Weasel Breweries™ Recipes:
Santa's Special Childhood Memories Xmas Mead™

Back Label Text:
So you're looking forward to Santa a climbing down your chimney, eh Timmy? What the hell are you thinking, you evil dwarf? Santa knows what you've been up to, and he's gonna fix your sleigh but good. Better luck next year, you vile little bastard. Another Ho Ho Hoopajoop from the coal mining Monks of Ann Arbor Abbey.™

It's all here. Sparkling, spiced, hopped, zippy, xmas mead. Sure, a lot of people get kind of suicidal during this joyous season, but don't do it. Choose life, or at least choose mead. And look at all you have to live for. Hell, this stuff won't be ready for years.

Makes 5 gallons.

• 19 lbs. Mesquite Honey
• 1 oz. pelleted Willamette - hops
• 25 cloves
• 6 sticks cinnamon
• 1 tbl. ginger
• 4 tsp. Mead Acid Blend
• 1 tbl. Yeast extract
• 1 package liquid Sweet Mead Yeast- Wyeast #3184 Sweet Mead
• 1 package champagne yeast (secondary fermentation)
• 6 lbs. Mesquite Honey (quaternary fermentation)
• 1 package champagne yeast (quaternary fermentation)

In a 30 liter stainless steel brew pot, bring 25 liters cold water to a boil.

When brew pot reaches boil, begin stirring water and add honey. Stirring will prevent the honey from settling to the bottom of the bot and burning. Boil for 15 minutes. When boiling, the albumen mixture that forms as a foam layer on the surface will cloud the mead. Skim it all off of the top.

After boiling the wort for 15 minutes and skimming, add the spices, hops, acid blend, and yeast extract:

Cool the wort to 85 F or lower before adding yeast. Cool the wort as quickly as possible to prevent infection.

Leave wort in primary fermenter for about one month. Transfer the wort to a secondary fermenter, add champagne yeast, and ferment for an additional three months. Transfer the wort to a tertiary fermenter for an additional three months.

Test at the end of the seventh month. The mead is probably highly potent, verging on flammable, so, obviously, it is time to add more fermentables and do a fourth (quaternary) fermentation!

1. Transfer the tertiary to a 7-gallon quartenary carboy.
2. Boil another six lbs. of honey in 1.5 gallons of water. Cool.
3. Add the new honey mixture and one package of champagne yeast to the quartenary. (Volume is now 7 gallons.)
4. After two days, bottle the mead in champagne bottles.

Age (and mellow) for between six months and twenty years (one usually works pretty well).

Ho.

1st brewing, 25 Oct 1997.

Copyright © 1997-2007 Kirk R. Humphries and Sandy Marshall. All rights reserved. Weasel Breweries, Monks of Ann Arbor Abbey, and Old Pyehole are trademarks of Kirk Humphries and Sandy Marshall. And so is a lot of other stuff. So there.

Last update: 12 October 2007