(Mostly) Traditional Tupelo Honey

Classification: mead, traditional mead

Source: Charlie Moody, chmood@photobooks.atdc.gatech.edu, Mead Digest #465, 3/5/96

That's it. Nothing fancy about this one, but so what? My first two meads were real production numbers!
I'd like this one to end up as a sippin' mead, with just enough sweetness to balance the tupelo signature & the "acid blend" ('course, who knows if there's enough of any of that to make a difference?).

This was my second batch of mead in two days, and it was a marked contrast to last night's performance. Very businesslike: I was well set-up, knew what I wanted to do, ran thru it dry, then just did it. I had no desire to repeat last night's mess (and its laborious cleanup)!

Ingredients:

12.5 # tupelo honey (unprocessed?)
3.5 G spring water
1.0 pt "acid blend": cranberries, dried, 1 cup tea, strong, black, 1 cup lemon juice, from 2 lemons
1.0 T yeast hulls
6 each yeast energiser tablets (B-1 & lactose (?))
.75 G yeast starter: bread yeast, 3 packets water, boiling, 2.5 pints honey, generic, 1 cup yeast, RS Premier Couvee, 2 packets

Procedure:

Fixed up the starter this afternoon: emptied the bread yeast into a 1/2 G pyrex measuring cup (thank the gods for pyrex!), whisked it into a cup of boiling water; added a cup of honey & whisked that in, then added water to 3 pints. When it had cooled t o about 80F, I added 2 packets of premier couvee yeast, poured it off into a half-gallon jug, capped it & shook. Within an hour, the lid was chattering away happily.

After sterilising everything, I brought 2 G of spring water to a boil, added 4 quarts of tupelo honey from the local co-op, brought it up to 180F & kept it there for 30 min. Turned off the stove & added the "acid blend". I thought the lemon would be a n ice note w/ the tupelo, and the cranberries' tartness a nice contrast. The tea was added for 'depth' (?). Then the hulls & energiser got stirred well in, and the whole thing sat in an ice bath in the sink for an hour or so.

Poured the must into 1.5 gallons of cold water, & quickly scooped some up for the gravity test: 1.100, on the nose! The flavor is much milder than I'd expected, and there's less of a sense of sweetness than my other musts (generic/1.1225, orange/1.090).

I still have a quart of that same honey, and I'll probably be feeding this one as it goes along, if the premier couvee is as attenuative as everyone says.

03/04/96 - bubbling once every 2 seconds. Smells remarkably like tupelo honey....