Orange Spiced Mead

[vintner]

I copied and pasted this recipe for the newbie mead-maker on a wine making forum I frequent. I've made it several times. Even well-seasoned mead-makers enjoy making and drinking it. This will yield a melomel ready in eight weeks or so (although mine took 12). The recipe departs from all accepted wisdom, but follow the instructions exactly and I promise that you will have a delicious product at the end. Note that this quick recipe results in a sweet mead that will benefit from aging, but can be drank the day you bottle it. I've never done so (cause I never have enough on hand), but I'm sure you could add hemp to the recipe. I plan to one day.

Orange and Spice Mead

It is so simple to make and you can make it without much equipment and with a multitude of variations. This could be a first Mead for the novice as it is almost fool proof. It is a bit unorthodox but it has never failed me or the friends I have shared it with. (snip)...it will be sweet, complex and tasty.

1 gallon batch


3 1/2 lbs Clover or your choice honey or blend (will finish sweet)
1 Large orange (later cut in eights or smaller rind and all)
1 small handful of raisins (25 if you count but more or less ok)
1 stick of cinnamon
1 whole clove ( or 2 if you like - these are potent critters)
optional (a pinch of nutmeg and allspice )( very small )
1 teaspoon of Fleishmann’s bread yeast ( now don't get holy on me--- after all this is an ancient mead and that's all we had back then)
Balance water to one gallon

Process:

Use a clean 1 gallon carboy

Dissolve honey in some warm water and put in carboy

Wash orange well to remove any pesticides and slice in eights --add orange (you can push em through opening -- rinds included -- its ok for this mead -- take my word for it -- ignore the experts)

Put in raisins, clove, cinnamon stick, any optional ingredients and fill to 3 inches from the top with cold water. ( need room for some foam -- you can top off with more water after the first few day frenzy)

Shake the heck out of the jug with top on, of course. This is your sophisticated aeration process.

When at room temperature in your kitchen, put in 1 teaspoon of fresh bread yeast. ( No you don't have to rehydrate it first-- just put it in and give it a gentle swirl or not.

Install water airlock. Put in dark place. It will start working immediately or in an hour. After major foaming stops in a few days add some water and then keep your hands off of it. Don't shake it! Don't mess with it at all! Just leave it alone.

Racking? --- Don't you dare
additional feeding? --- NO NO
More stirring or shaking? -- Your not listening, don't touch

After 2 months and maybe a few days it will slow down to a stop and clear all by itself. (How about that) Then you can put a hose in with a small cloth filter on the end into the clear part and siphon off the golden nectar. If you wait long enough even the oranges will sink to the bottom but I never waited that long. If it is clear it is ready. You don't need a cold basement. It does better in a kitchen in the dark. (Like in a cabinet) likes a little heat (70-80). If it didn't work out... you screwed up and didn't read my instructions (or used grandma's bread yeast she bought years before she passed away) .
If you were successful, which I am 99% certain you will be, then enjoy your mead. When you get ready to make different mead you will probably have to unlearn some of these practices I have taught you, but hey--- This recipe and procedure works with these ingredients so don't knock it. It was your first mead. It was my tenth. Sometimes, even the experts can forget all they know and make good ancient mead.

 

[Don Cotyle]

Hi Vintner, I've been makeing homemade wines for years now and just picked up my 4th 5 gal carboy. Your recipe sounds very interesting and definatly simple. I think I'll give er a go and get it started this weekend! I'll let you know how it turns out! One quick question...how sweet will it end up??? I'm not a very big fan of extra sweet wines so I might go a little lighter on the honey if it will be ok.

Thanks for the recipe!!! Don

 

[vintner]

Hey Don Cotyle: Thanks for checkin out my recipe. Actually, it's not my recipe. I copied and pasted it from a wine making forum I frequent. Yes, it turns out VERY sweet! You might want to tone down on the honey a lot. I've never tried to make any changes to the recipe. Only made a few small batches of it, and gave most of it away. I'm not big on sweets myself. Honey's too expensive, and mead takes too long to mature.
So what kinds of wine to you make? I currently make a lot of kit wines, but plan to get back to makin' scratch fruit wines after we move some time this summer. I'd like to eventually drop the kits, and make all my wines from scratch. Feel free to drop me a PM some time. I can yack about wine all day LOL. I've been asked by several here to do a kit wine making tutorial. Any thoughts/sugestions/intrest in that?

