A homebrewers meeting

I was invited my a fellow homebrewer to a meeting of local DC homebrewers. I had been to another event of homebrewers but not this particular group. This group is younger and seem to still be mostly in the entry phase of homebrewing which is cool. This time I opted to bring some mead as I still have a large amount slowly aging away. It is actually still in secondary as I wait for it to stop actively fermenting. I hope to bottle it soon. I did put some in a bottle and brought that with me. Not beer, but it was homemade. Everyone loved it. Many of the people who tried it had never had mead before and it was well received by everyone. This was really nice to hear. It is a little disconcerting to get so much praise from people but it is nice as well. It was really odd that I was the only female in the room. Oh well. I had a really good time and it is nice to meet fellow homebrewers in the area. I have been getting back into the homebrewing swing of things so these meetings are really nice to go to.

On a good note, my other appointment with the doctor just proved I am still normal. I did have to drink some foul stuff but all is well. I think at this point the diet change is helping but time will tell. I've only been on it for one week.

Mead

I started a batch of mead last year around this time hoping I would have something by Christmas. Fast forward one year and I still have the mead sitting in the secondary fermentation vessel as it just takes that long to age and develop. I think I will pick up a new hydrometer to replace the one I somehow broke, and take a final reading. I hope it is somewhere near the reading it should be as I want to bottle it and move the carboy out of the kitchen. I knew mead would take a while but this is a long time. Apparently this is still a very young mead too. I have read that it can take up to five years for a mead to really mature fully. I am hoping that is not the case with mine. I was actually thinking of putting on another mead but I might wait a year and hope this is only a four year mead.

Show me the honey!

So I fianlly took the time to pull out all the honey I was carefully stockpiling and made a batch of mead. It was relatively straight forward, although a little sticky. I decided not to heat the must (the technical name for the liquid that the yeast gets added to, in this case honey and water). There are two different schools of thought around this. FIrst is that you have to pasturize the honey and must to prevent things from growing in it. Second, it is best to not heat the honey as you loose some of the delicate floral aromals and nuances. Whatever, I decided to be lazy. I diluted the honey in the water, and I splurged and picked up some bottles of spring water. I added the yeast nutrient and energizer. I also found out I bought two nutrient bottle by accident, oh well. Then I rehydrated and pitched the yeast. Done.

So now I wait. Apparently mead takes about 4-6 weeks in the fermentor, with there being no reason to hurry to bottle. Then another 6 months to a year in the bottles before being fit for consumption. Sometimes it takes up to 3-5 years for the mead to fully mature. I am hoping it doesn't take that long but I am prepared for it. I am also going to bottle some of the batch as a still mead and some as a sparkling mead, meaning effervescent. I am kind of excited about this. It is something quite different from my normal beer batches and quite easy to make. Too bad the honey is so expensive but maybe I can find a local beekeeper and get wholesale honey cheaper if I decide to make more batches. I am thinking I will definitely make another batch in about 6 months and hopefully keep to that loose schedule and always have mead on hond for events.