Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Mad Dawg

That recipe sounds pretty good, if you used bittersharp perry pears. If you used regular table pears (Bartlett, etc), it was probably pretty bland.

Light honey by itself ferments to a product with very little flavor. It needs something sour or bitter (or, preferably, both) to add flavor, body and mouthfeel. Tannins provide the latter (as well as certain proteins, but those are hard to add to mead). I have a friend who made some very good mead about 10 years ago, just by adding fresh lime juice to his honey before pitching the yeast. However, I suggest you investigate a drink called metheglin. It’s made from a mixture of apple juice and honey, and therefore, is a cross between mead and cider. The best metheglin will employ juice from apples with high tannin and acid contents; crabapples are very good for this puropose (in particular, the Hewes Virginia Crab and Whitney crab are stellar). My forte is beer, not mead (although this is largely due to lack of access to affordable honey), so I won’t give you any specific recipes, but if you look around on the internet I’m sure you’ll find many. You might also wish to join CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale), which has many members who also appreciate mead and cider; rubbing elbows with CAMRA folks will put you onto many leads.

Good luck to you.


32 posted on 05/11/2007 11:43:49 AM PDT by Renfield
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies ]


To: Renfield

This was back in the poverty-stricken, rugged, livin’ in the serious country days. The pears were windfalls from our neighbors huge venerable pear tree. This was just an opportunistic use of honey and pear juice. We weren’t going for great, we were going for tipple.


35 posted on 05/11/2007 12:43:24 PM PDT by Mad Dawg ( St. Michael: By the power of God, fight with us!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson