Kevin's Mead

Kevin and I made mead last weekend. We made a 5 gallon batch. We used 15lbs of orange honey from Fillmore. We mixed up the water and honey and warmed it to 160F for 15 minutes. We then cooled the batch and poured it into his bucket.

We then oxygenated it for two minutes and added the yeast nutrients. Then we added 5 oranges and what two drunks think 100 raisins look like. The oranges were cut into 8ths. I made sure to sanitize everything.

We added the yeast and I dumped the stir bar into the bucket. I was going to say forget it but Kevin made me feel like we should get it. So I sprayed my arm with StarSan and went in there after it.

Kevin left with the mead and I gave him the nutrients with instructions to add half in two days and the other half two days after that.

A couple of things that I have learned. I am improving the process by the way in which I cool the wort (or in this case must). I will put the kettle in the large basin in the garage and hook up water to the wort chiller. And I will have ice water within the basin. Also, towards the end I ran ice water through the chiller. That worked great. All the water coming from the wort chiller went into the washing machine.

As a side note I found it funny when I told Ellie that Kevin would ferment the mead she had the funniest look on her face. As if Kevin would steal the mead and never give us any. It was hilarious.

EDIT: Kevin's Mead OG was 1.095. We were shooting for 1.0.