Lewis Stead

The Ravenbook

need

a variety of goods sold at the local beer and winemaking store. If

you are just starting out, you are probably best off buying a kit

which will contain the following: a five gallon plastic keg the cover

of which has a hole in the center meant for a stopper (the primary

fermenter), a plastic siphon hose attached to a piece of hard plastic

tubing (a racking cane), a piece of hard plastic tubing molded into an

S shape (an air lock), a little device that either looks like a tiny

plunger or two pieces of plastic, one of which fits over the other (a

corker), a device that looks like a giant glass thermometer (a

hydrometer), a bottle brush, a package of sanitizer, and a bag of

corks. Oh, youll also get a little booklet that will give you

helpful advice on brewing grape wines. Ive found these booklets are

generally good, but tend to go into more work than is necessary for

mead.

The kit will run around $30P$50, and the individual items about a

third more than that if you buy them separately. If you are buying

them separately, you dont really need the hydrometer and you can use

household bleach instead of the sanitizer. The yeast and chemicals

will run you another $10, and the honey another $20. I recommend

looking at a health food store, where you can often get higher quality

all-natural honey in different varieties and larger quantites at

prices much cheaper than at the supermarket. Most beer and winemaking

stores will be happy to sell you bottles, but I recommend asking at a

local restaurant as they are usually eager to get rid of a few. You

cant reuse corks. This is all you need. Your bill for making your

first 5 gallons will be about $80, and will make 20 or so bottles. So,

the cost for home-brewed mead is around $4/bottle for the first batch,

and $1.50 thereafter.

Making mead is easy. First find a good quality pot that will hold 2P5

gallons. It should be either stainless steel or ceramic coated (a

corn or lobster pot is usually a good bet). Rinse it out either

with the sanitizer (following the directions on the package) or with a

10P20% bleach solution. This is to sterilize it. Everything you use

must be completely sterile, including any spoons or siphons or

anything else that comes in contact with the mead including your

hands. Of course, after sterilizing everything rinse the bleach in

hot water until you cant smell it, and then rinse it a bit more for

good measure. The reason for sterilizing is that yeasts naturally

present in air can contaminate your mead, and unlike the helpful

yeasts mentioned above, most airborne yeast excrete vinegar rather

than alcohol.

Dissolve the honey in water, and bring it to a boil, adding the acid

mix and yeast energizer. If your pot will fit all 5 gallons of water,

thats great. Otherwise just put in enough water to dissolve the

honey. Bring the mix to the boiling point, and skim off the scum

that floats to the surface. If you wish to add fruit, like a handful

of berries or apple slices, do this now and cook until they are soft

and/or dissolved and then strain them out. If you dont want to go

through this, jelly makes an easily dissolved additive. If you do

decide to add fruit, make allowances for the qualities of the fruit.

If you are adding something tart or acidic like strawberries or

rasberries, reduce the amount of acid mix you add to the brew.

Once youve brought the mix to a boil or boiled down the fruit, pour

the mixture into your large vat--which you have sterilized with bleach

mix and rinsed while you were waiting for the mead to heat up. (Most

books recommend siphoning it into the primary fermenter (the large

plastic vat), so I suppose I should as well, but to be honest Ive

always poured it. At the boiling point, theres only so much that can

contaminate the mixture.) If the pot you boiled the honey and water

mixture wouldnt hold enough water, add the remainder to the fermenter

now. If you arent going to be able to boil all the water, which will

cause most of the trapped gasses to escape, you will probably want to

use bottled water.

Put on the cover and let the mixture cool to room temperature. If it

is hot, it will kill the yeast. Once its cool, mix the yeast with a

cup of water in a small bowl and let it get rehydrated for 10P20