Sugar Plum Spice Mead

[offthewagon]

So right after Christmas I'm walking through the grocery store and they've got all the holiday tea marked down. All my carboys were full but I grabbed a box of sugar plum spice for when I had an empty one to play with. Just brewed it up today. I went with just about the most simple straight-forward recipe I could come up with and its got a long, long way to go til Christmas comes back around but man it tasted good. Its a really floral reddish tea; hibiscus, roasted chickory, chamomile, rosehips, carob, plum cinnamon ginger and cardamom (according to the ingrediants on the box). I've got high hopes for it, send some out with Christmas cards and horde the rest for myself.



20 bags Sugar Plum Spice Tea (Celestial Seasonings)
7 lbs Fall Flower Honey
½ pkt Lalvin EC-1118 yeast

Begin to heat 3 qts of water on the stove. When it reaches 160 add the tea bags and steep for about 10 minutes as the water continues to heat. Remove the bags before the water starts to boil. Add the 7 lbs of honey and stir until its blended, once the pot returns to a boil keep it on the heat for 5 minutes then remove. Add to 2 qts of cold water in your carboy, pitch the yeast as the temperature cools.

After fermentation has stopped, I'll rack the mead off of the sediment and add some of the yeast nutrient. Let it age 8 months; and bottle it.

This batch yealded 2 gal.

 

[rowsdower44]

How is this coming along/how did this turn out?

 

[daksin]

That is a ton of tea. You might have gotten more replies in the mead section of this forum.

 

[offthewagon]

Its coming along good, just about done ferminting. Still get a bubble through the airlock every 10 or 12 seconds. It'll be at least a couple months til it clear, but the color has faded some. Smells really good coming through the airlock. Ill keep this updated when it moves from the primary.

 

[offthewagon]

Just got this one into a secondary the other day. It still looks really red in the carboy, but when its just in a glass it has a gold-ish brown color. Smells great. The alcohol still tastes too hot, but when that mellows out, it'll be worth the wait. It kept a really sweet taste, still seems to have a lot of the honey flavor in it.