18th Century Cooking youtube Channel

[AlexAkai]

I do not know how long ago I stumbled upon the Townsends youtube Channel, however if you are a fan of living history, you may enjoy it. Link below is to a Ginger Beer, I make Mead (Honey Wine) and swore I would never make beer due to how complicated it is, however I think this one I can do.

[MaryB]

As a beer brewer their methods were... shall we say.. primitive?

And beer is not complicated, soak malted barley in 154 degree water for an hour, drain and rinse into the boil kettle, boil and add hops on schedule, drain into a fermenter, add yeast and ferment 2 weeks... bottle or keg, wait 10-14 days to carbonate(can do it in 2 kegging) and drink!

But having the proper setup helps, my brew rig is probably about $600 worth of equipment...

Plus there are very high quality beer kits on the market now that only need a 5 gallon kettle to make(Northern Brewer carries a starter kit too http://www.northernbrewer.com/brew-s...ew-starter-kit just add bottles and caps, StarSan sanitizer, PBW brewery wash) http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewin...s/extract-kits



I keg my beer

[MaryB]

His comment about the yeast stopping... with the amount of sugar in that recipe the yeast probably reaches it max attenuation(alcohol content it can handle) pretty rapidly... and since it is all sucrose in one form or another the yeast will chew through it a lot faster than the complex sugars from malted barley conversion. Soak Malted barely in 154 degree water for an hour, at the beginning it tastes like a barley mush cereal, after an hour it is sweet and sugary from enzyme action. Using different types of malted barley helps determine the final flavor of your beer. Batch I made today used 16 pounds Golden Promise Malt as a base, it provides sweetness, then 3 1/2 pounds of Victory toasted malt that gives a bready background flavor, and 3/4 pound English extra dark crystal malt that add a complex sugar and raisin/fruit background.

[MaryB]

Have you ever made an apple cider mead? Searching for a simple recipe to make a gallon for Christmas serving. Gallon of apple cider, ? amount of honey(thinking 1/2 pound), yeast energizer...

I do not know how long ago I stumbled upon the Townsends youtube Channel, however if you are a fan of living history, you may enjoy it. Link below is to a Ginger Beer, I make Mead (Honey Wine) and swore I would never make beer due to how complicated it is, however I think this one I can do.

[AlexAkai]

New to wine making this year only mead and some grape juice wine so far, found a Mead recipe online that works well except bumped the honey up to 4 pounds and use a real wine yeast which made it a little dry with only 3.5 pounds of honey per the recipe, as well as using a yeast energizer, clarifier and fermentation stopper. I love Cardamom so switch that out with other spices as I choose.



https://www.winesathome.co.uk/forum/...ce-Mead-recipe

"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"

[MaryB]

So around 3 1/2 pounds honey per gallon, since the apple cider has a lot of sugar I bet I can cut that in half since I am looking more for hard cider than a true mead...