More things a-brewing

My friend Phil has now gotten me into beer brewing. We started a nice thick scottish ale which I've tasted before when he made it. So we have 5 gallons of beer brewing in our laundry room. And boy is it bubbling away. Beer ferments a lot faster than mead, and this stuff will be done in 5-12 days. I'm hoping that next weekend we'll be able to bottle it and let it carbonate up just a little before the dojo party on the 28th.





We also discovered that the mead we'd made went far too fast. So we're making another 5 gallon batch of mead. This time the recipe will include:




1 gal organic wildflower honey
4 gal water
The zest and pulp/juice (but not pith) of 8 organic limes
1 1/4 oz fresh organic mint leaves
2 T organic lemon zest (leftover from baking lemon cookies)

2.5 tsp yeast nutrient
4 tsp high alcohol yeast nutrient
1 package dry mead yeast


We're using dry mead instead of sweet because the mead actually ended up a little bit too sweet for our tastes. This is going to be called grog mead, since grog was traditionally watered rum with lime and sugar. Pirate mojitos!


We're also going to bottle more of this, rather than drinking it out of the carboy. While it was tasty young, it aged extremely well.

After cooking and mixing, the alcohol potential of this mix is only 8-9% based on my density measurer. Odd, considering we started with the same ingredients.