November 14, 2007

New Art

Not sure who did the original B/W.





Here's the Color.

November 10, 2007

Mmmmm, Fermented Honey

Something I've wanted to do but never got around to do was make mead. (What kind of Skald would I be if I didn't know how to make Mead.) So last night I finally did it. Yesterday after work I went to a local homebrew place picked up the essential supplies. Then went and picked up the honey and other items we needed. Then went to a friends house and started brewing. After we sanitized the equipment, pasteurized the honey and mixed everything together a few hours had past. We needed the temp. of the must to be 80º. And being the impatient type that I am, it was cooling fast enough. So it was moved to a tub with cold water and late packed with ice. Finally around 4 AM it reach the desired temp. The yeast was added and went home to go to bed.

The following are notes I took.

Mead
Makes 5 Gallons
15 lbs. of Mrs. Crockett's Country Hill Honey
4 Gallons of water
2 tsp Irish Moss
1 tsp Gypsum
1 tsp Stale hops
1 capsule of servomyces

Heated 2 gallons of water as honey was mixed in. When temp. reached 170 remove pot from and mixed in Irish Moss, Gypsum, Stale Hops, and servomyces. After 5 mins rack must into carboy with 2 gallons of water and aerated. When the temp dropped to 80 added yeast. (Which was about 4 am) Getting the must to drop to 80 degrees was a long wait. We placed carboy into tub and filled the tub with cold water and pack ice around carboy. Later more ice was added and a towel soaked with cold water was place to help with the cooling process. Next time we will place 2 gallons of ice instead of water.

11/10/07 Pitched yeast. O.G. 1.1045