Vinous Mead
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the honey water
Boil the water and honey mixture for 15 minutes.
Skim off any foam and let it cool nearly to room temperature.
Ferment
Pour the mixture gently into a cask containing the crude tartar.
Reserve a portion of the liquid in bottles, sealing them with muslin or coarse linen.
To encourage fermentation, place the cask in sunlight or near a constant fire.
After 7 to 8 days, when froth appears, fill the cask with the reserved liquid.
Once fermentation stops, seal the cask and store it in a cellar.
Bottle
Bottle the mead after 12 months, optionally flavoring with flowers or fruit juice.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Honey
- Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, and the main body of the mead.
- Water
- Dissolves the honey and forms the bulk of the liquid that ferments.
- Crude tartar
- Supplies the wild yeast and acidity that start and carry the fermentation.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool nearly to room temperature before adding the tartar. Very hot liquid can kill or slow the yeast in the tartar, so fermentation may fail to start. Cooling first keeps the culture alive so it can convert the honey sugars into alcohol.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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