Thread: Homemade Country Wine Production

Good stuff

Our member here Bon Temps raises honey bees and had some honey available so I bought some to make some different Meads. Since I already make wine this recipe was just made up from experience making wine. Mead made with fruits is a Melomel. Here I'm looking to cross the streams with wine making looking for a winter drink, Mead is acceptable to be drank warmed if desired. I'm adding some Zip with the red pepper, aroma with the rest of the spice. This year my Page Mandarin trees are Loaded up so we have enough to made various project products with the overflow. First thing was to pick, wash, dry, and Zest all the Mandarins.



Next is juicing all the mandarins.



The juice and zest went into the fridge till needed. Next is sanitizing the fermenters, adding a quart of Bon Temp's fantastic Honey to each fermenter. From there I added a quart of distilled water to each fermenter using a empty honey jar (washing out the rest of the honey in the jars). Using the same jar I added a quart of mandarin juice to each, 1/2tsp red pepper, 1/8tsp ground cloves, 7 grams of cinnamon sticks, 50 grams of mandarin zest, and 1/2 box of Golden Raisins chopped.



Distilled water was added to the one gallon mark on the fermenters. Due to the possibility of wild yeast being present one crushed Campden tablet is added before stirring both batches enough to mix the honey thoroughly. After stirring I moved both Fermenters to a dark place till tomorrow when we pitch the yeast.

That sounds awesome

And like a sinus opening mead!

I think I’d like this. Honey and hot pepper yum

Dang you got some skills.

We got back from The Rez with the Mead needing immediate attention. Stirring for starters and a bit of a boost in Honey. The yeast had already consumed most of the Honey. The Specific Gravity was 1.0092 a bit too far for my liking if Boosting with Honey to increase alcohol production. Currently the ABV is 13.1%. I'm shooting for as close to 20% as I can get. After bottling this Mead will age a few years to mellow. I switched to Vodka in the Bubblers for a better reduction of anything organic growing in the Airlock. I got a taste and the Cinnamon and Cloves are starting to show up on the taste buds but not much. I added a Yeast Nutrient & Yeast Energizer to increase the fermentation rate too.

Impressive