2013 Mead

The 2012 Mead was so good that I was excited to try it again. I needed to ration it because we liked it so well, so I put it into 375 ml bottles!

The secret is the quality of the honey. The better the honey the better the mead. I also like a stronger, sweeter mead -- so use enough honey.

This year I ordered Wildflower honey from two sources in Florida. 20 of the 22 lb that I used were Florida wildflower honey. For mead, the darker honeys are better than the light clover honey that 4 year old like on their sandwiches. Darker honey gives a more complicated flavor.  I order them from

2013 Mead Recipe

22 lb  Wildflower honey
Water - to dilute to 20 L
2.5 t     Yeast Energizer
7 g       Pectic enzyme (about 2 t)
16        Clementines (with rinds, liquified in a blender)
1.5 t     Nutmeg
3 T       Ground vanilla beans (which we just happened to have)
1 Packet   Red Star Premier Cuvee Yeast


Notes
In addition to the wildflower honey there was 1 lb of clover honey and 1 lb of buckwheat honey.

The 20L of water was more than I expected based on last year. I needed to add 2 L extra because this honey was sweeter than last years honey. I added water until I had a density of 1.152 g/ml which should make a skull-crushing 18.2% alcohol, but it really won't. It will stop short and be strong and sweet.

Pectic enzyme is added since the clementine rinds have pectin.

I increased the nutmeg this year and skipped the allspice. I don't like the fragrance of allspice, and I don't see how it helps.

I used Premier Cuvee yeast this year since I was out of champagne yeast, but Curvee is good for whites.