Mead - an excellent alcoholic beverage based on honey. An ideal alternative for those who don't like pure alcohol. It is easy to prepare, so we can say that this is one of the simplest home-made hop infusions. This article is about how to make honey-based alcoholic beverages.
Selection and preparation of ingredients
Before you start preparing the drink, you need to take into account that honey, depending on the variety, often has a concentrated smell and taste. In order not to dominate the taste of tinctures and not disturb the whole composition, it is advisable to choose honey with a not too dominant taste.
Did you know? In Ontario, Canada, the Clovermead Bees & amp; Honey. " The festival is famous for the competition “bee beard”, during which up to several kg of bees are attracted by experienced beekeepers who are attracted by the queen bee sitting on the contestant’s face.
For the production of homemade mead, it is best to use natural honey. Most often, for these purposes, buy linden, but you can also buy flower, acacia, goldenrod (mimosa) or buckwheat honey. Less commonly, mead is cooked on heather honey.
Water for mead should be well or tap, but pre-boiled or settled. For honey tinctures choose the strongest vodka or moonshine, with them a drink on honey acquires a distinct taste.
Mead, bottled in tightly closed bottles, can be stored in dry, dark and cool rooms at a constant temperature. Unheated pantries and cellars are optimally suited for this.
Important! It is recommended to buy honey and bee products only from a trusted beekeeper, otherwise the buyer may become a victim of scammers and runs the risk of buying sugar syrup. In this case, the mead can and will have a honey taste, but it will become absolutely useless for health.
Best cooking recipes
On honey, you can cook a classic mead, which will take several months for infusion and final preparation, or a honey tincture, prepared quickly and without aging in the basement for several months. Alcohol in moderate doses on honey will cure in case of a cold, warm and strengthen a weakened body.
On alcohol
1 can for 3 l60–70 minutes
honey (honey dew)
500 g
Nutritional value per 100 g:
- Before starting preparation, it is necessary to prepare a jar or a large bottle with a capacity of about 3 liters, gauze or sieve, as well as bottles into which the drink will be bottled.
- Honey and water are poured into the pan with a thick bottom, and lemon juice, vanilla stick, slices of ginger and grated nutmeg are added there. The pan is placed on the stove, after which its contents are brought to a boil over low heat and boiled for about 3 minutes. After that, the mixture is covered with a lid and left to cool for half an hour.
- Alcohol is added to the cooled liquid with honey and spices, it is well mixed and poured from the pan into a glass jar (at least 3 l). The container is closed with a lid and taken out to a warm place, where the contents of the can will be infused for two weeks.
- After this time, the tincture is filtered through gauze or a sieve and carefully poured into clean bottles pre-steamed. Bottles are closed with lids so that the alcohol does not evaporate.
On vodka or moonshine
1 can of 1.5 l60-100 minutes
Nutritional value per 100 g:
- Lemons are well washed and dried from drops of water with a kitchen towel. Juice is squeezed out of two lemons, making sure that lemon seeds do not fall into it.
- The yellow peel is removed from the remaining two fruits, this can be done without problems with the help of a peeler. Then remove the loose white layer of zest. If this is not done, the prepared mead will have a bitter, unpleasant aftertaste.
- Lemon peel and lemon juice are placed in a large jar, in which they will make tincture.
- Peeled lemons (2 pcs.) Are cut into thin slices and placed in a jar with peel and juice squeezed from two lemons. Then moonshine or vodka is poured into the container, honey and sugar dissolved in half a glass of water are added.
- The contents of the jar are well stirred and left for a day to insist in the warmth of the room. After this time, honey tincture is filtered through a sieve. Lemon slices from tincture are pressed there. After filtering, the mead is again filtered through gauze folded in two layers and bottled. Mead is ready to eat. It is recommended to store the drink in the refrigerator, basement or cellar.
The strength of the hop drink will depend only on the addition of high-quality moonshine: the higher the degree of this liquid, the stronger the mead will be.
No yeast or boiling
4 cans of 3 liters 2 hours 30 minutes
granulated hops
20 g
Nutritional value per 100 g:
- Before preparing a mead, it is necessary to pour part of the water specified in the recipe into a separate container and divide into 2 parts. The first part of the water is needed so that after releasing the cans from the honey, it is possible to wash off the remnants of the sweet, viscous product from the walls of the tank. The second part of the water will go to prepare the hops.
