Brewing & Bottling Mead

Mead 101, plus, how to bottle things at home!

By Megan

Mead! What even is mead? It's not wine, and it's not beer, but it can be made at either strength. It's honey, diluted and fermented, turned alcoholic (and aphrodisiacal, and magical, and medicinal, too, if you listen to the old legends about it)!

Fermented honey drinks have been found in every single culture that exists around bees. Early beekeepers would harvest their honey by smashing the entire hive, and the straw basket it was built in, and just letting it drain. Most of the honey would end up leaking out but to get the wax for candles and medicines, the whole sticky straw and wax mess would be boiled. The straw would get skimmed off, and the liquid would separate into beeswax and honey'd water, if you left it alone overnight to cool. The popular idea goes that some beekeeper left it a little longer than overnight, and when they came back, discovered a magical intoxicating elixir underneath the layer of beeswax!

Mead is just that super simple to make, or it can get complicated. Traditionally, mead needed a very long aging process before it tasted good. That's because there's not the perfect balance of nutrients to sugar for the yeasts, and they ferment under stress slowly. There's also things besides yeast, like a multitude of bacteria, in honey (it is bee puke, after all...) that also like to eat sugars. All of this means that during the first few years, a mead of old tasted gnarly; hot alcohol that stung going down, with a strange aftertaste or smell.

hoses, tubes, a siphon cane, bottling wand,

Nowadays we have science on our side and can make a better habitat for our yeast. We can also *not,* and let the mead progress like any old-time mead would. Laura and I are doing both!

I've got a gallon batch of mead sitting on my counter right now. It's about five months old now, and the airlock isn't bubbling anymore, but I'm gonna keep it sealed (checking the airlock for water) until at least next January, when I'll bottle it and let it age even longer.  My "recipe" for this batch was a pint of farmers market honey, a chunk of honeycomb, a few tablespoons unfiltered honey with all the pollen in it, and water. I put a fabric scrap over the top of the jar. I put a real lid on and shook the crap out of it every day for three days until everything looked dissolved and it was starting to get fizzy, and then I stuck the airlock on and basically dropped it out of my mind. This is as old-school of a mead as I can get without keeping bees myself, and I'm excited to try it in several years.

bottles and a tub to contain drips

You can also get fancy and make specialty meads. The one that Laura and I are bottling today, she made with apple juice and honey. Technically, it's called a cyser. Most common honey+___ combos have names. Honey and spices or herbs makes it a metheglyn; honey and malted grains becomes a braggot; honey and fruit is called a melomel.

We're using recycled bottles, which came with painted Coronita labels. You can see how we removed those last weekend by checking out this post.

Equipment that we used; sanitizer, hoses, tubes, a siphon cane, bottling wand, caps, a capper, and bottles. There's also a tub to contain drips, but a towel laid out works just as well. Even though we're doing just a gallon, bottling is a whole lot easier with two people. We've sanitized these bottles already and they're flipped upside down to drain. One bit of equipment I REALLY want is a bottle drying rack!

Stick the siphon hose down almost to the sediment at the bottom of the jug. Here's where you need nineteen hands: put the bottling wand in the bottle and then pump the thing to start the siphon. The bottling wand has a valve at the bottom, and it's gotta stay open in order for the siphon to start, but both tasks require your full attention simultaneously. Needless to say, we couldn't exactly take pictures during this process, but we did set my phone up to take a video!

the right amount of room in the bottle

Once the liquid is flowing, start filling bottles. The wand is sized perfectly so that when you pull it out of a *very* full bottle, displacement leaves just the right amount of empty room in the bottle! Set it down for your capper buddy, and move to the next bottle. The wand has a valve on the bottom, so it doesn't spray everywhere between bottles, it this is still a drippy process.

Meanwhile, capper buddy takes the bottle and sticks a new cap in her capper. Our capping things call for a little oil up in the cup, so make sure you read the instructions for your own device! Stick the thing on the bottle, and push the handles down. This forces the cap down around the lid and it crimps itself, making a nice seal and keeping your drink good for several years.

I went ahead and added a few fun links you can check out if you wanna know more about mead, but make sure to visit your local public library and see what they have available there, too! Last time I went I found several books on mead!

