Death Mead Mk II

[Oenos [Daedanauts]]

For those of you who tried the Death Mead at the last event I can only snicker and pretend to apologize. I think that whoever said that it needs a bit longer in a dark place was quite right. I'll probably bury the remaining two bottles for future civilisations to discover.

But, like Dick Dastardly, I am not to be deterred from my misanthropic schemes by a single setback. Mwahaha'n'stuff! Further scouring of the tomes of ancient wisdom (second result on Google) has turned up a recipe that looks too good to be true.

This is the summary.

All you need is:

4 x 340gm tubs of Tesco value honey: £2.68
1 x 5litre bottle of Tesco not-fizzy water: £0.92
25 x Sun Maid raisins (splash out on a whole little box; plenty of spares to munch while you type up the recipe): £0.50
1 x orange: £0.40
1 x sachet of wine yeast from Wilko: £0.72
1 x balloon/condom: £0.00 at family planning centre

Total: £5.22 for six bottles!!

Method:

Put everything into the bottle of water and shake. Put a pinprick hole in the johnnie; stretch and tape it over the end of the bottle. Leave it for six months.

Sure, you can "rack" it after primary fermentation (syphon the drinkable stuff off the chunky bits), but it claims that this isn't completely necessary.

Accordingly to the undisputable Wikipedia, mead was actually the tipple of choice of ancient greeks like ourselves. Who knew? Maybe it wasn't durex-flavour like Nu Death Mead might be, but if we're allowed latexy spears we're allowed latexy booze.

[Matthew - Aegis Hellas]

I said it need's longer in the dark, mead can take between 6 months to 6 years to fininsh in the bottle. That recipie sounds scary but it should work and the tast of orange may cancel out the taste of condom, try it and i will be happy to try it out at the next event.
I will be making sparkling mead (or champead) using champain yeast as i have got my hands on a pressure barrel, look forward to trying your mead mixtures.

[Oenos [Daedanauts]]

I said it need's longer in the dark, mead can take between 6 months to 6 years to fininsh in the bottle. That recipie sounds scary but it should work and the tast of orange may cancel out the taste of condom, try it and i will be happy to try it out at the next event.
I will be making sparkling mead (or champead) using champain yeast as i have got my hands on a pressure barrel, look forward to trying your mead mixtures.

Further reading implies that the more honey in the mixture, the longer it takes to age, and the Death Mead Mk I had 1.7kg of honey instead of the recommended 1.3kg because I thought that 1lb was a bit more than half a kilo, not a bit less. Whoops. At least it means the next ones will get more booze per pound.

Death Mead 2.0 is on the brew as I type. It currently looks like baboon sick, but the process is young.

Death Mead 2.1 will have better honey (non Tesco value) and perhaps a chunk of cinnamon stick.

Death Mead 2.2 will have even better honey, a couple of cloves and use yeast nutrient in place of the raisins. Maybe even a flavoured condom. And some citric acid. Fuck it, I might just chuck in a happy meal or something. Science needs no excuse.

I'll join you for a champead next year.

[Matthew - Aegis Hellas]

I have a recipie for chicken beer if you get brave, I'v never tried it.

the taste of the honey is important not the price, I'd recomend trying it before using it in the mead.

[Oenos [Daedanauts]]

I have a recipie for chicken beer if you get brave, I'v never tried it.

the taste of the honey is important not the price, I'd recomend trying it before using it in the mead.

I'm assuming the Tesco Value one will taste of socks. I'll use it for diplomatic missions. Carthaginians probably have socks for their special birthday treat dinners. Goat socks. From their running shoes.

But the price is moderately important. It's all a bit of fun really. I doubt I'll come up with anything that outdoes the stuff you can just grab from the bar no matter how much I spend on it. Part of the game is to make the stuff as cheaply and simply as possible. The other part of the game is put weird shit in it so you can blame any foulness on the experimentation process.

[Panakeia]

It all sounds great and just in time for next Odyssey. Think i may have a go at this too.

[kev fox (thebes)]

Ah, one bennefit of living in the countryside is a honey farm about 10 miles away where you can buy your honey in 5 litre tubs for about £10 for their generic blended honey, so will see about this. Also from previous brewing experience you can pick up an airlock for the neck of the bottle for about 75p which works far better than a condom with a hole in it to stop the whole thing going off. Might attempt to make a couple of 5 litre cannisters for the next event

[Oenos [Daedanauts]]

Ah, one bennefit of living in the countryside is a honey farm about 10 miles away where you can buy your honey in 5 litre tubs for about £10 for their generic blended honey, so will see about this. Also from previous brewing experience you can pick up an airlock for the neck of the bottle for about 75p which works far better than a condom with a hole in it to stop the whole thing going off. Might attempt to make a couple of 5 litre cannisters for the next event

I had some airlocks from some plastic demijons I bought a while ago and the screwcaps fit perfectly on the Tesco big water bottles. So my johnnies can go back in the drawer to live out their long and lonely lives. Hurrah!

That honey sounds awesomely cheap. I work right near a bee place that sells buckets of the stuff but it's a lot dearer than that! They do a Greek one that's nice but super-duper-expensive. For bees, for Gods, for Glory! I might grab a bucket of the "Blended Honey" at a later date, but I should rein in my mead experimentation this year before I end up with gallons of bacon mead and parmesan mead and noodle mead that I'll have to guiltily fob off on big-eyed foreign victims. It might be a valid tactic to sneak a prettily wrapped bottle of haggis mead into the Egyptian camp with a crayoned label reading, "Fromm Pursha xxx" and watch the diplomatic incident unfold.

[kev fox (thebes)]

I was out on the bike earlier and found a woodland nearby full of wild raspberries and brambles so I might be going for one wild berrry mead experiement and one heather flower mead experiment, and seeing how they turn out arround easter

[Oenos [Daedanauts]]

I ended up starting off a mighty four new, different batches of Death Mead. MkII is using the cheap'n'cheerful version at the top. The whole process transpired very strangely. I wasn't brave enough to even taste it when bottling and I strongly suspect that I'm going to get some glass grenades going off in my wardrobe. If anything keeps up the terrifying traditions of MkI it will be MkII.

The other three seem to be going a lot better. They aren't anywhere near ready to bottle but I tasted them yesterday and they actually taste a bit they are supposed to.
MkIII is orangey and alcoholic tasting.
MkV is sweet and honeyish and might actually be mistaken for non-Death-Mead-mead.
MkIV is going to be a very amusing surprise for anyone dumb enough to take booze from strange men...

Can't wait. But have to.

[kev fox (thebes)]

The wild berry and clove mead seems to be going quite well as well (had forgot it was brewing until i saw your post) hopefully will work out ok and might even have some left by the next event

[Matthew - Aegis Hellas]

Hmmmmmmm.......I suspect i will be drinking death mead MKIV for some reason..........

[Oenos [Daedanauts]]

Hmmmmmmm.......I suspect i will be drinking death mead MKIV for some reason..........

Not twice, you won't!

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