Hi there.. I'm new around here so be gentle.
I used to do a bit of simple home brewing when I was just a poor student, (Three decades or so ago now.) Since then time constraints and easy availability of supermarket wine saw the brew kit relegated to the back of the garage.
The one thing I really missed though was decent Mead.
Don't get me wrong, the commercial stuff is available over here if your pockets are deep enough, it's just far too sweet.
For some reason in Britain, people seem to think mead should be sweet enough to send a Hummingbird Hyperglycemic.
So I'm dusting off the old glass wear, replacing all the stuff that didn't survive and while looking for advice I found this place. Wow...
Thirty years back I only had a little paperback book with five recipes in it for information. Four of them were too sweet as well. So I ending up experimenting and came up with my own thing.
Money was tight back then remember and on one occasion I didn't quite have enough honey and my eyes fell on a tin of Black Treacle in the back of the cupboard (Over there you would call it Molasses.) I ended up with an 80% honey 20% Treacle mix which made the best gallon of "Mead" I ever made. (I'm still not sure what it should be properly called though.)
Around the various Living History groups I worked with, it soon became known as "Wayland's Dark Brew" so that's what I've decided to resurrect to get me back into the game.
What has really changed since then is the sheer amount of information that is available now and the varieties of yeasts and nutrients is bewildering. I've read my way through the NewBee's Mead Making articles and I've scared myself silly with all the things I must have done wrong back then.
I used to just boil the water, add the ingredients, wait for it to cool down a bit and chuck in some dried yeast. When it stopped bubbling after a few weeks I racked it off, rinsed the bottle and started the next brew.
Anyway, I'm a bit wiser these days but I am wondering what sort of nutrients might be suggested to improve the fermentation process with this sort of mix.
2lb. Honey.
1/2lb. Molasses.
Champagne yeast?
made up to 1 gallon of must.
Any thoughts?
I used to do a bit of simple home brewing when I was just a poor student, (Three decades or so ago now.) Since then time constraints and easy availability of supermarket wine saw the brew kit relegated to the back of the garage.
The one thing I really missed though was decent Mead.
Don't get me wrong, the commercial stuff is available over here if your pockets are deep enough, it's just far too sweet.
For some reason in Britain, people seem to think mead should be sweet enough to send a Hummingbird Hyperglycemic.
So I'm dusting off the old glass wear, replacing all the stuff that didn't survive and while looking for advice I found this place. Wow...
Thirty years back I only had a little paperback book with five recipes in it for information. Four of them were too sweet as well. So I ending up experimenting and came up with my own thing.
Money was tight back then remember and on one occasion I didn't quite have enough honey and my eyes fell on a tin of Black Treacle in the back of the cupboard (Over there you would call it Molasses.) I ended up with an 80% honey 20% Treacle mix which made the best gallon of "Mead" I ever made. (I'm still not sure what it should be properly called though.)
Around the various Living History groups I worked with, it soon became known as "Wayland's Dark Brew" so that's what I've decided to resurrect to get me back into the game.
What has really changed since then is the sheer amount of information that is available now and the varieties of yeasts and nutrients is bewildering. I've read my way through the NewBee's Mead Making articles and I've scared myself silly with all the things I must have done wrong back then.
I used to just boil the water, add the ingredients, wait for it to cool down a bit and chuck in some dried yeast. When it stopped bubbling after a few weeks I racked it off, rinsed the bottle and started the next brew.
Anyway, I'm a bit wiser these days but I am wondering what sort of nutrients might be suggested to improve the fermentation process with this sort of mix.
2lb. Honey.
1/2lb. Molasses.
Champagne yeast?
made up to 1 gallon of must.
Any thoughts?