The process of making mead in itself is somewhat remotely similar to the process of making real wine. The similarity of the processes lies in the fact that during fermentation the sugar turns into alcohol.
Just don’t think that we are talking about ordinary crystalline sugar, which we are used to. After all, sugar in itself in one or another proportion is found in all vegetables and fruits.
In other words: you can get alcohol without using regular sugar at all, but by replacing it with honey, apricots, plums, pears, apples, for example, and much more. Therefore, there are such alcoholic drinks as apricot, cream, blackthorn, etc.
The difference lies in the fact that we do not drink the obtained mash from these fruits, but expel them into moonshine.
As for wine and mead, after the end of the fermentation cycle, it does not need to be heated, after some time, we get a ready-made drink suitable for consumption.
But let's get back to the mead. There are hundreds of species, but all of them are divided into two main types: mead set and boiled.
Boiled mead - This is a slightly alcoholic beverage that has undergone heat treatment, i.e. heating. And you remember from my previous articles that if honey is heated to a temperature above 42 degrees, it begins to lose its beneficial properties. And after 60 degrees, he loses them completely!
That is why, boiled mead, although it is a delicious alcoholic beverage, cannot be called useful.
Another thing - set mead. This is also a low alcohol drink, but it is not subjected to heat treatment, but ferments at a temperature of 20-22 degrees. And the beneficial properties of honey in such a mead, though not completely, are still preserved.
100 and even more years ago, our ancestors used bee bread as yeast. This is bee pollen processed by bees. Perga is a unique product that is not inferior even to honey in its beneficial properties.
To the taste of the bee bread, it remotely resembles the ascorbic from our childhood, as it has a slightly sour-bitter taste.
Because of this set mead, fermented on the perga, is considered the most useful, but in terms of taste, she is, to put it mildly, an amateur.
So the recipe ...
I decided to use raspberries as a yeast, besides this, I added a little lemon balm, mint and hops for the aroma. The resulting composition of the mash was divided into two portions.
The first one was allowed to ferment completely, and the second one was filtered and clogged after she fermented by about 2/3. The calculation was to ensure that one drink turned out to be unsweetened, about like a dry table wine, and the other - slightly sweet. After all, everyone has different tastes.
Another very important point. Any mead loves time: the more it ripens, the tastier it is.
The minimum ripening period is six months, so I started tasting mine after 6 months. He treated friends and acquaintances and asked to honestly express his opinion.
What happened?
Opinions were divided roughly equally and there was no one indifferent, one liked it very much, others said that this drink was not for them. I also consider myself among the latter.
However, this does not mean that I decided to stop the experiments on the preparation of this ancient and healthy drink.
The taste of mead depends on the honey that was used and, of course, on the yeast.
I used honey with high romance collected by bees from essential oil crops. I like it very much to taste, which means that it is not in it.
This year I’ll try to replace raspberries and the herbs that I added with something else. I’ll definitely tell you what happens.
