Mead has been around for a long time. Long before M. Pasteur unleashed bacteria on the world. Long before sanitizing solutions, carboys, fermentation locks and all such things. Mead has been around probably since pretty soon after someone found more honey than he could eat, and put it in a bucket and got water into it and let it sit around for a month, and then he drank and he thought, "so that's how I make mead!"
I've never brewed anything in my life but I decided, well, why not try to brew some mead. So I went to my local home brew supply store, and their basic starter kit was for $60! Ok, not very much money, but still, you know that the first mead to be brewed didn't need any $60 kit.
So I thought about it: The only ingredients I really need are honey, yeast, yeast nutrients, and of course water.
So I went to Trader Joes and got their 3lbs honey container, something like $9. I got an empty 750ml vodka bottle. I got a $1 pack of champagne yeast and a $1 bag of yeast nutrients, and I took it all home, and set up shop. First, I took a regular medium-sized cooking pot and heated up some water, not to boiling, but hot. The reason for this was to make it easier to dissolve the honey, and to kill off any wild yeast in the honey. Then I dissolved the honey (about 2/3 of a pound), added three dashes of yeast nutrient, and let it cool. When it was cool enough I dissolved a sprinkle of yeast into a small tea cup with warm water and a little bit of sugar. I let that get ready for fifteen minutes, then I poured it into the vodka bottle, and put a cap on.
Now it is bubbling a little bit. Instead of using a fermentation lock, I'm just going to leave the screw-on cap loose enough to let some CO2 out. My reason for this: the screw-on cap is not going to let any air pass over the solution. It won't keep it as sterile as a fermentation lock would, but it should do pretty well. I've been to 3rd world countries and seen them brewing alcoholic drinks in barns, etc. So I'm optimistic. My kitchen, while not the most pristine of places, is a few steps above a 3rd world barn.
I'm going to let this go for a few weeks and then rack it into another bottle. Of course this is an experiment; the whole thing might not work or it might taste aweful or whatever. I just wanted to see what I could do with basically no equipment (beyond what I have laying around my kitchen), and $5 worth of ingredients.
Hopefully it will be something good!
I've never brewed anything in my life but I decided, well, why not try to brew some mead. So I went to my local home brew supply store, and their basic starter kit was for $60! Ok, not very much money, but still, you know that the first mead to be brewed didn't need any $60 kit.
So I thought about it: The only ingredients I really need are honey, yeast, yeast nutrients, and of course water.
So I went to Trader Joes and got their 3lbs honey container, something like $9. I got an empty 750ml vodka bottle. I got a $1 pack of champagne yeast and a $1 bag of yeast nutrients, and I took it all home, and set up shop. First, I took a regular medium-sized cooking pot and heated up some water, not to boiling, but hot. The reason for this was to make it easier to dissolve the honey, and to kill off any wild yeast in the honey. Then I dissolved the honey (about 2/3 of a pound), added three dashes of yeast nutrient, and let it cool. When it was cool enough I dissolved a sprinkle of yeast into a small tea cup with warm water and a little bit of sugar. I let that get ready for fifteen minutes, then I poured it into the vodka bottle, and put a cap on.
Now it is bubbling a little bit. Instead of using a fermentation lock, I'm just going to leave the screw-on cap loose enough to let some CO2 out. My reason for this: the screw-on cap is not going to let any air pass over the solution. It won't keep it as sterile as a fermentation lock would, but it should do pretty well. I've been to 3rd world countries and seen them brewing alcoholic drinks in barns, etc. So I'm optimistic. My kitchen, while not the most pristine of places, is a few steps above a 3rd world barn.
I'm going to let this go for a few weeks and then rack it into another bottle. Of course this is an experiment; the whole thing might not work or it might taste aweful or whatever. I just wanted to see what I could do with basically no equipment (beyond what I have laying around my kitchen), and $5 worth of ingredients.
Hopefully it will be something good!