Mead Recipe – Orange, Cinnamon & Currants
The last mead recipe I shared was for a basic sweet mead. Here is the recipe I used to create my second ever 5 litres of mead on yesterday’s dime – Orange, Cinnamon and Currants (although raisins are better).
Ingredients to Make 5 Litres
- 2KG local bush honey
- 1 and a half oranges
- 1 and a half cinnamon sticks
- small handful of currants
- small pinch nutmeg
- 2 Campden tablets
- 5g Port/Sherry yeast NDA21
- 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
Equipment in my Kit
- 2 large pots
- 5 litre fermentation bottle
- 1 airlock
- 1 rubber bung with hole for airlock
- 1 funnel
- 1 measuring cup for scooping
- spoons & stirrer etcetera
- 1 bottle scourer that bends
- digital thermometer
- hydrometer to measure specific gravity
Method – Stage 1
The first and most crucial step is the need to sanitise your equipment… don’t use bleach for this… use sodium metabisulphite powder at 1 tablespoon per litre of water. You need to wash any pots or plastic buckets you intend to use, the airlock, and anything that will come into contact with your mead. This is because you are producing a food and if you’re not hygeinic then wild yeasts will contaminate and make it all taste like crap.
It’s a good idea to let the containers of honey sit in a sink of warm water for a while to make this part easier. Put your 2KG of honey into one of your large pots / containers you intend for mixing your mead.
Boil about 4.5 litres of water then let that cool down to about 40 degrees Celcius (or 104 Farenheit). Pour about 3 and a half litres of this water over the honey and dissolve all of the honey by stirring. Then funnel this must into the 5 litre fermentation bottle.
Put some boiled water into a small bowl. When the water has cooled to between 26 and 32 Celcius (or thereabouts)… which is between 80 and 90 Farenheit… empty a 5g Port/Sherry yeast NDA21 into the bowl and a teaspoon of yeast energiser. Give it a gentle stir and leave for 15 minutes.
While the yeast is starting to activate in it’s bowl the must (honey mix) can be enhanced with the other ingredients. Slice up 1 and a half oranges into small enough slices you can slip them through the bottle’s neck… drop in one and a half cinnamon sticks… your handful of currants… and two Campden tablets. You can use this opportunity to take a hydrometer reading of your must (I don’t do this)… the reading tells you how much sugar you have in there and indicates the potential alcohol content it will produce.
When the yeast is ready and the must is at room temperature pour the yeast mix into the must. Then use a sterilised measuring cup (or something) to top the water level in your fermentation jar to no higher than three inches below the top. It’s going to go off with all that orange in there so keep it a little low.
I have a long knife that I have sanitised to poke through the top of the bottle and gently agitate the must inside the bottle for a few minutes. This introduces air which helps the yeast along.
Sanitised bung in the top. Put some pre-boiled and cooled water into the airlock and insert that fully into the bung’s hole. Sit it on a bench in your office wrapped in a towel or an old jumper to keep it nice and warm and dark.
It should start bubbling within 6-8 hours and by the next day make it to a bubble or two every second.
Method – Stage 2
Months later when the mead ceases bubbling use a sanitized hydrometer to take a reading. The reading should be 0 (zero) or just below… if it isn’t then leave it be because it will blow your bottle tops off in storage. If it is at zero then it’s time to rack the mead.
Racking means to siphon off the good stuff into another sterilised bottle leaving that crap sediment behind. If you have more sediment in the new bottle you can repeat the racking into yet another sanitised bottle. Then drop a well-crushed Campden tablet into the mead.
I’m told that with this mead it should be clear at this stage and perfectly drinkable… but I can’t vouch for that yet. Apparently it’s drinkable at around 2 and a half months from your must creation.
To make it even nicer, leave the racked mead on a dark shelf somewhere until it’s been at least 6 months since you first made that must. Then bottle it and leave for at least another 3 months. Don’t laugh but in historic times meads were left anywhere from 1 year to 100 years because it will only improve with age.
Acknowledgement & Comment
This is a slight variation on the Ancient Orange and Cinnamon Mead recipe kicking around the Internet… only I loathe cloves and didn’t have raisins. So there you go, adapt and overcome.
Something to note… be sure to use sodium metabisulphite (not bleach)… and be careful because if you’re one of those people like me with a skin allergy to it then you get nasty excema and burning cracked skin… wear chemical gloves. And don’t breath in those fumes in the sink – invest in some kind of mask.
The mead can be drunk at the bottling stage but try not to be tempted. It’s only going to get better. It should come in at around 13 per cent.
There are lots of great mead making tutorials on YouTube… good luck.
