For centuries mead was made chemical free and it still lends itself to being easily made without adding any extra things to it.

Mead really is just three ingredients: Honey, Water and Yeast. That's it!

From there we have evolved it into an amazing potpourri of flavors and styles.

When you boil it down it is yeast, honey and water. That is mead. From there all the other things are accessories for flavor, longevity, or other things.

Brewing notes on Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit Melomel:

2015 08 (Aug) 16 Began brewing mead batch # 20150816 this afternoon. The recipe was inspired by the first link below, but it was highly adapted (adulterated?) for honey (mead) wine instead of a sugar based wine. Ingredients: . 2-1/2 cups cactus syrup, Courtesy Donkey Flats Farm & Kitchen (half in primary and half reserved for secondary) . 3 lbs honey . 100 gm papaya with 1/3 of the peel from a large papaya . zest and juice from 1 organic orange . 1/2 cup of organic pineapple juice . 25 organic raisins . 1 cup brewed green tea . half package Red Star brand active dry yeast . distilled water to bring volume to near 1 gallon.
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/prickly.asp (Note: have since found a recipe specifically for Prickly Pear Mead here - hope to use it next time: http://www.examiner.com/article/prickly-pear-mead-recipe-secret-delight-revealed


Brewing notes on Sweet Black Cherry Melomel:

2015 08 (Aug) 30. Began brewing mead batch # 20150830 this afternoon. The recipe, loosly followed with additions modifications, adulterations and etc. was inspired by the Cherry melomel video from www.stormthecastle.com . Ingredients: . 2 cups organic sweet black cherry juice (half in primary and half reserved for secondary), . 3 lbs honey . 100 gm papaya with 1/3 of the peel from a large papaya . zest and juice from 1 organic orange . 1/2 cup of organic pineapple juice . 25 organic raisins . 1 cup brewed green tea . 1/4 tsp organic Ceylon cinnamon, 3/4 tsp cocoa powder . 1 T grated ginger root, 1/8 tsp powdered cayenne . half package Red Star brand active dry yeast . distilled water to bring volume to near 1 gallon. Possibilities exist for the addition of 1 more cup of organic sweet black cherry juice at the 1 month point or genuine real fruit.

2015 08 (Aug) 31 Brewers notes for batch #20150830  After 27 hrs this batch appeared to fail to stall fermentation. I took out 1/4 cup of the mixture and pitched in yeast again making sure I was following the package instruction to the letter. It is fermenting right along now.  The current bubble rate of the new air lock in the photo below is one every 1 - 2 seconds.

I also took the opportunity to taste test the 1/4 cup mix that was poured out. I hated to waste the product. It was very nice. Hope the mead will be equally so,  Mick

New: The Ultimate Easy Guide to Successfully making one gallon of mead. - I have put together a video that shows you an almost fool proof method to make one gallon of mead

Love Kindle Books? I just published my kindle book on how to make mead. It is a no-nonsense easy guide to making a batch of mead. You can get it in the kindle store.