If you're planning on partying with your Viking friends, a bottle or ten of mead will be heartily welcomed.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: Two months
Here's How:
- Collect three gallons of fresh spring water or clean well water. Melted snow will also do.
- Put the water in an enameled cauldron and set it on your fire.
- When the water is warm, add a quart of honey, preferably in as liquid a form as you can get it.
- When the mixture boils, a foam will rise to the top. Skim it off.
- Allow your mixture to boil, skimming regularly, until nothing further rises to the top.
- Take the mixture off the heat and allow it to cool until it is lukewarm, or body temperature.
- Stir in a spoonful of yeast.
- Pour your mixture into a bowl, cover it with cloth, and set it in a cool dark place for a fortnight. Use a shed or barn, for the smell will be too powerful for your household.
- Pour the mixture carefully into a jug, leaving any sediment behind in the bowl.
- Stopper the jug and set in a cool dark place.
- Theoretically, it should be ready to drink in 6 weeks, but the longer it remains bottled up the better it will taste. Even after two years your mead should still be drinkable, if it ever was to begin with.
Tips:
- To make Metheglin, add cinnamon, cloves, or any spices you desire when skimming is finished, and boil for an additional hour. To make Melomel, use fruit instead of spices.
- Beware the hangover. Mead may taste sweet and light when properly brewed, but it can have an alcohol content of up to 18%.
- If you're going to make mead in the 21st century, use a sanitizer, and try a modernized recipe for more pleasing results.
What You Need:
- Water
- Honey
- Yeast
- A cauldron and fire
- A stoppered jug
