100 Followers, Thank you.
When trying something new, you never know what to expect. I made my first post on the Steemit community only 5 days ago, and the response has been better than I could have imagined. Within minutes I went from 0 followers to 90+, and 100 followers within the next 24 hours. Thank you all for welcoming me, and for your support. Here is a Bonus photo.
Sunrise in the coast range. I took this photo in the wee hours of the morning on my drive out to work earlier this spring.
Wild strawberries in the Cascades. All photography in this segment is by
Strawberry Mead 2018
While constructing my introduction post, I was also in the process of making the years first batch of mead. Keeping with the schedule of berry season, I decided to make the first batch strawberry because it is one of the earliest producers of the season. However, the strawberry harvest seems a bit late this year, so it's more of an excuse to use up a few pounds of strawberries I had stored in the freezer, as well as break into my new bucket of honey (wording is everything; honey bucket = port-a-potty). Before I get any further into the production of this batch I'm going to cover some basics to help followers who are unfamiliar understand the process, and so that anyone who wants to try making their own will have a starting point.
One down, one to go
There are many different varieties of mead, with varying complexity to produce, but the most basic formula would simply read; water + honey + yeast + time = mead. Of coarse it helps to have the basic equipment needed for the process: carboy (container for fermentation), bottle brushes (for sanitizing the carboy and bottles), air lock (to keep out foreign microbes and debris, while allowing pressure to escape), siphon (to rack or bottle your mead), bottles, and corks. Sanitizing equipment is the first, and most vital step to making a palatable and consistent product.
Sanitizing the 5 gallon glass carboy
Recipe
I will not be giving out the exact recipe for the strawberry mead I am making, instead it will serve as a demonstration for our basic recipe.
2lbs of clover honey
2 small boxes of white raisins, chopped
filtered water
I hesitate to go further, its as easy as it sounds at this point, but I suppose I will. After you have sanitized the equipment (yes, its that important), pour 1/2 gallon of water into a large stainless steel pot and put it on a low heat. After the water has warmed up carefully, and slowly, mix in the 2lbs of honey. Allow the mixture to cool until it is at a temperature that is tolerable to the touch.
Do not leave it unattended for too long because it will grow all sorts of interesting things that you never intended (especially if you didn't sanitize), and your precious honey will be wasted. Place a funnel in the mouth of a 1 gallon carboy and pour the mixture into the carboy. This is why we heated, and diluted it with water first. It can be a test of patience and skills to try to pour raw viscous honey through the small hole of the funnel. Now add water to bring the total volume up to no more than 1 gallon. This mixture, with or without fruit, and before the yeast is added, is known as the must. The best I can figure, its called this because once you reach this point, it must become mead because its not going to be anything else.
For my strawberry mead recipe, this is where I check the specific gravity, i.e. sugar content, with a hydrometer. This will not be necessary in our basic recipe.
After the taking the measurement its time to pitch in the yeast, or in this case the chopped raisins, and cap it with an air lock. Grapes naturally contain yeast and will therefore begin to ferment in the must though it may be a little slow to start. Some other yeasts will produce a violent reaction in the first stage of fermentation. The fermentation time for this recipe will probably only be a month or 2 at most.
Strawberry mead in early fermentation
The alcohol content will not be too high, but should produce a rather sweet and drinkable mead. Higher content meads may continue fermenting for many months. My strawberry mead shows a potential for roughly 16% alcohol content, though I will likely stop the fermentation at around 15% because I would like it to be at least semi sweet as opposed to dry (lacking sugar). Different fruits have different effects. When you ferment all the sugar out of strawberries they are rather sour. High content meads that ferment for a long time will need to be racked once a month until fermentation is complete. In the next phase I will cover racking, and other tips. In the final phase I will cover bottling, and the final hydrometer reading with many more tips along the way.
Yeast, and yeast nutrient (to be covered in the next phase)