'Wine-y' Wednesday - It's 'Mead' To Be

Last week I was gifted A LOT of blueberries. Many, many quarts worth of processed juice. As in about 6 gallons of juice.

While I like adding blueberry juice to water and lemonade, and will drink some straight juice, it's not my favorite. 

So what to do with the juice?

Jelly?

Well, I have a lot of jams and jellies still on the shelf. And once again, blueberry jam/jelly is not my favorite and I have enough.

Therefore...

After several days of watching YouTube videos, primarily City Steading Brews. 

Home brewing is something I have considered over the years decades. I haven't for several reasons, the main ones being (1) no where to actually put them, (2) may be moving in the near future and (3) under-age kids in the house. 

My dad makes muscadine wine. He's done it for decades and there was often a huge 5 gallon glass jug in the back of the closet. I tasted it once and, surprise, it was too sweet for me. It was more like a syrup in my opinion. And strong. As in it could cure just about anything.

And after years of Ren Faire attendance and both daughters now of legal drinking age, I decided to take the plunge. 

First off, despite being currently filled with boxes, I can now empty out the under the stairs closet enough to put the meads and wine to do their thing. I do have to say I now have a goal to clean it out complete and use it for storing brews and other large bulk pantry items. 

Therefore...

From left to right - 

Basic Mead - honey, water and lemon peel

Blueberry Mead - blueberry juice, honey and orange peel

Blueberry Wine - blueberry juice and orange peel

I made the basic mead first and by the end of the evening and making the other two brews, it started releasing gases! Joy!

This morning I opened the closet to check on them (like they would have done something in 12 hours).

'Blue' and 'Honey' were sitting there in the dark, gently bubbling away. It was so much fun to hear the gas bubble 'popping'. 'Winey' was just sitting there, which is ok. It's wine, so it will take longer than the meads.

Now comes the hard part...

Waiting!

I need to give it until about Easter (6 weeks) and then check on the 'gravity' to take a reading and see where it is in the process. Then a week later, take another reading. So probably in a couple of months I can 'rack' and let it sit some to 'mature'. Of course, I can sample to see how I like what's going on.

My only worry at the present time is with the blueberry mead and wine. Because I was using pure blueberry juice, which was slightly thicker than water, the initial reading put it really high. As in really higher alcohol rating. Will have to see.

In the meantime, I found out there is a really nice brewer's store near me. And they are having a class in cider making this coming Saturday morning. I will be there. Because I have a lot of blueberry juice left and a blueberry cider sounds interesting. 

So I have 3 gallons of alcoholic beverages brewing. 

What am I going to do with it? Especially since I have my eye on the upcoming strawberry and cherry seasons.

Each gallon should give me 4 bottles (and a bit) to beverage. One bottle of each will go to the girls. One bottle will go into 'storage' and held for a year to really let it mature. The rest?

Well, sitting on the porch or couch, with a good book and a small glass of liquid seems really nice.