 

[Bacchus]

Nice thread Vinter. You can also make an orange spice mead by using orange spice tea packs. Just add 5-6 packs during or at the end of fermentation. Or for that matter there are many different varities of spice packs that can be used to flavor mead. Try adding 4 vanilla beans to a 5 gallon batch The skys the limit

 

[vintner]

Yeah, once we get into our new place, I plan to get into tea wines more. I've made a few, and had a few others. I'm always impressed w/how crisp it tates.

 

[Don Cotyle]

Hi Vintner, When I started out way back when I just went to the library and picked up a book on wine makeing, never used a kit or pre caned fruit etc,with a gallon carboy. Clean all my equipment with hot bleach water! The only addatives I've ever used were dry tannin, campdon tablets(spelling) at the end to stop fermentation...busted bottles...lol...and good packaged yeasts.

I've made mead, sach a sweet mead, and sach methaglon a sweet spiced mead
(cake spices) great around Thanksgiveing and Christmas served hot.Lets see mostly i've made cherry, pear,apple,blackberry,dandylion,raisin,peach...mostly what is available locally. Basically I mix all my ingrediants together and bring to a boil, let it cool to 80-90* strain into a carboy, start my yeast and add and let her go!!! Rack till clear and bottle! I like things K.I.S.S. keep it simple stupid...lol...less to go wrong!

The kit thread sounds interesting, I'll drop by and check it out and help where I can!

Thanks again for the recipe, Don!

 

[vintner]

Sounds great Don. A second opinion would be nice since it's mostly going to be teaching the skills and techniques involved in wine making. Probably going to be a month or so before I have time to get another kit started though. We've got a huge graduation party comming up, so keep checking back.

 

[Don Cotyle]

Sounds like a plan!!! If ya remember shoot me a PM with a link to the new thread

Congradulations on the graduation!!!...be it yours or a family member.

Heading out to gather some supplies to get a 5 gal batch going of that Orange Spiced Mead!!!!!!!Don

 

[vintner]

Will do Don. Sounds good. You gonna modify the recipe at all? Stay safe.

 

[Don Cotyle]

I belive I will a little. I'm gonna cut the honey to 2lbs per gallon, cook the alcohol off a teaspoon of vanilla extract(couldn't find vanilla beans localy) probably use an 1/8th teaspoon per of "cake spices" ginger,allspice,cinnamon,nutmeg and 2 cloves. I'll probably zest the orange peels for their oils and add the meat of the fruit, the white under skin is very bitter so I'll leave it out. I'll probably dice the rasins to open them up(good source of natural tannin and yeast ) I had to order a few more s-airlocks so I went ahead and added 2 5gal carboy covers to keep the light out...I usually just keep a large piece of black velvet over em but they were $7 and are insulated so I figured what the hey!!!

They should be here anyday. I'll go ahead and post my 5 gal batch run here if you don't mind? We'll see how she goes!!! Don

 

[Don Cotyle]

Hi Vintner, My order came in today!!! I ordered the following:

3 S-type airlocks @ .99cents each
3 Bungs small pre-drilled to fit the locks for 5 gal carboys @.99 cents each
2 20 count each packs of Campden tablets @ .99cents each
2 5 gal Carboy Sheild Jackets @ $ 7.95 each

Subtotal $23.82
S&H $14.19 UPS 3 day Select
Tax $00.00
Total $38.01

I figure I got a good deal, my s-airlocks were on their last legs along with the Bungs! I should be good to go for a few more years!!! I'll get started tomorrow!!! Don!

Heres a shot of the new goodies, now I'll be able to run 3, 5 gal batches, What do you think of the carboy jacket ???WEEEEEEEdogies!!!

 

[vintner]

Hey Don: Sorry I missed your posts Sounds like you don't live near a place that sells wine and beer making equipment. I'm lucky. There's a place like 10 minutes from my house. I actually have too much stuff LOL. austinhomebrew.com has a flat rate on shipping. I've never really checked it out their prices though.
Do you plan to use different yeast? I like the meads I've made, but they take so long age, and I have a very limited cellar space right now.
If you want to post pix here, be my guest, that'd bee cool.
Is the carboy cover heated? So, you don't put your fruit into the primary fermenter?

