Monday, April 27, 2015

Springtime Mead Making

 Springtime in the Rockies - New growth, fresh starts, clearing out the old! The bees are buzzing around dandelions and wee shoots are rising up everywhere. I followed my personal tradition, spring clean of the body. Aided, of course, by the yeasty beasties!
I mostly used the skin of the ginger, and diced and dried the rest for cooking.

Burdock root, Ginger, Lemon, and naturally every part of the dandelion plant! Sounds like a great cleanse, right? Well, after drinking a cup or two of this tea (with plenty of honey!), I dump the rest of my mighty pot into the bucket of solidified honey.
I used up most of last year's harvest of dandelion parts to make room for a new crop!
After this dissolved a good bit of honey I put it in the fermenting bucket and boiled a bit more water. That honey was good and solid! After all my liquids have cooled a bit I pitch some yeast and cover the bucket. In one year I'll have a batch of yummy Spring mead! In the meantime, last year's bottles are being cracked open and shared around in their fizzy sweet goodness. Ah, tradition!

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