Medieval Mead Part 2: The Agening
Hello, all! I just put the batch of mead I cooked up a couple of weeks ago in bottles for aging. If you missed the earlier post, check it out right here to find out how this whole thing started.
This is actually fairly easy, though be careful because this can get pretty messy if you're not paying attention.
First thing's first: sanitize your bottles. Follow the instructions on whatever sanitizer you happen to be using and set them aside for the moment while the chemical does its thing.
Take your stoppers, airlocks, and siphon and let them soak in the sink in a mixture of water and sanitizer as well. Again, follow the instructions on your particular sanitizer that you're using. Get a siphon with a filter on it because you're going to be putting that into your fermentor, which will have a layer of silt at the bottom. The point of this exercise is to get as much delicious mead as you can out of the fermentor whilst leaving that grit right where it is. A good siphon and filter will make this so much easier.
Next, dump out the sanitizer and rinse out your new jugs with warm water. Do this a couple of times (I do it three times because I'm superstitious like that) to make sure you've got the inside as clean as possible. Get your stoppers and airlocks ready as well, making sure to rinse out the airlocks and make sure there's no water trapped inside.
Sorry, but I apparently failed to get a picture of this next bit. I guess you'll have to imagine it, but then it might go differently depending on what sort of siphon you got. Either way, put the siphon in your initial fermentor, put the hose in your bottle and carefully begin pumping the mead from the fermentor to its new home. At least with the model I have, if you get too carried away, the mead will come spilling out the top of the siphon and get all over the place. Also, watch to make sure you don't overfill your bottles. It'll make a terrible mess as well as waste some of your precious, precious happy juice, so use extreme caution.
And there you have it! Your mead is now nearly ready to enjoy! The initial recipe I had from the video linked in the first post said you can drink this after three days, though I waited around a week with my first batch. This time I'm going to be letting it sit for a couple of weeks in an attempt to get some of the carbonation out of it. The last batch was good, but too gassy for my liking.
I initially made two gallons of mead, one is for me and another is getting split up between my next door neighbor, my brother-in-law and a friend of mine. The last 32 oz growler is only about half way full, so it's just a sort of taster. I only showed pictures of bottling the gallon jug, rather than all of them because the process is the same. Just be careful switching between jugs when siphoning your mead out of the fermentor, as you can end up spilling all over the place.