Forest Mead

Classification: mead, metheglin

Source: Jacob Galley (gal2@midway.uchicago.edu), Mead Digest #50, 12/5/92

I brewed my juniper metheglin last night. This is my fifth mead (in my first year of meading), but there were some lot of firsts.

Ingredients:

5 lbs Buckwheat honey
3 lbs Clover honey
1/2 cup Fresh juniper berries, ground up
1 oz Fresh rosemary leaves
2 Bay leaves
1 pot Really strong pu--erh tea (very earthy flavor, high tannin)
Belgian ale Wyeast started with 1 lump brown sugar and 2 tablespoons light malt extract

Procedure:

I tried not to boil the must, for the first time. But then I didn't want to skim the white scum off too quickly, because I was afraid of removing the juniper pulp before it could flavor the mead. So I waited about an hour first. By this time, all the scum had disappeared! and I had nothing to skim.