Honningbrew Mead (Apple Cyser)

Honningbrew Mead (Apple Cyser)

            Brewing mead after playing Skyrim gives me the same satisfied feeling as having a beer after watching Homer Simpson down have a drink at Moe's, or eating steak after watching virtually any Tom and Jerry cartoon. Unfortunately, Skyrim does not ever let you brew your own mead and even the in game meaderies are less than forthcoming with their recipes. Fortunately, and author over at Food Fiction has generously reverse engineered a recipe for us to use, although we are going to tweak it slightly.

Ingredients and Equipment:

            For Honningbrew Mead, you will need a gallon of apple juice without potassium sorbate, fresh pressed if you can get it, three fresh green apples, 1 tsp of yeast nutrient, 2 lb of honey, and a packet of Lalvin 71b-1122 instead of the Lalvin EC-1118 suggest by Food Fiction. EC-1118 will use up virtually all the sugar in your brew as well as fermenting out most of the fruit flavor. 7lb-1122 will leave some of that apple flavor we are trying so hard to achieve.
            As for equipment, you will need a 2 gallon brew bucket, a cutting board and a sturdy knife for the apples, a 3 piece econo-lock, a stir stick, a vessel to activate the yeast, and a kettle to boil some water. You probably have most of this on hand, but it is always good to double check.

- Lalvin 7lb-1122: $1.00

- Apples: $3.00

-2lb Honey: $7.50

-Yeast Nutrient: $1.50
-1 gal Apple Juice: $6.00

Total: $19.00

Directions:

-Step One: Preparation

            -Wash, freeze, and slice the apples into 16 parts each.. Washing the apples is important to keep any wild yeast or other bacteria out of the mead and freezing the fruit will break up some of the flesh and make it easier for flavors to transfer. The high surface area of the 16 slice each will also make flavor transfer more effective.

            -Place the bottle of honey in a pot or bowl of water just below the boiling point to warm up the honey and make it more pliable. If the plastic is cheap and the water is too hot, you risk melting the bottle and ruining the honey, but the risk in minimal and pouring honey at room temperature in unbearably slow .

-Step Two: Mixing

            -Pour the apple juice which will act as your cysers base into your sanitized brew bucket from a low height.

            -Pour in the heated honey and stir the mixture thoroughly. As you are stirring, carefully scrape the bottom of your brew bucket with the stir stick. If there is honey on the end of the stir stick when you bring it back up you are not done stirring.

            -Add 1 tsp of yeast nutrient and the apple slices to your honey/apple juice mixture and again stir thoroughly. If you do not have yeast nutrient, you can substitute 25 raisins, but this is not advisable as they may impart an unwanted wine flavor in your apple mead.

-Step Three: Pitching

            -Heat 1/4^th C of water to between 105-109 °F in your extra glass vessel. Stir in the yeast packet, swirl the mixture until it becomes uniform, and place the cup somewhere slightly warm for 15 min while the yeast activates.

            -While your yeast is activating, take this time to aerate your mead in preparation for the pitch. Stir the mixture thoroughly for 5-10 min stopping just before the 15 min of yeast activation is over. By the end, your brew should be observably bubbly.

            -Carefully pour the activated yeast mixture into your brew bucket and give the bucket one, slow, gentle stir to thoroughly introduce the yeast.

-Step Four: Finishing Touches.
             -Add the lid to your brew bucket and run your hands around the rim to be sure the seal is complete.
             -Fill your econo-lock up to the marked line with distilled water, not vodka as Food Fiction suggests, and apply the air lock to the rubber grommet in the buckets lid.

          

Storage and Fermentation:

            The mead will need +30 days for primary fermentation and for the yeast to do some cleaning up and dying off. The mead should be kept in a dark place with a temperature between 60-85 °F to encourage the yeast to ferment slowly and not create any off flavors. During the first few days, keep an eye on the airlock to check for bubbles. If there are no bubbles during this time, consider re-pitching another packet of yeast.

            After a little over a month, the Honningbrew Mead will be done with primary and ready for secondary fermentation. While secondary fermentation is usually optional, brewing with apple juice an solid fruit will create a higher than average concentration of detritus. After the first month, transfer the brew into a fresh vessel without the apple slice and the bottom inch of muck/fruit/cloudy mead.

            Leave the mead in secondary fermentation for at least a month to allow dead yeast and other detritus to filter to the bottom of the new vessel. After the mead has reached your desired clarity and mellowed to your desired taste, feel free to bottle at any time.

            Drink and enjoy.

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