Here's a recipe for a mead that's supposedly ready to drink in a month. Neither of us have tried this recipe, but it seems to be pretty popular and we know not all of our readers have the patience to wait a year or more to drink their mead! It calls for chemicals which you can buy at your local home brew shop, or on Amazon. It's also written with the assumption that the person reading it has all the equipment and experience that comes from brewing regularly.

Here's a recipe for a rather awesome looking mead made with beets! I think this is my next project.

For you linguist nerds out there, here is a great link about the history of the names of mead and what it might mean about the history of the drink.

~ Megan

Readers, have any of you made mead? What's your favorite recipe? I've been winging it so far, but I'd love some recommendations!

How to make yogurt

My very first DIY fermented food was yogurt. I wasn't really into fermented foods or diy-ing or anything yet, but I *was* eating an awful lot of yogurt. And at seven dollars a pint(!) for the local yogurt, I sure wasn't eating the organic, local dairy that I knew I should be.

Homemade yogurt

I looked up how to make yogurt, and read a dozen different sites walking me through it. Then, I went to the store and purchased a gallon of milk and a little pint of plain yogurt.

Next, I did nothing. For a long time. I was too scared to do anything! This was milk, after all, and I was supposed to leave it out?!? And warm?!? How was I supposed to know it went right? What if I poisoned myself?

It was stressful.

Finally, that gallon of milk was unopened, sitting in my fridge, and due to expire the next day- it was time to get over it and do the darn thing, or else that milk was going to go to waste. Guilt is a powerfully good motivator!

And you know what? It was easy. I'd say "easy as pie," except it was easier than pie! And everyone who's ever tasted yogurt will be able to smell and taste a problem-- yogurt is yogurt is yogurt, homemade should smell and taste just like the plain flavor yogurt you get at the store.

There's just one thing that will take some creative problem solving on your part. You need a place that will stay around 100-120 degrees (that's Fahrenheit) for a period of several hours. I use a cooler, filled up with hot water, but some people use an oven with the pilot light on, or a heat pad in a box, or even directly in a crock pot if the settings are right! A thermometer comes in handy, too!

DIY Yogurt

Once you've figured the incubation chamber bit out, it's easy peasy, although the process does eat about an hour of your life! To make *a bunch* of yogurt, you need milk and bacteria: any plain yogurt that says "contains live and active cultures" can be used to culture your initial batch of yogurt.

Pour a gallon of milk and a pint of heavy whipping cream into a heavy bottomed pot, and turn the heat to low. (I like cream top yogurt, like Brown Cow brand, so I sort of cheat to achieve the same effect. If you're not a fan of the cream top thing, or for some reason are on a low-fat diet, you can leave the cream out!)

Supplies for making yogurt

Slowly let the milk heat up, stirring occasionally. DO NOT STIR DOWN TO THE BOTTOM. This I typed in all caps so you could understand how important it is. Once the milk starts heating, do not ever let your utensil hit the bottom of the pan! I'll show you why when we're done here.

While you wait for the milk to come up to 180 degrees, you're sort of stuck in the kitchen, so use the time wisely. I did some dishes, and made myself some food, and started cleaning the fridge. I found some junk that was almost empty, so I decided to make some cute little flavored yogurt cups: jam, apple butter, and pumpkin butter. Each of these jars had just a few teaspoons of stuff in the bottom, and weren’t gonna get used up before they went bad.

Jam used for flavoring yogurt

I glopped the jam and fruit butters into the bottom of 8 oz. mason jars. I also have learned to factor for heat expansion and the commercial labels being slightly off, so you'll wanna get out more jars than the math says you'll need.

When the milk and cream gets close to 170, start preparing a cooling bath-- for me that's a sink full of cold water, plug rigged so I can lift it just a little and the water pressure will force it back down. I'm lazy and want to avoid lifting a heavy pot of hot milk more times than I need!

Cooling bath 

And finally! After AGES (45 minutes or so?) the milk is at 180 degrees! Here's where the process suddenly becomes a lot quicker paced...

