 cup) corn sugar for priming and about a cup of water, bring to a boil, cool, and put it in your bottling bucket (or your primary pail). Rack the mead into the bottling bucket and mix thoroughly. Bottle in glass with crown caps or keg the mead. Give it two weeks to carbonate and try a bottle. It's likely to taste harsh at first but this will age out before long. You can expect it to keep improving for the first year or two. If you've been careful and you can resist drinking it all, it can last for a good ten years. Variations - ---------- Adjust the quantity of berries according to how much fruit character you want. Anywhere from half to double the recipe amount is reasonable. Any of the bramble berries--blackberries, loganberries, boysenberries, etc.--can be used instead. Blackberries tend to make a more astringent (tannic) mead, so either don't use a lot or don't leave them in the fermentation for very long. Blueberries and strawberries will also work, but these are better without the ginger. If using strawberries, cut them into chunks or thick slices. Cherries are good too. They must be pitted. Use sour (pie-type) cherries. Tips, Tricks, and Notes - ----- ------- --- ----- Use good honey, minimally processed. Ask at your local brew shop or natural-foods store, or find a local beekeeper who sells raw honey. Avoid grocery-store major brands, which are heavily filtered and over- processed. A light (clover) or medium (alfalfa) honey will work best. Avoid very dark or strongly-flavored honeys until you've made a couple meads with regular honeys and know the territory. _Do_not_ puree the fruit! You'll end up with a horrible mess at racking time. If you have a large mesh bag, you can put the fruit and ginger in it, tie it off and put it in the fermenter. Then, removing the fruit is as simple as lifting the bag out and letting it drain. Keep the fermentation around "room temperature". It's OK to have it a bit warm at first until the yeast gets going, but try to keep it under 75F long-term. Higher temperatures will produce unpleasant esters that take a long time to age out. Mead is not nearly as susceptible to contamination as beer. "Don't worry..." (you knew that, didn't you?). But be patient! Mead fermentations are not as fast nor as vigorous as with beer. Little bags of frozen fruit can be expensive. Look for bulk packages or restaurant-supply sizes, but be sure they're not sweetened or preserved. If there are fruit growers in your area, see if they have "seconds" or "culls" available. Don't use fruit that has been cooked. Cooking changes the taste and will cause a pectin haze that's almost impossible to remove. If you can't heat all 4 gallons of water, do what you can and just be sure that the honey is mixed well.