Month: September 2013

Meadmaking Workshop – Sat Nov 16

I’m excited to announce that my next meadmaking workshop is set up and ready to go in Portland, Maine on Saturday, November 16 at The Honey Exchange. The Honey Exchange is a fabulous resource for meadmakers in the area, because they offer a very wide variety of honey to use in our meads! You can get a base honey for about $50/gallon (this is enough to do a 3 gallon batch of very sweet honey), and they have more exotic varietal honeys available at various prices.

Mead-Workshop-Flyer - 2

Registration for the workshop is $50, and you will also have an optional opportunity to brew your own batch of mead and take it (and all the equipment) home with you. The brewing equipment kit is $75, and you can choose from the varietal honeys available at The Honey Exchange. To reserve your spot, call Phil at The Honey Exchange at 207-773-9333.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Mabon 2013 Harvest (early!)

This is just a short log to acknowledge the bottling session I did today. I got 20 bottles of Mad Trad D2, and 10 bottles of Fox Pyment Double Mead from last fall. I unfortunately don’t have pictures because my digital camera is complaining and not working well.

I really love the Traditional Mead formula I’ve worked up, it produces what might by my favorite mead of all. So simple, so satisfying; it has a purity to it that is very appealing to me. The Fox Pyment this batch didn’t get as clear as my other batches do, despite the fact that it is nearly a year old and has been clearing since March. I believe it is probably a pectin haze from the wild fox grapes.

One technique that I tried in this bottling session, for the first time. With the Mad Trad D2, I had 4 jugs clearing, 2 jugs each from 2 different batches, done at the same time, that came out slightly differently. This time I filled each bottle halfway from one of the batches, then filled each bottle completely with the other batch, effectively combining the 2 batches into one mead. This technique is common in commercial meaderies used to dealing with larger batches; it has the benefit of averaging out all the flavors — including any off-flavors — thereby making a more consistent product.

All in all, yet another bountiful harvest! Gratitude!