Mead

Mead spiced with hops

1 kg honey
4 liters of water
70 gram Fuggle hops
Dry mead yeast

Heated up honey and water and removed the white foam. Boiled the hops for 1 hour. When it had cooled down to room temperature I added the yeast.

Comments: I don't know the alchohol content since this was before I owned any measuring equipment. At first it didn't taste all that good but after about a year it had a very nice taste to it.

Mead with hops (added before and after)

2 kg honey
8 liters of water
140 gram of Fuggle hops
Dry mead yeast

I made two batches that were exactly the same, only difference was that I added the hops before fermentation in one and after in the other. I heated up water and honey, removed the white foam, let it cool down and added yeast. In one I added hops that had been boiled for an hour, the other I added the same kind of hops after fermentation. It made a big difference, the one with hops added before fermentation had a more round taste to it while the other was rather sharp. Even after a year there was still a difference between them.

Unflavoured mead

4 kg honey
16 liters of water
Dry mead yeast

Heated up water and honey, removed the white foam. When it had cooled down I added the yeast. This was made in order to see what happens to mead that just gets to age, so I sealed up the bottles and just let them rest. The first couple of years it improved, then it started tasting worse all the time. The last bottle was tested after 8 years and it didn't taste good at all. Interesting experiment though.

Blueberry mead, spontaneous fermentation

1 liter blueberries
4 liters of water
1 kg honey

Rinsed the berries, heated up water and honey and removed the white foam. Poured it into the container and let it cool down before adding the berries. I rinsed the berries, I had to measure the sugar content every now and then and shake it to make sure it mixed properly. It took a while before it started to ferment and it fermented slowly. It ended up at 6.5% and I had expected a stronger taste of blueberries but after about 2 years of maturing it got a very nice, smoothe taste to it.