Joe's Ancient Orange Mead Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How many oranges to put in mead? ›

1 gallon batch. 3 ½ 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)

18% is generally regarded as the upper limit for mead fermentations, as even the strongest wine yeasts struggle after this much alcohol is present.

If you put in a bunch of honey and you get enough yeast (the right kind of yeast where it ferments all the way out) then you'll have a really dry, high alcohol champagne-like mead. You can use less honey to make a lower alcohol mead. Using less honey might make it a little bit more dry, though not necessarily.

Mix the honey with tepid to warm water, filling half the jug. Shake the hell out of it, seriously, for like five minutes. Wash the orange, cut it into slices that will easily fit in the jug (getting them out is less work if the pieces are small) and stuff them in. Add the raisins, cloves and cinnamon stick.

A good starting point with most fruits is about 3 pounds of fruit per gallon of mead, though I have been known to use 5 or even 6 pounds of fruit. Fruit blends can produce some great-tasting meads.

For a dry mead, the ratio is 4 parts water to 1 part honey; a sweet mead is 2 to 1.

Why did it fall out of favor? There were some new tax laws, as well as an increased availability of West Indian sugar in the 17th century that made honey harder and less necessary to obtain. But it was also the rise of other alcohols—namely beer and wine—that really did it in.

Drinking too much of any alcoholic beverage, including mead, can increase your blood triglycerides, blood pressure and your risk of obesity and diabetes ( 8 ).

Maturing mead over time enables desirable flavors to meld and evolve, allowing harsh flavors to diminish. The Mead maker can age before bottling in carboys, barrels, or bottles. Consumers may age in the bottle. Commercially made meads are generally ready to be enjoyed when released.

Historically, in a lot of the ancient mead making, they would start drinking it at this stage. Tej, for example, they'd just open ferment it, and over time it becomes less sweet and more alcoholic. If it's left in that open fermentation eventually it starts to become sour.

What happens if you put too much yeast in mead? ›

In general, more yeast is actually better, at least at first. But you can, if you severely over-pitch, end up dosing your must with so many ravenously hungry yeast cells that they over compete for the sugar and nutrients, resulting in stressed yeast and resulting production of off flavors.

Mead will age gracefully as will wine as long as the closure (crown cap, screw cap or cork) you use is in correctly and the seal is good. There are other things in the mead (acid, tannin, alcohol, etc.) that will help to add longevity to your mead as well. I've had crown capped bottles that have gone 11 years.

Some people add lemon or other citrus juices to mead as a source of acid to help balance out the sweet flavor of the honey, but this is by no means mandatory. Adding sugar or honey will not actually neutralize the acid or change the pH; it will only help to balance the flavor as David had mentioned.

Orange Zest: Use the outer peel of an orange by grating or peeling it. The zest contains a flavorful oil that can enhance the flavor of the orange without adding liquid. Orange Syrup: Make a simple orange flavored syrup by boiling it in sugar and water. This syrup can be added to drinks for a burst of orange flavor.

There are 4 to 5 tablespoons or 1/4 to 1/3 cups of juice in one orange. To make one cup of fresh orange juice, you need three oranges. It's important to note this amount is for common oranges. Different varieties of orange, such as Valencia, navel, mandarin, or blood oranges will produce different quantities of juice.

Figuring out how many oranges go into an 8-ounce cup isn't quite so nebulous, but it's still not an exact science – the general rule of thumb is that three, medium-sized oranges equals eight ounces of juice.

If you're looking to make a gallon (about 16 glasses) of. grape juice, you'll need 14 pounds of grapes. You'll need about 85 to 90 pounds of fresh grapes to.

It depends on the size, variety, and juiciness of the orange, but orange juice packager Tropicana puts the number at 36 oranges per gallon of juice. Citrus America, a company that makes juicing equipment for supermarkets and restaurants puts the number at 48 oranges per gallon.