Mead
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the liquor
Boil 120 gallons of soft water until reduced by a fourth.
Draw off the liquid and boil the remainder in the same manner.
Fill the copper with the first boiled liquid and continue boiling until half is evaporated.
Do not remove the scum; mix it well with the liquor while boiling.
Ferment and seal
Draw off into a vessel and let it cool to the temperature of new milk.
Allow it to ferment in a cool, dark place until it forms a thick head.
Once fermentation is complete, seal it tightly to keep out air.
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
- Purified honey
- Supplies the sugars that fermentation converts into alcohol, and provides the mead's sweetness.
- Soft water
- Forms the bulk of the liquid that carries the honey and is concentrated by boiling.
The step that matters
Cool the liquor to the temperature of new milk before fermenting. Very hot liquid can harm the microbes that drive fermentation, so cooling it first lets fermentation start reliably. Boiling also concentrates the sugars, so the cooling must be complete before the liquid is left to ferment.
“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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