[Ravensfort] RE: Mead Recipes

[Charley Atchley]

>Hiya,
>
>Can you give me the recipe for your pumpkin mead?  I've been considering a
>chocolate and pumpkin mead for a while, but haven't had the
>nerve/space/resources until recently ... still not sure I do ;>
>
>I had a chocolate pumpkin pie once and I'm wondering how a mead would turn
out.
>
>Thanks,
>Finn

1 Large pumpkin clean and peel and cut into chunks
1 lb six row barley crushed
15 pounds of clover honey
mead yeast
2 1/2 tsp acid blend
5 tsp bru-vigor yeast food
1 tbs cinnamon
2 tbs nutmeg
1 tsp mace
1 tbs allspice
1 3" chunk fresh ginger grated

Steam the pumpkin till it is soft, then mash it till it is goop. Place the
pumpkin goop and barley in a large pot with about a gallon of water and
raise the temp to 140 and allow it to simmer for 45 min. Slowly bring the
temperature to 162 for 30 minutes. Bring pumpkin go and grain to 180 and
allow it to sit for 30 min. Remove from the heat and add enough ice to drop
the temperature to below 100. Use a slotted spoon to scoop all of the grain
and most of the stringy bits of goop from the pot. (I did not trust this
stuff in my beer sparger) Add 10 lbs of the honey and the spices, then stir
till it is all dissolved. Pour all of this into a six gallon carboy and add
ice till there is five gallons of fluid in the carboy. Put a stopper in the
carboy and shake like mad for about 1 min. Add the yeast and repeat the
shaking every ten minutes for the first hour, and every thirty minutes till
the carboy has warmed to 70 degrees. (spg 1.075) Add the fermentation lock
to the top and allow it to ferment till it is done. (About 2 weeks) Dissolve
the remaining 5 lbs of honey in two quarts of warm water and allow it to
cool. put it in the bottom of a five gallon carboy. Rack the mead onto this
honey and try to leave the goop in the six gallon carboy. Put the
fermentation lock on and wait till it finishes fermenting. (about 2 more
weeks) Rack to a clean carboy and let it settle. (about three months) Rack
to another clean carboy and allow it to clear. (about 6 more months)

Athaulf Sweinbrother
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May your life amuse the gods.
-- Dave Duncan