Misadventures with Mead

I have always been fascinated with Medieval Europe (mostly Medieval England) and one part of that is mead which is a wine made from honey instead of grapes. As I’ve said before, my mom has been making wine for as long as I can remember and I didn’t think it would be much harder to make mead. I extensively researched different mead-making techniques (which means I googled “making mead” and trudged through the thousands of results until I found a simple recipe that I could make in my kitchen) and began gathering what I would need:

                  Honey

                  Spring Water

                  Oranges

                  Raisins

                  Yeast

                  Balloon

                  Gallon Jug

                  Cloves and cinnamon sticks (optional)

 I probably should have known better than to use the recipe I went with because it said that I could make the mead in the plastic gallon jug that the water came in. This would lead to my ultimate defeat… but more on that later.

I had been planning on making the mead for a while before I actually started the process so in the meantime, I ordered a dozen Bordeaux bottles and corks from cabelas.com (I work for Cabela’s so the discount was nice) in addition to enough bottle sterilizer mix for all of those bottles plus more. When everything arrived, I bought all of the other items that I would need and set out to create my honey wine.

            It all started with dumping about half of the gallon of water into a bowl and adding the rest of the ingredients to the jug. The honey and raisins were easy, the oranges were a little difficult to get into the jug. (Here you could add the cloves and/or cinnamon sticks for a stronger flavor.) The raisins, I found out, were not for flavor but to give the yeast something to eat since honey does not contain the kind of sugar that yeast likes. Then I poured enough of the water back into the jug to fill it up before stretching the balloon across the mouth of the jug and taping it on. Then I had to prick a little pinhole into the balloon so it would not blow off during fermentation.

            The initial part of the mead making would take about a month, after which you can drink it (it wasn’t good) but it is a better idea to strain it (helps clarify it later) and bottle it in wine bottles. (Here you can add the cloves and/or cinnamon sticks for a lighter flavor.) Then you let it sit for 6 months or more, the longer it sits, the better it gets.

            The recipe also had an option that after the first month, you can simply remove the balloon, replace the cap and let it finish aging in the jug. I fully intended to rebottle it, but I never got past the “replace the cap” step. I did write the date on the bottle so I knew when it would be done so I guess I was proactive there.

            The jug got pushed to the back corner of my counter and there it sat for the next month or so. I had noticed a bread-like smell in the kitchen on more than one occasion (my roommates noticed it also) but I never put two and two together… until I noticed a sticky brown liquid start seeping across the counter. My mead!

            I dug the bottle out from behind everything else on the counter and found out that it had leaked all over the place. I moved the jug to the sink and proceeded to scrub the sticky goo off my counter. When I got a chance to examine the jug to see how it was leaking, I discovered that the pressure that built up during fermentation forced one of the seams in the handle apart, allowing the young mead to leak out and spoiled the rest of the batch in the process.

            I sadly dumped the remaining liquid down the drain and threw everything else away. This failure still chafes me a little (I was so excited to try something different!) but I think I will be willing to try making mead again in the future… but you can count on one thing. I will be using a glass jug next time!