| Mead Maker | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| You can MAKE GREAT WINE and DRINK it in ONE WEEK! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Right NOW! Get started easily. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Drink your great mead wine in ONE WEEK! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (If you don't drink it all, it will just keep bubbling on top!) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make Wine In the Convenience of Your Own Home | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Instructions: Go to flea market and get lots of glass bottles, jars and containers. No metal parts. Lids or tops good. Then make sure you have the following equipment: a plastic bowl that is a sieve or strainer. Some CHAMPAGNE dry yeast starter- make sure it's fresh and don't get the baker's yeast from the grocery store. Optional: one of those rubber lid thingies with plastic deal in the middle, for wine making. You really don't even need that. But you do need either CLEAN balloons or baggies- the stronger the better. Rubber bands. A can of grape juice concentrate. LOTS OF HONEY- and get either the raw kind or a really good kind that isn't just run of the mill table honey. Some white sugar, too. Am I forgetting anything? I don't think so. Oh, I know- you can have some sulphur powder on hand. Step one: wash all of your glass containers and lids or tops in dishwasher, get them clean. Clean is going to be the key element here. Think sterile. Clean hands, utensils, bowls, countertop, everything. So the bottles all need a good running through the dishwasher cycle. Meanwhile, in one your clean jars, you will have had gotten one thing going already- Step two: Before doing anything else, a day or two before you actually make the wine, use a glass jar with either the rubber winemaking top with the plastic thing in it, or with a balloon - if you use balloon, you can take the rubber band off of the part that goes over the neck of the bottle. I really would recommend the winemaking top, if you have access. Make sure you like your tap water, if you are going to use it for making the wine or mead. This quick and easy wine really is a mead. Honey grape mead. Make the water warm, and put it in your clean jar, and if you have the winemaking rubber top, put the warm water as per instructions in that plastic top part too. The rest of the mixture with the warm water- and don't fill your jar up all the way, you need room in there- the packet of dry champagne yeast for starter, and toss some of your honey in. By the next day your starter concoction should be nice and bubbly on top. Step three: Here comes the fun part. Take all of the clean bottles and jars, glass containers, with your clean hands and have your honey handy. Make sure you have lots of honey. About two good sized containers of it. And remember your mead wine will taste like whichever honey flavor you've included. Take a big clean bowl, and toss the honey all in. The yeast will be killed by hot water, but needs warm water to get it all going, even in your wine bottles. Also, you don't want boiled water in your honey. So use really hot tap water. Or water that's been boiled and cooled. Again, make sure your equipment is all clean. Run the really warm tap water - on the hottest that your tap will run back through your honey containers over and over, trying to get the honey into the bowl. Also put in your one can of grapejuice concentrate. So you now have a big bowl full of honey, water, grape juice concentrate, and put some sugar in. Not too much- just some. After you've done all of this put your starter batch with the champagne yeast in it in there. And rinse it with warm water, too, tossing it all in. You can possibly have run hot tap water into your bottles and wine containers by now and maybe let them cool some by now, or not. Pour the contents of the bowl into a clean pitcher. Then pour the contents of the pitcher into the wine containers. You won't need a whole lot in each one. Try to divvy it all up evenly- and I recommend that you come out with the potential for around five gallons or so. Don't fill anything to the top, even with the water. OK, if you still need the water, use really hot tap water- the yeast shouldn't be killed by this, because it will already be in something that will make the mixture slightly cooler. But it will definitely be nice, warm and cozy when you get them done. Step four: Remember, CLEAN! Still the key. Now, since sulphur kills bacteria, you can have either sprinkled a little sulphur powder into the mixed batch, or put some on the top of each. That's totally your choice. Anyway, you don't want to put your lids, caps or tops on tightly - but you can cover almost the whole tops or just set the caps over, without screwing them on. Here is where you will want some sturdy plastic baggies or balloons and put them over the tops. You want to let the mead or wine breathe. Letting it have air is ok, too, but you don't want it overly exposed to the elements. Play with the plastic coverings and rubber banding them on. You can also take large plastic bags - grocery shopping kind, and tuck the bottoms under the bottom of your wine containers. But you want at least ONE that you can peek at without much disturbance. Put them in a place where they are not exposed to sunlight- the darker the better. You want a minimum temperature of 50 degrees farenheit. Not too hot, either. Since my concern at this time of year isn't heat, I don't remember the maximum safe temperature. Step five: Keep an eye on at least one container, making sure by a few days later, there are bubbles on top. This means it's fermenting. That's all. Just a peek here and there, and wait at least a week after the day you made your mead wine. Step six: Chances are pretty good it may still be fermenting on the seventh day, but that's ok. If you are anxious to drink some, go for it! Here is how you ready it for imbibing. Get your plastic bowl sieve. And several squares of paper towels. And the big bowl again. Pour your wine into double squares of paper towels which are lining your sieve. The double insulation is good for holding your wine and the residue. Pour it slowly enough that the wine doesn't overlap the edges of the paper towels. Shake your paper towels until you got the wine through, and then toss first paper towels into the trash, and grab two more big squares of it, and keep pouring the wine through. If you want to repeat the process with your mead, that's ok. You'll figure that part out. Your wine will be somewhat cloudy looking, but it should be quite drinkable. It's a sweet mead. It's got alcoholic content. And it CAN be aged longer, if you prefer. Or you can start making more! Enjoy! P.S. You don't need to filter the residue until you actually wish to drink your wine. Just leave it alone. |
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