Move the pot of hot milk to the cooling bath and get its temp down to about 120 degrees, adding more cool water (or ice!) to the bath as needed. While that's happening, scoop a couple tablespoons of your commercial yogurt into a cup and add some hot milk, slowly, a teaspoon or so at a time, until your yogurt culture is liquidy and warm. Get your jars all ready for filling.

[liquid yogurt and jars awaiting filled]

When your milk is at 120 degrees, pour in your yogurt, while stirring your milk. Remember, NOT THE BOTTOM!! I'll show you why in just a second!

Fruit on the bottom

Now pour your proto-yogurt into your jars, and cap them, tightly! Put them in your waiting incubation chamber, and you're done. Now it's just cleanup from here. Speaking of cleanup, let's check out those dishes...

Example of burnt milk

See the gunk at the bottom of the pan? That's burnt milk, and it will form no matter how diligent you are in stirring. But, if you never ever stir it up, it becomes a lovely insulating layer and keeps the rest of your milk from tasting burnt. This is why I insisted no stirring the bottom of the pot! It comes up in little bits and then your yogurt is full of little things that both taste terrible and ruin the texture.

Close up of burnt milk 

After a few hours*, it's time to take your yogurt out of its warm n cozy chamber and stick it in the fridge. It should jiggle in the jar, not slosh like milk, but the less you shake it the better it'll stick together and make nice thick yogurt when it's cooled!

*Few hours- as little as four, as many as twelve, officially, depending on which recipe you're reading. The longer it goes, the tarter it will taste and the less lactose will be left behind. This batch in particular I popped in the cooler at 10:22 pm, and the next morning had coffee and breakfast before I remembered I'd made yogurt... I think was 9:45 am when I pulled it from the cooler. It also wasn't at 120 degrees all night; it was about 90 when I drained the water. That's okay, tho, as bacteria work in a range and 90 is in the low low end of that range, from what I can figure out.

~ Megan

A question for the readers: what's your favorite recipe or method for using plain yogurt? I eat it every day, so I never worry about using it up, but I realize not everyone can deal with a gallon of yogurt...

Making Bread

Bread dough that needs, just a bit, more water

 I had been trying to find a good bread recipe for a while, and this one has proven to be very multitudinous. I use it to make a lunch roll for the fiancee, but it can be used for pizza, loaf bread, rolls....the sky's the limit.

• Things that go in the dough


• 1 packet of yeast
• 4 cups flour 
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup hot water

1. Plop the 4 cups of flour in a bowl along with the sugar. 

   

   Rolled out to about 1/2 inch thick

2. Add the yeast packet.
3.  Add the hot water.
4. Mix until it sticks together like taffy.
5. Take dough out and place it in an oiled bowl and cover with a warm moist cloth for 45 min.
6. Pre heat the oven to 400 degrees. Get your pans and toppings ready. This way you are not wandering around the kitchen with doughy hands getting flour on everything.
7. Once dough has doubled in size, kneed it until taffy consistency is back. 
8. At this point you can roll it out and add yummy things like what I did, or put the dough in bread pans to make bread loafs. 
9. Bake for 20 min, or until the brown and crispy.

Now for some information about ingredients.

Yeast

Covered in pesto and sun dried tomatoes

Rolled and cooked

Yeast is a very special ingredient, mostly because it is alive. What this mean to you, the cook, is that the things in its immediate vicinity will directly affect how the yeast works.
So first and foremost you want to use "fresh" yeast, not something that has been hanging out in the pantry for months. The quality/type of flour and sugar will also play into how your yeast acts.

As silly as it sounds, the weather outside will also affect how well the yeast rises. If it is dry outside the yeast will not rise as well, if it is humid the yeasty beasties will go to town and the wont stop growing.


Flour
I am using whole wheat flour, much to my fiancee dismay. This makes my dough more dense and harder to manipulate. I use
to buy the fancy bread flour, but it is expensive and due to some food allergies I don't get to enjoy my bread. 

Sugar

If your sink looks like this, then you are doing it right

I am using just regular old white sugar, nothing fancy.


HOT Water
The water needs to be hot enough to wake up the yeasty beasties, but not to kill them. A good gauge is once the water is too hot for you to comfortably put your hand under it then it is too hot for the yeast creatures. 

If bread making is your thing, another fun recipe to do is pita bread.

By Laura