Contents
The second decade of summer has come – my favorite time, the time of harvest and honey. I really respect this product and store it for the winter. There are many things you can do with honey, and it is also very useful. However, I have always been skeptical about alcohol infused with honey.
I thought it was incompatible. I rarely drink alcohol and prefer high-quality, hand-made, without additives and impurities. Therefore, I did not even think about mixing alcohol and honey.
This story was sent by my subscriber Oleg.
How did I come up with the idea to make mead?
Recently I stayed here in the village with my uncle, who is the owner of a chic apiary. I helped him collect honey – I received a lot of new impressions. By the way, bees are not as scary as they seem – if you follow the precautions, you will remain safe and sound.
Of course, I ate delicious fresh honey. And I tried water with honey, in Russia this drink was called “sat” – hearty means healthy.
It was my uncle who offered me mead, which he himself had recently made. I liked its aroma and lightness, especially since I had not tried it before.
And I liked this drink so much that I decided to make mead myself, according to an old Russian recipe.
What do you need to make mead
If you read the history of the appearance of this drink, you will learn many interesting and unusual facts. Mead used to be infused for up to 15 years in oak barrels that were buried in the ground.
This process was called medostat. And they made a drink from honey, water and berries. Then the manufacturing process was shortened, leaving the honey and berries to ferment for about a month, and then boiling the infusion.
My uncle’s apiary
I decided that 15 years was too long to make mead, so I used a quick recipe that requires the drink to be boiled.
What I needed:
- water – 2 liters, I used spring from a holy spring;
- honey – 400 grams;
- yeast – 1 sachet;
- enamel container.
What kind of mead recipes I did not come across while I was researching the Internet! But for me there is nothing better than the classics.
Mead is a spicy and not very strong drink, so there is nothing superfluous in the recipe.
The cooking process
I took flower honey – primrose, it is fragrant, saturated with useful substances and vitamins. Dissolved honey in water in a large enamel pot and put on fire. Boiled for five minutes, stirring all the time and removing the foam.
Then I dissolved the yeast in warm water and let it brew for about an hour. Added yeast sourdough to honey broth. I poured the drink into glass containers, put a water seal and left it to ferment for several weeks.
When the gas formation process stopped, I strained the drink into other storage containers and left it to mature for two months. To check if the fermentation process has stopped, you need to bring a burning match to a bottle of drink. The match should not go out, it continues to burn.
In general, the exact period of infusion is not indicated in the recipe, because you can drink the drink both young and mature, and even fortified.
Result
The mead turned out to be light, fragrant, sweet. The fortress in my experiment was about 7%, I checked it with an alcohol meter. So it should be according to the recipe – small – from 5% to 10%. Following tradition, I drink it fifteen minutes before meals in small quantities.
In no case should you abuse mead, because it is a noble drink that requires a respectful attitude and an appropriate drinking culture.
Sometimes in recipes you can find mead with the addition of herbs, berries and spices. Yes, and cooking methods are different – with the addition of alcohol and without, with brewing a drink and without boiling. I think next time I’ll try to experiment more.
This is the mead I got
By the way, did you know that the name “honeymoon” comes from the fact that young people were given a barrel of honey for their wedding? And they drank mead at weddings so that the life of the newlyweds was sweet. This mead is such a divine drink.
I seriously thought about it, maybe it’s worth trying to repeat the old method – medostat, and withstand the drink for 15 years in a barrel underground. What do you think?