Spiced Vikings

For a Viking good time.

So two of my friends (Supe and Travis) decided to have me make them a Mead.

Recipe:
10 lbs local raw honey
4 6inch long sticks of cinnamon
5 whole nutmeg
2 tablespoons of all spice

The first 1 1/2 cups of honey were offered to the Great Fay on Saturday September 10th 2011 in a half gallon growler with warm water. I then "blessed" this with about 2 minutes of shaking before putting the cheese cloth on top of the jug. This is the starter for the yeast for this mead.

By Monday night it was noticeably cloudy with trace amounts of settlement on the bottom.

Tuesday after work I decided to cap it because the settlement has gotten more noticeable and it is far more cloudy than on Monday. Hopefully by tomorrow or Thursday I should be able to actually pitch it into the rest of the mead with the spices.

I am not going to decoct  the spices this time, they will go into the primary with the rest of the ingredients.

More to come soon.

Peach Tej

So I have started my first batch of Peach Tej. My wife had bought a crate of wonderful peaches and I stole 3 to go into a 3 gallon batch of Tej.
I first cut the peaches so that I could get the pit out and then blended (in a blender) them with a little bit of water to a liquid state. That got poured into my sanitized carboy and capped with an air lock while I bottled the last tej I made (yes the one I made last month and have done nothing with since). I bottled straight from the primary carboy and stuck those bottles straight in the fridge. I did not get a final gravity reading because I was in a rush to get the peach stuff made and get out of the way. (we have a small kitchen and when one person is in it doing something everyone else suddenly has something to do in the kitchen.) I also wanted to use the left over sludge from the first to start the second.
So the liquified Peaches and the previous troob go into the carboy.  I then mix the honey with warm water until I can pour it into the carboy. I then top it off with water from the tap, cap that with the airlock again and set it in the basement to let it rock.
Within minutes it was going pretty strong.

This is the part where I go over what many people will say was a mistake. First I did not peal the peaches, this is sometimes considered a mistake because there is a natural yeast on the skin of peaches much like what is on the outside of grapes. most people do not want this yeast to "infect" their batch of carefully prepared must.  I personally don't care. I know it will not be a big problem (if at all) because of the full starter I tossed in with the peaches. Also if the peach yeast does change the flavor some then all the better because I would get tired of drinking the same thing over and over (hence why I have yet to duplicate a recipe).
Secondly I did not boil the water. My water goes through a water purifier that uses bleach and a charcoal filter, nothing should have gotten through. I have been drinking this water for almost 4 years now and have yet to get sick from it.

"Take a Chance"

I have started my first spontaneous fermentation. On July 4th 2011 at 3:15 pm I mixed 1.75 cups raw honey with 4 cups warm water in a 1/2 gallon mason jar. Initial Gravity reading was 1.130. I used this as a starter for a larger batch.

  As you can see the initial starter was working fine. I had it sitting in the corner of my kitchen by an open window with a washcloth rubber-banded around the top. I (or my wife) would stir this with a chopstick 2-3 times a day. by the second day it was starting and by the third it was really starting off. I waited till day five to make sure that the yeast had really taken hold of what was there because I was adding it to four gallons of water which I did at 2:00 today July 9th, 2011.




The gravity reading after the rest of the 5 lbs, and 4 gallons were added was 1.048 with a estimated finishing gravity of 1.012 (according to Qbrew, but I personally think it might go lower.), and estimated A.B.V. of 4.7 (we'll see about that).

I have moved the carboy to the brew corner of my basement where I will let it sit for 1-2 weeks before either transferring it or bottling it depending on what happens. I might take a gallon of this and dry-herb it for another couple weeks. Maybe with some oak chips and coffee beans, or with some Borage.