The ingredients include water (not shown), a half gallon of honey,
a lemon, some very strongly brewed tea, yeast, a yeast helper.
In addition, you can see Jim's study sheet, cheese cloth, a scale,
and a note pad to keep track of the process
for future reference.
In the back right, you see a bottle of red wine
from an earlier
wine-making adventure which serves as liquid
motivation for the
current wine-makers.
A key ingredient, the yeast -- purchased at Belmont Party Supply.
Almost a half gallon of honey is added to two and a half gallons of water.
I continuously stir the mixture until it comes to a boil, at which
time it is allowed to return to room temperature.
Meanwhile, Jim adds the tea to our jug.
With some types of wine it is important to strain the mixture into
the jug, but the water and honey mixture had nothing to strain.
Adding lemon juice to the jug.
And a curious ingredient -- the yeast helper which is food grade urea.
Everything's complete (and there is still a little red wine left in the
glass). The mixture goes through a process of "open fermenting"
where the yeast and honey do their thing and gases are released.
After that, a period of "closed fermenting."
Jim shows me his technique for making labels, and he lets me
create the label using a photo from my last trip to Oregon.
He also shows me his method for fitting eight copies of the label
on one printed sheet.
The label is ready.
Now we just need to wait (weeks or months) for the ingredients to
do their job.
By the way, Jim's cat supervised the whole operation. If the
honey mead wine doesn't work out, we blame the cat.
Honey Mead Wine
After our success with Pasties, Jim invited me to make honey mead wine. He has been making wines for years, and enjoys trying new recipes. This is his first adventure with honey mead.
The process is described below.