The first batch of Round Rock Honey Mead was started on 7/5/2011. As of 10/25/2011, it is still in the 5 gallon carboy..... It is safer there.... Mindy cannot drink it as it is not bottled yet. The extra bottles that would not fit into the carboy have been tasted and enjoyed. Mead needs at least 8 months to mellow but I do not always wait for it to age that long. I can taste that it needs to mellow more and we will let this batch stay in the carboy as we are making more.
We started another batch of this mead on 9/25/2011. It was racked on 10/10/2011 into a 6 gallon carboy with a specific gravity of 1.022 and a potential alcohol of 12.3%. It is starting to clear.
Recipe
First you must gather all your equipment and clean and sanitize it.
The recipe is a very simple one.
1.5 tablespoons of speedy bentonite dissolved in small amount of hot water
2 tablespoons of fermax added to the mixture
We used a total of 19 pounds and 7 ounces of honey
Added water to the 6 gallon line in the primary fermenter
We stirred with a drill mixer for 1.5 minutes to make sure everything was mixed well
The initial specific gravity was 1.116
We added 2 vials of the sweet mead yeast liquid, capped and airlocked the fermenter at 7:55 pm
7/6/2011-bubbles noted at 0630
7/24/2011- racked into a 6 gallon carboy
specific gravity 1.022 giving a potential alcohol of 12.576%
8/6/2011- racked into a 5 gallon carboy and sorbate 5 teaspoons added
added 1 tsp of potassium metabisulphite to the 5 gallons
Had additional mead that we racked into 3- 375 ml bottles with 1 additional glass left
10/24/2011- Mead is still in the carboy and is very clear.