Has anyone ever made mead before? What year or other flavors did you add? Also, homebrew thread, if you'd like

Has anyone ever made mead before? What year or other flavors did you add? Also, homebrew thread, if you'd like.

Attached: 1200px-Swedish_Mead.jpg (1200x1600, 192K)

i've never made mead but theres a killer place in baltimore that makes good stuff. fun flavors too instead of normal shit. basil lemongrass, and they do a chocolate mead in the winter time. i dont know of any other local mead place, glad my only one is really good.

Closest I've done was with elderflower blossoms, pretty good if you can gather a bunch in the spring.

I just got a baklava flavored today I can't wait to try. I might try to recreate it if it is good.

I haven't homebrewed since high school but my first attempt used a really dumbed down recipe I learned from a fucking Amon Amarth tutorial because I was really into Viking shit
>gallon of water
>pound of honey
>packet of yeast
>oranges
>raisins
It was exceptionally mediocre. Didn't follow sterilization procedures at all but somehow it didn't get infected and it actually made drinkable alcohol.
My second attempt I spent $60 on everything and made a really good batch for an amateur 17 year old.
>5 gallon Deer Park water jug
>$40 worth of honey
>3 packets of Fleischmann's baker's yeast (small town grocery, don't have champagne yeast or brewer's yeast and there are no specialty homebrew shops in the area)
>$20 worth of strawberries and kiwis to flavor it with
Aged it for 3 months, filtered with a cheesecloth, and even tried freeze-distilling a couple bottles. It was really tasty, super sweet and distinctly strawberry kiwi flavored. Really yellow in color like a Sauvignon Blanc or really dehydrated piss. Didn't do any sterilizing either yet still somehow was successful. Mum tossed most of it out seeing as how I was under 21 but she wouldn't listen to me trying to explain that the laws for homebrewing are different and that 21 only applies to purchasing. That was years ago though, haven't tried it since since I can just go buy a bottle of whatever

it grows like a weed so shouldn't be hard to find.

Attached: elderflowers.jpg (620x413, 114K)

what does it taste like?

Idk how to describe it other than floral and slightly vanilla like. It's pretty crisp and refreshing, tastes like spring to me. Most recipes for elderflower mead/champagne (if you carbonate it) include lemon juice as well. If you have ever had st. germain liquor that is made with elderflower.

American here, I've seen elderberry/elderflower lemonade once in a blue moon. Haven't tried it but it looks promising

How do you guys store your wine if you don't drink the whole bottle. any tips?

This is the best thing you’ll find instead of trying to recork it or cheap wines with screw tops. Has a hermetic rubber seal

Attached: B80D2B8F-89CE-48A1-B96A-D81D202730FB.jpg (722x1280, 162K)

i just make shitty hooch with old milk jugs and soda bottles, i don't really clean them except run hot water through them for a bit, and i've never got anything infected. i don't think it's as big a deal as everyone says online.

maybe when you make big batches you don't want to risk ruining it. but yeah, with small batches like that, it doesn't make a big deal.

probably more likely to have a bottle explode from unintended fermentation than get infected.

thanks for the tip!

Cheers friend, may all your spirits be saved

Attached: 1457898048423.jpg (914x700, 255K)

gotta let the air escape, i've never heard of sealing a fermenting bottle unless you plan on opening it every day to release the pressure but that will also expose it to more airborne shit

Even if you don't follow steril procedures, you'll get drinkable stuff 95+% of the time.
Heck, the way our ancestors brewed, they didn't even have access to yeast like we did. They just tossed shit in the pot and prayed for it to not get fugged. Still worked a good deal of the time.

Tru, tru, plus it's not like I wiped my ass and then went and tampered with the setup. I washed all my fruits and washed my hands and stuff but didn't bother with the container. A little bacteria can't hurt anyways. I figured that if it went wrong I'd be able to see or smell it and since it looked and smelled absolutely fine I was able to enjoy my creation

There's also a decent mead brewery outside Calgary.
And there's a guy in the homebrew threads on /diy/ who makes a lot of mead

I'll have to take a look over there. thanks for the tip.

[spoiler]If you ever get a chance, try again with your first recipe, but use around three pounds of honey, add lemon juice and a stick of cinnamon, and drag in those strawberries again. It's a recipe I've been using for years.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Some time ago, I purchased a 5-liter white oak barrel and have been using it to take my meads on a trip to Flavortown. Every time I break it out, my DnD group trips over themselves to get glasses.[/spoiler]

You don't start it in the barrel, do you? you rack it in there?

After filtering and removing the cinnamon, orange, raisins, and so on, yeah.