So I was sitting here, last weekend, minding my own business, when my friend, Machelle, tagged me in a post on Facebook for a one jug-recipe for mead. Of course, I was interested, and after having read Colleen’s blog, I knew that I was going to be all in! Granted it took six days for me to get my honey and oranges, but I started this today.
Colleen’s recipe can be found at growforagecookferment.com and if you are at all interested in anything grown, foraged, cooked, or fermented, this is definitely a blog worthy of your attention. She has posted recipes not only for mead, but kimchi, sauerkraut, yogurt, and sourdough starter, as well. I am also loving her no-knead sourdough pizza recipe as well as her bolted arugula pesto. (What can I say…the Sicilian in me says she had me at “pesto.”) I think she has homesteading down pat. I couldn’t find a “re-blog” button on her site, otherwise I totally would have. I’m going to do her sourdough starter recipe soon, before it gets too hot to bake.
That said, I took off of work early, only to discover a leak in our master bath, so we ended up at our local home improvement store to get the equipment we needed to fix that, and while we were out I picked up oranges and honey, as I already had raisins and blueberries on hand.
The Grapes of Wrath Mead, V2.0 has been giving me fits, in that I just cannot get the specific gravity down to where it needs to be prior to racking, but I went ahead and racked it, anyway, after activating a little more yeast and adding some more honey to the starter. (These are the gallon and half gallon jugs in the background of the following pictures.) These jugs will be making the journey to the wine closet with the melomel.
At any rate, the leak isn’t leaking anymore and Mead V3.0 is in the jug. I love one-pot meals, so why would I not love a one-jug mead recipe? It was quick and dirty and not as many steps as Meads V1.0 and 2.0. Given the geek that I am, I did take a starting SG reading with the hydrometer prior to adding the yeast, and it was sitting at a nice 1.190. My pictures of the endeavor are below:
I love making things from scratch. What kinds of foods and beverages do you make from scratch? I’d love to hear from you!
Until next time…
Random Musings From a Type-A Workaholic 
I going to have to try this never tried mead before.
Mead is SO good! I tried it several years ago over the holidays and loved it! I’ve had it mulled with spices and right out of the bottle. Doing it with fruit is going to be a first. 🙂 If you do give this a go, let me know how it turns out. Also (and I learned that this is REALLY important!), don’t top off with water too high. I’d play it safe and roll with 2.5-3 inches of headspace in your gallon jug. We had a blueberry creep up the neck, clog the airlock and blow the airlock right off the top of the jug! 😉
Salsa, it is my passion!
I love salsa! I make it with tomatillos. Got a recipe you want to share? *hint hint*
go check out my other diversion (under construction) @ hunnedo.com for my roasted salsa. It’s best if you can roast your veggies on a charcoal grill.
Ahhh! This rocks! Thank you! ❤