Earl Grey Mead (First)

Classification: mead, metheglin

Source: William Drummond (ronan@digitalexp.com), Mead Digest #509, 11/14/96

Ingredients:

24 oz pear juice, unstrained
2 lb honey
2 lb sugar
100 oz water (about)
10 bags of Earl Gray Tea
1/4 teaspoon of bread yeast
1 egg white

Procedure:

Boil honey, water and tea for 1 hour. Near the end add a little cinnamon, ginger, clove, rosemary and the egg white. Remove from heat and let stand till warm as removing the scum. Now add the yeast, dissolved in warm water. This brew can be drank in as little as 48 hours, but will be extremely raw.

After a weeks time, add 1 lb of sugar and let ferment. After about 2 weeks more, add the rest of the sugar. This will strengthen it and give a better flavor and keep the mead from "drying out".

For fining the wine, take the shell from an egg that has been dried and powder it with a pinch of salt. Take this and add it to the white of one egg and some wine from your vat and gently stir all back into the brew. Let set for about 2 to 4 days and then filter and bottle the wine. This is a nice natural way with out the use of chemicals.