 

[Don Cotyle]

Thanks Vintner, I'll post away!!! I belive that's good and bad not liveing near a supply house. It keeps me from ordering pre-concentrated fruit mixs and other chemicals-addatives and has helped me to use-find more natural items for my wines!!! Why buy tannin powder or special yeasts when they are readily availabe in grapes and rasins. I used to live close to a large metropolitan city where all those pre-packaged items were readily available. What I liked about the area I was in was I could drive 45 minutes and be in the bonies or drive 45 minutes in the other area and be downtown, after 36 years I got the hell out of Dodge and love it!!!!!!!Where I'm at now you only need 2 things to live...a strong back and a weak mind...ROFLMFAO!!!!!

Well I've been threatening to get this 5 gal batch going for a while now, supplies are in and I just got finished putting in a new kitcken faucet for my Lady, so she can start useing her dishwasher again so I'm free to get going!!!

The carboy sheild jacket isn't heated, it is insulated and supposed to temps constant...if the liquid is 80* when put on it will keep it at 80*, 60* 60* and so on, it also keeps light out, so it should work better than my old piece of black velvet! I'll grab my camera and head downstairs and get started!!! I'll pretty stick to your original recipe with the yeast suggested, I'll just use less honey to tame the sweetness and a little different spices. Most times I'll mix everything up( except the yeast) and bring toa boil and simmer for an hour or soand them strain before fermenting, this helps with my steralization, depending on my recipe. I just don't like useing the white "bitter" underskin of oranges,grapefruits,lemons,limes,etc., and would rather get essential oils-flavors from the zest and meat of acidic fruits. I'll keep the zest and meat in thru the fermentation process with your recipe!!! Time to head downstairs...WEEEEEEEdogies!!!

Don

 

[Don Cotyle]

Vintner, Your recipe was very easy to work from and things went great! I gathered all my ingrediants together before I began, It just makes everything go much smoother!!! (I'm going to be saveing this thread and editing throught, the main power has been going out several times so far today! I almost had this finished earlier and I had to start all over again!!!)



I usually use a bleach water for cleaning and sterizallation. It's more cost efficient than the store bought solutions or powders. My formula is 2 tablespoons of bleach to 2 galons of water, this works very well for my needs!

Next I used a grater that has a section of the smaller cheese graters that works great for zesting. I used 8 medium-small Navel oranges for this...the navel ranges are the seedless variety so no straining! I zested as opposed to cutting into 1/8ths because the white skin under the orange peel tends to be bitter so I'd just rather not include it.



Heres my 32 quart pot which is mainly used for soups, chilis,chowders,etc. Its being used here to hold any items I had to cleaned for the wine. The 8 oranges are ready to be peeled and sliced and a s-airlock and bung are keeping clean till I need them!



The oranges are peeled and sliced and are ready to be added to the mix



After counting out 125 raisins they were diced and also ready to go in. Grapes and raisins are a good natural supply for tannin and wild yeast!



So far so good. Heres a photo of the spices, the vanilla (I used a tablespoon only and wasn't luck enough to find any natural vanilla beans so I boiled and simmered the alcohol off usualy about 35% by volume. It wasn't that much but I wanted to get all my alcohol from the natural fermentation process, as alcohol willl stop fermentation once a certain level is reached...I know to picky...lol) orange zest and fruit-meat,raisins



Next I begain the slightly arduous process of putting RO water in a pot in 1 gallon increments and raiseing the temperature to 90* and adding 2 pounds of honey, makeing sure to rince out the bottles well! This was them stirred until well disolved and pouring into the 5 galon carboy via my 8" funnel with removable screen, screen in used as my areation process!! I continued filling until I eventually finished 3" from the top!!!



I added the bread yeast right into the carboy fairly close to the 90* f mark and covered. I also noticed that the bung had worked it's way loose so I made sure it was pushed back in firmly and used some duct tape to hold it in place more securely. It seems to holding fast now!!!



