Observing Mead

Mead, eh? The first time I ever hear of, much less tried mead was as a teenager on a visit to Wales. My parents and I were staying in Ruthin Castle. and attended one of their spiffy "Mediaeval Banquets". Mead of course was served and Mom discreetly offered me a taste. Honestly, at the time I wasn't sure what to think of the complex flavor - given, my prior experiences with alcohol were confined to bananas foster, and minute amounts of Godiva chocolate liquour served over ice cream with rasberries. This was mainly due to lack of interest with alcohol on my part: I was an unusual teenager. I'll have to visit Ruthin Castle again, as a hotel with such acomodating amenities as a "whipping pit" and "drowning pool" is not to be discounted. Seriously though, its a very nice place and more than a little spooky at night. And the food is very tasty.

I read the bf's main mead book, The Compleat Meadmaker by Ken Schramm from cover to cover and found out that it takes A LOT of honey to make mead. He wanted to start with a 5 gallon batch since that is what he was acustomed to making with SCA. I remembered that Horace Bell Apiary in DeLand is conveniently close to my company's warehouse. We purchased almost 20 lbs of gallberry, orange blossom, and wildflower honey. 15 lbs was gallberry and orange blossom - and that was earmarked for the first batch. He wanted to just start with the basic recipe in the book for a "medium sweet mead". Another trip to Heart's Home Brew assured we had everything we needed. That is, except a GIGANTIC stock pot - which was purchased at a restaurant supply store. Make sure you get a stainless steel stock pot and not an aluminum one, since the aluminum can adversely affect whatever it is you're going to brew. This massive 16 quart stockpot was not inexpensive - but it will last forever. We then picked a date for meadmaking.