The Drink of Love

When the three holy substances of water, honey, and yeast combine, a concoction is created that has been enjoyed for more than five thousand years--mead. While the temples of Egypt were in construction, and the Greeks were battling the gods, mead was being brewed. Mead was regarded as a sacred beverage by the Aztecs and Incas, and it was the drink of choice for the vikings and the knights of the round table. From this magical substance legends were born, some of which have melded their way into our modern traditions. Mead has long since been considered the drink of love. It has been used in marriage ceremonies for an unrecorded amount of time. The mead maker used to brew a month supply for newly weds. The couple would then drink mead each night from one moon to the next, hence the term "honeymoon". Depending on the quality of the mead maker, nine months later the couple would bear a son to carry on the family name.
While I do consider it an honor to continue the tradition as a mead maker, I am not sure that I want to brew mead that is good enough to spark the birth of a child with our current population problems.
On January 17th, I started three 1-gallon batches of mead. I pitched a dry mead yeast in one of the gallons and a sweet mead yeast in the other two. The dry mead yeast will continue to ferment the honey until all the sugars have been consumed, while the sweet yeast will die after a certain amount of alcohol has been produced even though residual sugars may still be present. I then decided to add blood oranges to one of the sweet meads but only after most of the yeast cells had died.

Slicing up some bloody oranges Photo by: Luke Madden

Photo by: Luke Madden

The addition of the oranges was mainly for aesthetics. I may add some more at a later date until the mead turns dark red.

Siphoning the sweet mead onto the oranges Photo by: Luke Madden

The recipe:

Brewed on my brother Luke Gottlieb's birthday.

3 gallons total.

Brought a little less than 3 gallons to 145 degrees.
Added 9lbs 7oz Swanns raw and unfiltered wildflower honey.
Held at 145 degrees for 20 minutes.
Skimmed off white foam.
Separated into 3 separate 1-gallon jugs.

1-gallon Wyeast Sweet Mead
1-gallon Wyeast Sweet Mead, 4 organic blood oranges.
1-gallon Wyeast Dry Mead

OG: 1.128