I checked back a few hours later removeing the jacket and found it slightly settled and fermenting nicely



I replaced the jacket and used a black tee-shirt to cover the only area open to light. I moved it to the second floor into a room with a southern view that stays about 75-90* during daylight hours. I check the carboy this morning and It was going like mad!!!!!



All thats left to do now is let nature take its course!!! I'll stop back perodically and do a few updates. When shes ready I'll add a few campten tablets to stop all fermintation and siphon(when she clears up all the way) into bottles and cork. WEEEEEEEdogies!!! The hard part or should I say the fun part is over...now the wait begines.

Thanks again for the recipe Vintner we'll see how she goes!!! I'll leave you with this parting shot of a Co2 bubble caught in action in the left side of the s-airlock!!! I thought it was going to be much easier to capture one due to the rapid rate of fermentation...it wasn't!!!!!!!


Click on to enlarge...it makes it much easier to see!!!!!

Don

 

[vintner]

Don: Very nice pictorial! Can't wait to hear how it turns out. Do you use potasium sorbate in addition to the camden tabs to stop fermentation? And, how do you know when to add them?

 

[Don Cotyle]

Thanks Vintner, I only use the campden tablets. Most wines I make have to be racked multiple times to get totaly clear,so after the 2nd time I'll steal a taste. If the wine is way to sweet I'll top off with water and add a little more yeast to speed it up to remore more sugar,when that finishes I'll add the campdens.If the taste was not sweet enough I'll add the campdens to kill the yeast and wait a few days to add sugar. This will allow for more rackings before I bottle, and I'll know none will burst while ageing or storeing! Usually 1 for a gallon and 1-2 for 5. It also helps kill off any unwanted bacteria and wild yeasts. It is usually made up of Potassium or Sodium Metabisulfate, it will basically disapate before its time to drink the wine!

 

[vintner]

Hey Don: Kind a wondering what we do differently. For the most part, my wines, both scratch and kit wines are done fermenting shortly after my first racking (usually in 5-7 days), and usually by the 3rd racking, they're ready to be bottled. This may be because I add things like Bentonite and Pectic enzyme to my must. I add Pot Meta and Pot Sorbate w/my last racking a month or so before I bottle. I've only been making wine for about 4-5 years. I get most of my recipes and learnin off Jack Kellers site, books, and the "winepress" forums. Just about everything I've made from scratch comes out w/no residual sweetness, and bone dry w/12-13% ABV(or STRONGER) which I don't care for in a fruit wine. Most recipes say to use Montrechet or Champain yeast (spelling). I'm thinking about looking for a yeast that only tolerates 9-10% or so ABV. What yeasts do you primarily use? Do you take SG readings at all?

 

[Don Cotyle]

Hi V, E.C.Kraus is where I get most of my yeasts. They have a Lalvin line that has a great profife page of whice of these yeasts work best for specific wines. For a fresh fruit wine I usually use the Monpellier or the Narbonne which is great for fruit wines that will be gifted or used while still quite young. If my wines are to dry I usually sweeten then enough to still be on the tart side but not unbearably dry! I like a higher alcohol content, but to each his own. I usually let them go for a month before I rack the first time. Hope that helps!

 

[Don Cotyle]

Hi again V, Here's what I was trying to tell you on how to sweeten a wine to taste! I found an article that will explain it much better than I can.

http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-stop-fermentation.html

Here's what I ment about after the second rack add suger to sweeten. This should help with the dry wines!!!!! Don!

 

[Don Cotyle]

Just a little update on the 5 gal batch of Orange Spiced Mead I've got going.
Day 13 still fermenting at around 1 bubble thru s-airlock every secound, still going strong! Starting to get a thin layer of sediment on the bottom. I'm going to set the jug up on an old cedar cabinet thats 2' 6" off the floor, I'm moveing now as the temps are stable and up around 70-80 daytime and 55-60 night time, no longer need to keep a small space heater going. I'm also moveing now as theres not alot of sediment to stir up and the additional height will make it alot easier to bottle when finished!!! I'll be ordering 2 dozen green bottles "burgundy" style and a few hundred corks so I'll be ready!
The batch has turned a nice cloudy orange-yellow color from a muddy brown-orange! Looking good!

Don!