Mead

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Mead

Postby Greggy_N » Tue Dec 21, 2010 4:59 pm

Flag

Brewin' up my first homebrew batch of mead...will post pics and updates...

Anyone a mead connoseiur here? And/or any other homebrewers?
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Re: Mead

Postby Caliban » Tue Dec 21, 2010 9:59 pm

My dad used to make it amongst his many wonderful concoctions but it was never to my taste, way too sweet . Always makes me think of honey flavoured cough medicine. Sorry, but good luckwith it.. if it is to your taste Im sure its good.
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Re: Mead

Postby mapandcompass » Wed Dec 22, 2010 5:20 am

I'm a homebrewer. I like mead reasonably well but echo the concern of overwhelming sweetness. Everything I've read about making mead says "Prepare to wait" (and homebrewers are patient folk) It takes a good long while in secondary (tying up a carboy), apparently.

Best of luck, can't wait to hear of your success
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Re: Mead

Postby Atrax » Wed Dec 22, 2010 6:59 pm

Had my first glass on Thanksgiving. Really good stuff, supposedly it had been in my Uncles basement for 7 years.
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Re: Mead

Postby Caliban » Thu Dec 23, 2010 12:13 am

Atrax wrote:Had my first glass on Thanksgiving. Really good stuff, supposedly it had been in my Uncles basement for 7 years.



There is something suspect about people who can be patient that long where drink is involved ;)
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Re: Mead

Postby Woodsman » Thu Dec 23, 2010 2:14 am

Mead: How can you go wrong brewing up a batch of distilled honey? Yum.

Haven't had any for quite a while.

Closest thing I've had recently is some shandy which wasn't too bad either.
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Re: Mead

Postby Kurt » Thu Dec 23, 2010 4:10 am

Greggy_N wrote:Flag

Brewin' up my first homebrew batch of mead...will post pics and updates...

Anyone a mead connoseiur here? And/or any other homebrewers?


I always buy some when I find it but none has ever been as good as homebrew mead.

I really recommend that you brew Barkshack Ginger Mead in Charlie Papazians book. I made a batch once and it took a year and a half for it to be ready and then I moved and stopped brewing. But when the time was up it was great. Really bubbly, really refreshing and really alcoholic. If you are doing 5 gallon batches it is not worth making a weak mead...go for strength. Buy yourself another carboy so you can brew a bunch of batches and then start doing bitters and other ales to tide your drinking over while you wait and you will be glad you did.

I wish I had brewed a batch of it once a month for about 1 year so I would have had cases of the stuff all the time.
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Re: Mead

Postby JamesInTheWorld » Thu Dec 23, 2010 6:12 pm

So where are the piks?



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Re: Mead

Postby Helmschmied » Tue Feb 08, 2011 12:28 pm

For what it's worth, mead doesn't have to be sweet. I've got two batches on hand right now one that I'm drinking, and the other is still aging in a carboy. I managed to get both to ferment completely dry. I hate sweet beverages of any kind.
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Re: Mead

Postby JamesInTheWorld » Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:08 pm

So what happened to the piks?


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Re: Mead

Postby Caliban » Fri Feb 25, 2011 6:02 pm

Mead is gay. No, really -


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -beer.html

Mexican brewery unveils first gay beer

A small Mexican brewery has produced what it claims is the world's first beer specifically targeted at the homosexual community.


Image

The beer, which has a slight honey flavour, will initially be marketed to homosexual consumers in Mexico, Colombia and Japan.

The Minerva brewery said that the "Artisan Honey-Ales" would appeal to a section of the beer-drinking public that had so far been snubbed by larger brewers.

"We're out in the market with great respect with the idea of offering a product directed to the gay-lesbian community that has been ignored for too long but is important and very demanding", Dario Rodriguez Wyler, commercial manager for distributors Bodega 12, told the Mexican news agency Efe.

The label on the beer bottles has been designed so that it can be unglued and worn as a symbol of gay-lesbian pride, he said.

The Purple Hand Beer and Salamandra beers are already available in some bars and restaurants in Guadalajara, Mexico City and the resorts of Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos.

The name of the beers are closely linked to icons and colours of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

Purple Hand recalls a famous gay rights protest in San Francisco in 1969.

Since launching the brands, Minerva has received purchase requests from the US, Argentina, Ecuador and Chile it said.

The company is also planning to launch a strawberry-flavoured beer.



How rediculous !
"If you sit still the birds shit on you, even Buddha, life's short so get out there and do something"
"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?" Snoopy
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Re: Mead

Postby redharen » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:06 am

Helmschmied wrote:For what it's worth, mead doesn't have to be sweet. I've got two batches on hand right now one that I'm drinking, and the other is still aging in a carboy. I managed to get both to ferment completely dry. I hate sweet beverages of any kind.


So if you hate sweet beverages, why did you set out to make mead in the first place? Seems like you could have saved a lot of trouble by just making beer, instead of something made out of honey.
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Re: Mead

Postby Kurt » Sun Feb 27, 2011 4:09 am

redharen wrote:
Helmschmied wrote:For what it's worth, mead doesn't have to be sweet. I've got two batches on hand right now one that I'm drinking, and the other is still aging in a carboy. I managed to get both to ferment completely dry. I hate sweet beverages of any kind.


So if you hate sweet beverages, why did you set out to make mead in the first place? Seems like you could have saved a lot of trouble by just making beer, instead of something made out of honey.


The stuff I have made is less sweet than most beers. Its along the line of Champagne for sweetness which is pretty dry.

The part of honey that makes it taste like honey has little to do with the sugar...the sugar is just the vessel of the honey flavor. So when you ferment that away you got honey flavor, bubbles, and alcohol.

But sweet mead tends to be strong mead. A 14% mead will always be sweet and non carbonated. A 5% mead will be dryer and you could make it bubbly easily enough without the risk of all your bottles exploding.

With sweet mead, I always wondered why people just didn't mix honey and vodka. But with dry mead, that is tricky and unique and worth the effort.
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Re: Mead

Postby Helmschmied » Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:36 pm

redharen wrote:
Helmschmied wrote:For what it's worth, mead doesn't have to be sweet. I've got two batches on hand right now one that I'm drinking, and the other is still aging in a carboy. I managed to get both to ferment completely dry. I hate sweet beverages of any kind.


So if you hate sweet beverages, why did you set out to make mead in the first place? Seems like you could have saved a lot of trouble by just making beer, instead of something made out of honey.




I actually did start out making beer and still do so regularly. Fermenting things is fun and easy though, so I occasionally whip up a batch of mead or cider to supplement my booze supply.
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