Moon Halo Mead

This batch is my first foray into the world of Mead making.  In my ever vigilant quest to brew something that everybody will drink, I have decided to turn to mead.  I'm hoping that Mead will cater to the tastes of my non-beer drinking friends, as well as the friends that don't know good beer.

Moon Halo was named one night when I was thinking of what to call my first batch of Mead.  I was walking to my car, and I spotted the moon shrouded with clouds, so that it appeared as though the moon had a halo.  I thought that would be a good name for the drink, then.  Originally I was going to call it Millennium Mead, but since the year had passed, I decided to rename it, and Moon Halo has stuck.

Equipment Needs

Ingredients

Procedure

1. Bring two gallons of water with Honey to a boil.
2. Boil for 15 minutes, scraping off the junk that comes to the top.
3. Remove from heat, cool to 160 degrees.
4. Add Fruit and Acid Blend and steep for 15-20 minutes at 150-160.
5. Add everything to fermentor and add 1.5 to 2 gallons of cold water.
6. Cool to less than 80 degrees.
7. Pitch yeast and nutrient.
8. Ferment in primary for 1-2 weeks.
9. Siphon to secondary fermentor and make sure fruit is left behind.  Let set in secondary for awhile (anywhere up to 1-2 months).
10. Boil 2 cups of water with 3/4 c. Corn Sugar.
11. Add corn sugar mixture to bottling bucket.
12. Siphon mead into bottling bucket with corn sugar.
13. Bottle.
14. Keep bottles at room temperature for 1 week then move to cooler place for awhile.  Mead takes longer to age and clarify than beer, so probably wait a couple of months.  I'm told that mead is best after 5 years, so try to save some until then.
15. Enjoy your mead.

Results

I started this brew on March 11, 2001.  The brewing process was a breeze compared to beer due to the fact that the boil lasts only 15 minutes compared to 60 for beer.  It also doesn't make the kitchen smell as bad as beer does, so I may make more than one batch of this a year.  We'll see when the results are in.  After about a day and a half, fermentation has begun as is evidenced by bubbles in the airlock.  In about a week I'm going to transfer it to my glass carboy for aging and clarifying.  I'll probably leave it there for about 6 weeks.  I can't wait to find out what this will taste like!!!

June 1, 2001

I tried my first bottle of Mead about a week ago, and it was pretty darn good.  It didn't taste anything like I thought it would taste, though.  First of all, it is not as sweet as I thought it would be.  It is quite dry, but I guess that is to be expected since I used the Dry Mead variety of yeast.  Second, it wasn't as "fizzy" as I thought it would be.  Not many bubbles were evident when I poured it into my standard pint glasses.  However, when I took a drink, it definitely had an effervescent mouth-feel.  I'm going to try another one in July to see what it tastes like then.

January 17, 2001

Wow, what a difference a few months make.  I had been drinking this brew all along, about a bottle a month, and it wasn't too bad.  Well, I laid off it for awhile, and in November decided to try a bottle again.  Wow, WHAT A DIFFERENCE!  It was fantastic.  I'm finally starting to understand what they mean by letting the mead "mellow."  The strawberry flavor was much less pronounced, giving a much more "mellow" taste and feel to it.  It is very good.  I liked it so much that I drank two, which is much like sitting down and drinking a whole bottle of wine.  Let's just say that I was a little tipsy.  Anyway, I will definitely be serving this at this summer's Turkey Leg and Mead party that I will be hosting at our house.