5th In the Brew - Orange

Hello all!

Now that I have some time to brew I finally have the fifth batch for the blog! Sorry for the lack of posts and what not but it has been hectic here. Between moving and the holidays my brewing equipment has been moved around so much it was hard to track down.

Here is the recipe:

15 - pounds clover honey
3 - medium sticks cinnamon
2 - 16oz packages of Craisins (Orange flavored)
10 - California Naval oranges
5 tsp bread yeast
Water to five gallons

Here is the Process:

Here I went even further with my green/natural/historic brewing style. For this brew I used absolutely no heat beyond that of hot tap water.

First as always use sanitized equipment. I filled a 5 gallon carboy with about 1.5 gallons hot tap water. I then poured 5 pounds of clover honey into the carboy. After that I put my new toy to the test. Recently I purchased a Degasser (Lees Stirrer). Basically this device is attached to the end of a power drill and goes into the carboy and just stirs the crud out of the contents of the carboy. So I put my degasser to the test and within 5 minutes of stirring the honey was totally dissolved and I was ready for the next 5 pounds. Proceed with this procedure until all honey is dissolved. (Note here if you do not want/or have the degasser the previous honey dissolving methods described in all other recipes will work just as well. The advantage to the degasser is that it takes no time to dissolve the honey and with the no heat I don't need pectic enzyme for fruit nor wait for the temp to come down to pitch yeast.....this is now my preferred method to dissolve honey and all subsequent recipes will be made this way.)

Next clean off the oranges and cut them into eights. Squeeze the oranges into the carboy then put the oranges (rind and all!) into the carboy.

After the oranges are in the carboy put the craisins into the carboy followed by the cinnamon.

Finally give the mead a nice last stir using the degasser (if no degasser is available GET ONE....or shake carefully this carboy will weigh about 40-50 pounds now!)

Pitch the yeast a put in a dark place that stays 65-70 degrees F and wait.

OG: 1.117

This one will definitely turn out to be on the sweeter side probably semi-sweet to sweet. Very orange flavored. I am also thinking of making this one a fortified mead. Fortified meads are meads that have hard liquor added to them at the end. Depending on how it tastes I am either going to add regular vodka or orange flavored vodka. Enough to fill this batch back up to the five gallon start. My guess is that this will take about 2 months to complete.

It has been about 2 hours since the pitching of the yeast and there is activity in this mead that normally takes 24 hours to produce! I am a definite believer in the degasser. Along with the ease of dissolving the honey and the benefits of not having to use heat but it adds a ton of air to the must right at the beginning.

I'll keep you posted!