Excellent! We need more informative posts like this one! Ryan
Brian Riordan <riordan.br...@gmail.com> wrote: Sorry for the length of this one... 4 weeks is a short amount of time for a beer, or a wine or even a mead.... But it's PLENTY of time for a small mead. In fact, you can make a small mead for consumption by this weekend, and another every week before TCR to pefect your recipie. But Brian, what is a small mead? I'm glad you asked. A small mead isn't just a smaller portion of mead- no no no. A small mead is a mead that has been fermented for such a short period of time that the yeast is still active, alive and in solution. Depending on individual tastes, this sometimes requires stronger flavors involved to overpower the taste of yeast. But, the beauty of a small mead, is that it can be ready in 3-4 days and keeping everything sterile isn't as much of an issue (cause it's not sitting around for 8 months). Downside is, once again, some yeasty flavors sometimes, and that a small mead will actually not be so tasty at around ohhh.. say 7 days when it starts to go flat. If you've kept it sterile, however, you can then let that small mead turn into a ... well, same size but just a regular aged mead. whew! that was verbose. I'm sure there are recipies for small meads on the net (though i haven't used any) but any that require the addition of fortified alcohols are an abomination and should be ignored. The more small meads made, the merrier, so I'm gonna suggest a loose recipie here you can play with. The last small mead I made was for the Thanksgiving before last. So this basic recipie is based on that holiday/cold weather feel I was searching for. required: 1 Gallon of unfiltered natural apple juice (no preservatives) 1 can of frozen cranberry juice 1 packet of lavin yeast D-47 (or champagne yeast if you really wanna give it some kick... so champagne yeast instead I guess) 3-5 lbs honey 1-3 sticks of cinnamon optional: air lock from a homebrew supply store or 6" X 6" square of tin foil The gallon bottle of unfiltered apple juice is for use for both content, and the bottle to ferment in. Make sure that the apple juice doesn't have any perservatives because the yeast will have a hard time growing in there. Pour the whole gallon of apple juice into a clean cookpot on your stove and bring it close to a boil but DON'T BOIL IT at anytime. Empty the can of cranberry juice into the cookpot Pour in the honey slowly stirring it into solution Allow the liquid to mix fully and turn off heat It might be a good idea to taste the liquid at this point to compare for future brews. I like these kind of small meads to be sweet like a soda, but before any fermentation takes place, this liquid will taste FAR sweeter than the end product. Because this drink will never fully ferment, you won't lose as much sweetness (or gain as much alcohol) as most traditional recipies, but it's a good idea to get a feel or taste for the difference in sweetness for future comparison/tweeking. Pour the cooled liquid back into the gallon jug the apple juice came in. You will have extra, obviously. Do what you wish with that. When the liquid has dropped temperature to approximately room temp. maybe a bit warmer "pitch" the yeast. You'll probably have to get the yeast from a brew store or online (or you can use a bread yeast... but it will most likely make the drink smell like fresh bread). Most of these yeasts are dehydrated, so i like to test my yeast before i "pitch" it (or put it into the brew). To test or prep the yeast, put maybe half a cup of warm water in bowl with a tablespoon of sugar and pour the dried yeast into the mixture. If in 5-10 minutes the yeast is frothy, pour the yeast/water/sugar mixture into the bottle containing the juice/honey mixture. If it doesn't become frothy, or bubble up, your yeast has expired. Burry it. Finally, drop the cinnamon into the bottle and put the airlock on the top. alternately, for a small mead you can just wrap some tin foil over the top. You DO NOT want to seal the bottle. Lots of C02 will be forming and possible blow up the bottle. Put the tin foil on to allow air to escape, but particulates in the air to not fall in. Wait about 4 days and drink. lots of times this can be consumed at room temp, or you can put it in the fridge over night which will settle the yeast. In which case you can use a siphon to take the juice off the top of the settled yeast, reducing yeast flavor. Or just pour the whole mixture through a coffee filter. experiment! anything with sugar and no preservatives will ferment. I've made 5 gallons of hard country time. A very inexpensive party juice. Hope to see some homebrews at TCR now. -B On 9/18/07, wwildch...@aol.com <wwildch...@aol.com> wrote: Wow, I like how Sandi works. She is gathering people that do homebrew to bring homebrew to her location. That is such a novel idea, that I am going to say that I love Chili so I am going to gather all of you who would like to make some chili to come to my camp (with your chili) so we can discuss and taste the different chilis, or better yet we can meet at Sandi's camp and try the beer and chili together. :) Actually Sandi I'll let you know that with only 4 weeks until TCR there is enough time to brew your own, but I prefer to age mine a bit more than that. I'll send you some links off-list so you can get a basic brewing kit if you want. If you lived in HOuston I would say come on over on Saturday and see how it's done, but perhaps someone in your area is brewing that can invite you over. I can not think of a single caving adventure that I did not partake in a beer during that day (liquid carbohydrates) so I think beer is cave related, plus your trying to gather like minded individuals at TCR so this seems very cave related. But, I'll do the rest off list. I like beer, it makes me a jolly good fellow. Puppy =:-) Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body,but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up,totally burned out, and loudly proclaiming, WOW !!!! What a ride! (UK) -----Original Message----- From: Sandi Calhoun < sandi-calh...@mail.utexas.edu> To: texascavers@texascavers.com Sent: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:52 am Subject: [Texascavers] OT - homebrewing query Ok, so this is not really caving related, but since many cavers like beer and I would like to brew some beer, and potentially bring some of my homemade brew to TCR, this somewhat-in-a-roundabout-fashion pertains to cavers. I have never brewed anything drinkable before, but since I work with yeast and other microbes on a pretty regular basis, I think it's high time the little buggers started doing something nice for me for a change (well, other than that whole furthering my research thing). It has come to my attention that some of you out there may have dabbled in homebrewing and might be interested in helping me out/sharing knowledge/equipment/whatever. If this be true, please reply to me off-list and maybe I can organize some sort of homebrew related gathering so we can all pool our collective resources and/or passion for drinking the byproduct of yeast metabolism. Cheers! Sandi --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com --------------------------------- Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! --------------------------------- Shape Yahoo! in your own image. Join our Network Research Panel today!
