Dandelion Mead

This is a mead that I've been wanting to brew for the better part of a year, I just never seemed to get around to it. So today while wandering around outside the shop on my lunch, I noticed how many dandelions had flowered in the last day or so. In about twenty minutes I had enough picked for a one gallon batch. This is a good one for beginners due to the small amount. From what Ive read to make dandelion flower tea (You can make a tea from the leaves, but it is quite bitter) you need about eight flowers per twelve ounces of tea. One thing I have noticed about mead is that you lose quite a bit of flavor after racking, so I tend to make my teas much stronger for brewing. I used about 60 flowers, which is about six times as much needed for the average cup of this tea. Simply bring about a gallon of water to a boil and add the flowers. Remove from heat and cover. Allow to steep for and hour or so.

Once the tea is brewed, strain out the flowers using a mesh strainer. Add about half of the tea back into the pot, add two pounds of your favorite honey. For this batch I'm using Russel farms pure wild flower honey, from Rhinebeck NY. All honey, especially local stuff, has a different sugar content. This is why we start with half of the tea, it's much easier to add more tea than remove it. Add tea in small increments until the hydrometer* reads the desired potential. For this batch I'm looking for about 11% potential, hopefully ending in about two months at 1%, giving a total of 10% abv. If you don't have a hydrometer they can be picked up at any brewing supply store, or at Amazon for under ten dollars. If you want to make this before you get one, or society has broken down an you're unable to purchase one from Amazon, two pounds of honey makes roughly 10% potential in a gallon total of wort*. That's a gallon total, not adding to a gallon of water, so add the honey to a one gallon measure, then add the water. This should get you pretty close. This particular jar of honey gave me three quarts of wort at 12% potential. Once you've reached the desired sweetness, bring the mixture up to a rolling boil. This kills any wild yeasts or bacteria in the honey or water. While warming up, sanitize your fermenters.

There are several ways to sanitize. The most readily available is heat, simply fill the containers (in this case two 1/2 gallon growlers) with boiling hot water and cap them. This is similar to pasteurization, keeping the container above 160 degrees for about 10 minutes should kill anything inside. By far the easiest way is to buy a brewing disinfectant like Starsan, which I am using for this batch. A small amount of bleach mixed with water will work well, (about a capfull per gallon) but can leave some bad flavors behind. Disinfect a small piece of tinfoil as well to loosely cover the top. You cannot just cap it, IT WILL EXPLODE. Believe me, I've had it happen. I've found that with Mead you don't need to be quite as careful as with beer. Honey has natural disinfectant and antibacterial properties and gives you a little room for error, once your yeast is established theres little chance of something else taking hold. The traditional way to make mead by the way is to not disinfect at all and ferment openly, allowing the wild yeasts to penetrate the brew. I will be doing half in the traditional way and the other half using commercial brewing yeast. Which can also be picked up at a brewing supply or online. For mead I prefer Nottingham dry ale yeast.

Once your wort has boiled, remove from heat and pour off about eight ounces for a yeast starter. After the starter has cooled to about 90 degrees, add yeast to it. Allow the larger amount to cool to about 80-100 degrees before adding starter. By this time the starter should be foamy, this is how you know its ready. If it doesn't do anything, you put it in too hot or the yeast is too old. Pour in the starter and cover with the tinfoil tightly but don't secure it in any way. Once the CO2 has built up inside the jar it will push the foil out of the way and vent. This slight pressurization keeps foreign things from getting in. You can also use a commercial bubbler, but as I said, it's a little less likely that it will get contaminated so I don't generally use them anymore. Place the fermenter in a cool, dry, dark place. Make note of the date and alcohol potential. For the open fermentation, place it on a window sill in a container with a large opening on top. Cover with a cheesecloth to keep bugs out. For mine I will be using a large mason jar. After a few days you will see the wild yeast take hold. It will begin to bubble and froth on top. At this point move the jar to a similar cool, dry, dark place.

After about a month, check on your brews. At this point they should be around 5% potential, still way too sweet, but especially when experimenting I like to keep a close eye on it. With my spruce mead a gallon batch was done in 19 days so keep that in mind. At about 2% pour off a glass and chill it in the fridge. If its too sweet, let it go a little longer, if not, start racking. If you don't have a hydrometer, taste will be all you have to go on, it will take practice

Racking consists of chilling the mead so the solids drop out. My method generally is to refrigerate my fermenter down to about 35 degrees and to carefully pour off the mead without disturbing the sediment at the bottom. Do this three times and you will have shelf stable mead, but if you plan on refrigerating it can just be done once or twice. The danger of exploding bottles makes me worry about leaving my mead unrefrigerated. I have had success in the past though, just check them every few days for the first week, if there's no sediment forming in the bottom you got all the yeast out. Serve your mead chilled, somewhere between 45 and 60 degrees. All brews will be a little different depending on ingredients and sweetness, so serving temperature will vary.

Mead has truly become one of my favorite beverages. It's all natural, full of vitamins, and there's no hangover to deal with. Local honey also has really helped with my allergies as well. Three years ago I had such bad allergies I was medicated for two months every spring. Now I only have one attack a year when the trees bloom. All of these benefits and the satisfaction of getting a nice buzz on something you made yourself.

Hydrometer- A device that when floated in a mixture shows sugar content based on bouyancy.

Wort- Beer or mead before fermentation begins, basically a sweet liquid.