- To prepare a mead according to this recipe, you need to choose a large capacity, with a volume of at least 15 liters. Such a volume will allow the drink to undergo fermentation without loss of liquid, which otherwise would flow out over the edge of too small dishes.
- 2/3 of the water indicated in the recipe is poured into a large container, after which all honey is added there. The remaining part of the water is rinsed well with a jar of honey until the product is completely dissolved, after which sweet water is poured into a fermentation tank. Next, honey in a jar and water are mixed until a homogeneous mixture is obtained.
- Honeycombs with bee bread are laid on a kitchen board and chopped as finely as possible. Sliced honeycombs with beef are poured into a fermentation tank.
- Since mead according to this recipe is prepared without yeast, hops must undergo preliminary heat treatment. The water intended for cooking hops is heated almost to boiling, after which one hop pellet is added to boiling water. Granulated hops are not completely thrown into boiling water. In order to get the most vivid aroma and taste, the granules are stacked sequentially one at a time for 20-30 minutes. (during the whole cooking). When all the hops dissolve in water, remove the pan from the heat, allow to cool and pour it into the fermentation tank, where honey and water are already present.
- The contents of the fermentation tank are mixed well, then closed with a lid and set in a warm place for fermentation for about 2 weeks. Fermentation time may increase if the room is not too warm.
- After 2 weeks, the fermented mead is manually separated from the beef and honeycomb. Then honey alcohol is filtered through gauze (folded in several layers) or a very fine sieve. The filtered liquid is poured into a large glass bottle with a volume of at least 12 liters. If very small particles of bee bread remain in the liquid, making it partially opaque, it’s okay, during the infusion period they will fall to the bottom of the bottle in the form of a cloudy precipitate.
Video recipe
Then the finished drink is insisted in a cool dark place. The longer the brewing time, the better. You can drink alcohol after two weeks of primary fermentation, but further tuning will give it transparency, strength and a rich aroma. Ready mead cooked at home can be stored for several years.
Did you know? Perga is a flower pollen collected by bees, brought to the hive and sealed in honeycombs as the future food for hatched young animals. This substance has many useful qualities, as well as vitamins and minerals, due to which it is used in medicine and cosmetology.
Honey tincture with pepper
1 can for 3 l30-35 minutes
hot pepper
2 red large pods
juniper berries
5-6 pcs.
allspice and black peppercorns
6 pcs.
Nutritional value per 100 g:
Honey is placed in a well-washed and dried glass jar. Water is poured there and using a soft silicone spatula on a long handle, mix the mixture well until the honey is completely dissolved.
Before cooking, wash the pods of hot pepper under running water, and then lay them in a jar. Then all spices (coriander, juniper berries, peppers, caraway seeds and cloves) are poured into the container and the vodka is poured. The contents are mixed again for 15 seconds and close the jar with a lid.
A jar with mead is set in a warm, dark place for an approximate period of 2 weeks. At the end of the infusion period, the contents of the container are filtered through a fine sieve or gauze. The color of the finished infusion should have a light sand tint.
Honey is placed in a well-washed and dried glass jar. Water is poured there and using a soft silicone spatula on a long handle, mix the mixture well until the honey is completely dissolved.
Before cooking, wash the pods of hot pepper under running water, and then lay them in a jar. Then all spices (coriander, juniper berries, peppers, caraway seeds and cloves) are poured into the container and the vodka is poured. The contents are mixed again for 15 seconds and close the jar with a lid.
A jar with mead is set in a warm, dark place for an approximate period of 2 weeks. At the end of the infusion period, the contents of the container are filtered through a fine sieve or gauze. The color of the finished infusion should have a light sand tint.It is not recommended to leave a pod of hot pepper in the drink for beauty, as can sometimes be seen in television advertisements, as with further insistence the bitterness will increase, and as a result the cook will receive a “hellish mixture” that cannot be drunk. Based on this recipe, you can cook five or ten servings of pepper tincture on honey and treat it to dear guests for several years.Important! Before laying in a jar of mead, hot peppers are by no means exempted from the seeds, it is they who give the main bitterness to this alcoholic drink.
Video recipe
Mead cooked at home differs for the better from alcoholic beverages and tinctures purchased at the store. Even an inexperienced chef will not be difficult to prepare honey tincture at home.
