My apparent Limoncello success (we'll know for sure of it's success - or failure - this weekend when we try it and Nigella's Lemon Drop recipe) has spurred me to try my hand at brewing, specifically, brewing mead. Considered one of the oldest alcoholic drinks known, mead is very similar to wine, however instead of using grape juice as a base for the yeast to feed off, you use honey, hence mead is sometimes called honey wine. Everything I've read claims that mead is easy to make. My experience so far is that it has been simple to concoct, but whether my final product will be a success remains to be seen.
Yesterday I went to the local homebrew supply store and bought a fermenter (a 6.7 gallon plastic container with a tight fitting lid that has a hole containing a rubber stopper with a hole to put the airlock in), an airlock (a small device that inserts into the lid of the fermenter that contains a small amount of water allowing gases to escape the container, but doesn't allow anything to get in) some yeast and some hops. Then on to Costco and the grocery store to get honey, apple juice and frozen blueberries. Using a recipe from Mead Made Easy, I went about brewing my mead.
Essentially, you boil the water, dissolve the honey into it, add everything but the apple juice and the yeast and simmer according to the recipe. Then you add that mixture to the apple juice in the fermenter and let it sit overnight to cool. Once it's cooled down, you add the yeast and seal it up for a month. After a month, the yeast should be done turning the sugars from the juices and honey into alcohol - if you managed to not allow any foreign bacteria into the mix which would in turn make vinegar instead of alcohol - there will be very limited to no bubbling activity in the airlock and it's time to bottle the mead. Once it's bottled it needs to sit for at least a month before it can be drunk.
So, it will be two months before I have any idea if this little experiment was successful. Good thing I'm relatively patient.
