Ah, Joe's Ancient Spiced Orange mead... mine took about 6 months to start tasting good.
You might want to try Blind Ben's mead, it's quicker. I've been enjoying it only a motnh or so after bottling, which is fast for a mead.
Blind Ben's recipe.
4 lemons, 500ML strong tea (I can't remember exactly what tea was used, but it won't have been anything that fancy),
2 tsp cinnamon (Ground), 1 tsp ground nutmeg, 1 tsp grated ginger
2.1KG honey (The consensus is that clover honey is the best for mead)
Champagne yeast
1 tsp Acid blend (I had this left over from another brew - itâs basically a mixture of citric, tartaric and malic acid in one pot)
2 tsp yeast nutrient
Sterilise everything
Make a yeast starter: Find a cup, put some warm water in it and add some of the honey, cover and cool to 37°C.
Add the yeast, wait for 5/10 minutes and give it a stir.
Leave in a warm place for a while until it starts working - I usually forget about it for an hour or so whilst I'm prepping the rest of the brew.
Boil 5L of water, weight for a bit and turn the heat off.
Pour this into your FV, add the honey and start stirring it - it needs to dissolve otherwise it just sticks to the bottom.
Slice the lemons and add them along with everything else except the yeast to the FV.
Leave it for a while - when you touch the FV it shouldn't feel warm or cold.
Stir the starter mixture, add it to the FV and put the lid on.
After an hour or so remove the lemons.
Fermentation starts very quickly and is very violent - I did this in a 5 gal bucket so those of you who are using 5L FVâs might want to be a bit careful.
Leave for 5 days and taste; if you find itâs too sweet then leave it for another 2 and taste again. I found that after a week it was just right;
the taste difference between a 5 day ferment and a week is very noticeable.
When you're happy with the taste, strain this into bottles.
There will be various bits and bobs floating around and straining it at this stage means you can drink it as soon as you open the bottles later on.
My version has less honey and only 3 lemons as Ben's 5l water plus honey plus tea comes to about 7.5l - too much for a demi, and I don't want it too sweet.
2011-10-17
About 1l boiled water into large pan. 50 ml into a glass for rehydrating yeast, with a bit of honey.
4 jars honey (about 1.36kg) added to pan, more boiled water used to get last bits out of jars. Stir!
Gervin GV10 yeast added to glass when at 35.
Mug of Earl Grey added to pan. 3 lemons sliced into pan. Stir!
1tsp grated nutmeg to pan. Stir! 2tsp ground cinnamon to pan. Stir! Tiny piece vanilla pod to pan. Stir!
2tsp nutrient to pan. Stir! 1/2tsp tartaric to pan. Stir!
Yeast stirred at 15 minutes, bit of must added to make it a proper starter.
Pan heated gently to about 60 to get everything to infuse - no higher, to preserves honey's flavour. Much stirring.
Left to cool for about an hour, to approx pitch temperature.
Strained (sieve) to fermenting bucket, made up to about 4 litres with boiled water, stirred.
Yeast starter added and stirred in, lid fitted.
2011-10-18 (late)
It's got a nice head on it but not gone totally crazy so putting the rest of the honey in now.
Meant to use 1/2 a jar but have dissolved a whole one... Only an extra 1%abv, go for it.
2011-10-21
Sieved to demi, Campden added, topped up with bottled water.
Taste promising - bit sweet right now but still fermenting.
2011-11-22
Racked with sorbate & sulphite. Tastes quite good already.
