How to Make Spiced Mead (Metheglin) Part 1 Mixing Fermenting

[@CitySteadingBrews]

How did I never see this before? Nicely done and thanks for the shoutout!

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

Oh my god hello! Seriously I can't thank you two legends enough for getting me into this amazing hobby - you are brilliant and I will absolutely be shouting out to you every time :D

[@CitySteadingBrews]

@@thelostarchivesdnd you are most welcome!

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

I will let you guys know how the Aussie Mead recipe works out - first batch is going to be brewed this weekend! If it goes well I will send over the native Australian spices to you guys to try if you like :)

[@CitySteadingBrews]

@@thelostarchivesdnd sounds good to me!

[@dr.froghopper6711]

Hahaha, City Steading Brews is how I found your channel!

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

Oh man that's amazing! City Steading Brews are just phenomenal - Brian and Derica are just the most wonderful and amazing people! I can't wait to get back into mead making in Feb - got some cool new recipes planned :) Thanks so much for coming to hang out with us mate!

[@eddavanleemputten9232]

Yay for CS Brews! Their spiced metheglin is one of my favourites. I’ve actually got a demijohn of it I need to rack and bottle. I’ve been making my own meads, fruit wines (country wines) and ciders for a little over 30 years now, my first ever brew was a mead. Just a little thing: raisins do not provide sufficient nutrient, they’re mainly added to give body to your mead. It.s a good thing you added the boiled baker’s yeast. Also: if I remember correctly, a US gallon isn’t the same as a UK gammon. Brian and Derica of CS Brews are based in Florida and use the US gallon which is just shy of 4 litres. As a result your must will probably contain less honey and therefore less sugars than theirs. But you can always back sweeten. Given you’re using Lalvin’s 71B, aka ‘71 Beast’ that has a tolerance of around 15% but is well known for exceeding that (I’ve had brews with this yeast exceed 18% alcohol) you will either need to stabilise using chemicals or you’ll need to pasteurise your mead after back sweetening as it’ll probably go dry. Going to look for the second part of this video!

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

Hey Edda - you were absolutely right, I discovered about 3 weeks after the racking that the mead had gone a little drier than expected and that I had indeed mixed up gallons! I have since back sweetened with a little honey, brown sugar and cinnamon mixed in warm water and am just leaving it for a couple weeks to make sure fermentation doesn't go too far, so far only a little bubbling - if it keeps going I definitely will pasteurise. I plan on bottling it all up in the next two weeks so a follow up video showing the back-sweetening and bottling should be on the way soon! I have also been playing around with a mead recipe using native Australian ingredients - something I haven't found anyone else playing around with online yet! Once the metheglin is bottled I will be recording the two different variations on the recipe I have created to see which works better :)

[@eddavanleemputten9232]

@@thelostarchivesdnd - Oh yay! I’ll be looking forward to seeing that video! I’m based in Belgium so Australian varietal honeys aren’t easy to get for me but the idea is great! Most mead making channels (CS Brews, Lan Made Mead, Faewood Mead, Hanging with Hodge, Arrow to the Mead etc) are based in the US and make use of honey easily available to them. I’m certain a lot of Australian home brewers would love videos with recipes that include local ingredients. I source most of my honey from local beekeepers. It took me a while to ‘warm them up’ to that strange woman who was doing weird things with their honey: mead is quite unknown in Belgium. It’s beer country. (Mead? What’s that? Honey wine? You mean you add honey to wine?) But ever since some of them have tasted my meads, interest has been growing and now I’ll get the odd phone call that they.re bringing in a new harvest or that they’ll be setting up a hive in such a way it’ll yield a varietal, would I be interested in some of the honey? Or they’ll have a batch that has a low sugar content, they can’t sell it as honey. Would I be interested in getting it at reduced cost? Depending on where you live, it can really pay to build a relationship of trust with local beekeepers. It’ll often take no more than one sampler bottle of mead (tip: have a few 33 cl bottles for that exact purpose). Using local fruit is great too. I live out in the country. Many people have fruit trees/bushes in their garden and find it hard to process bumper crops. That means cheap/free fruit. Cutting costs means I can make more mead. That’s always a good thing!

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

That's so cool! It's a little similar here in Aus - mead is really not well known here at all. There's a lot of really delicious honey types that come from different eucalyptus flowers - leatherwood honey in particular, has a slightly spiced flavour already. I am thinking of combining it with Australian spices like Lemon Myrtle and Finger Lime - should create a really nice smooth spiced citrus profile.

[@eddavanleemputten9232]

@@thelostarchivesdnd - You mentioned those in your video. I was highly intrigued. It seems delicious!

[@Sobo184]

@@eddavanleemputten9232 You seems like someone who knows things about this. I just made my first batch of this mead, but I put it in cellar, i accidently left opened window there, tempature got really low around 5Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit), it has been four days since and it sits there doing nothing, no bubles, nothing, is it dead? should i bring it into warmer tempatures, would it work? I dont know what to do right now, any tips please?

[@scottbennett6200]

LOVE Derica and Brian!!! I have used MANY of their recipes! This is a personal favorite right now, BUT I HAVEN'T TASTED THE HOLIDAY MEAD.... Mine is about to be fortified and I will let that sit until CHRISTMAS time around Dec 1st then enjoy that. For summer, in the states though, I have made a pineapple habanero mead. That I am truly excited about!! HAPPY MEADING!!!

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

Aren't they just the most lovely and incredible human beings? Ooooooh mate that sounds so good - Christmas fortified mead is about as good as it gets haha! That pineapple habanero mead sounds really interesting too - how does it taste?

[@scottbennett6200]

@@thelostarchivesdnd it’s just in primary, but I’ll keep you posted!!😬

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

Please do! I am so curious to hear how that turns out because it sounds amazing!

[@LegendOfNym]

just out of curiosity, how much diffrence does it realisticly make that you basicly used almost 500gramm less honey then them? by my caculations on 5l you would need arround 2kg honey

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

Hi Nym! Your calculations would be correct - the result of the less honey was a drier mead which I then backsweetened with 300g of honey. This for me ended up being perfect because it meant I got to set the sweetness to exactly where I like it (mild sweetness being my personal preference in this case). I actually have made an australian style mead recently (video being edited now!) where I correct my mistake and put the right amount of honey haha. Awesome catch mate and thanks for dropping the comment! Are you a mead maker? If so do you have any recipe suggestions for me!

[@LegendOfNym]

@@thelostarchivesdnd I am honestly just starting myself and ordered all the equipment today. I am not sure how much difference the variant of honey will do. Also I discovered you because you were probably the only one who uses litres and kg instead of going with imperials, which just made me happy. I was thinking about buying all that stuff for like 2 weeks now, so I had you on the radar. Then I checked the rest if your channel, and was just surprised that I am probably interested in much of you content ^^ Do you have any other platform like discord available?

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

Oh man the imperial measurements get me so confused, especially when I discovered that there were two different types of gallons!? Yeah we do - link is here discord.gg/Ne5KVrU5

[@Adudesaysup]

I volunteer as a taste tester! (Sketch)

[@thelostarchivesdnd]

Absolutely! We have a little wait ahead of us now but I shall absolutely keep you posted!