Butter Beer Mead
A Harry Potter-inspired Butter Beer mead that is a light, sweet drink designed to taste more like a butterscotch hard soda than a traditional mead
Servings: 5 gallons
Equipment
- 1 stock pot or dutch oven
- 1 large stainless steel spoon
- 1 large funnel
- 2 five-gallon carboys or buckets
- 1 airlock
- 1 long-handled mash paddle
- 1 kegging system
Ingredients
- 5 lbs wildflower or clover honey in primary
- 1 lb table sugar in primary
- 4 oz lactose in primary
- 1 lb dark Belgian candi sugar in primary
- 3 grams wine tannin in primary
- 4.7 gallons water in primary
- 1 packet wine yeast in primary
- 10 grams Fermaid-O yeast nutrient in primary, use meadtools.com to calculate alternative nutrients
- Stabilizers, by packet instructions in secondary
- 2 tbsp vanilla extract in secondary
- 8 oz lactose in secondary
- 8 oz maltodextrin in secondary
- 5 grams lactic acid (88% solution) in secondary
- 1 gram citric acid in secondary
- 3 lbs honey in secondary, for backsweetening after stabilization
Instructions
- Place all primary sugars in stock pot and bring to a simmer, stirring often.
- Simmer 15-30 minutes without burning the sugars.
- Allow to cool 30 minutes, then loosen with one quart of warm water. Cool completely.
- Add sugars, tannin, and water to carboy and bring to 5 gallons.
- Pitch yeast.
- Affix airlock.
- After 24 hours, add nutrients.
- Ferment for two weeks.
- Confirm complete fermentation by using a hydrometer.
- Transfer to secondary.
- Stabilize the mead.
- After 24 hours, add in secondary ingredients and backsweeten, stirring gently to combine.
- Allow to clear.
- Transfer to keg and carbonate.
- Serve chilled in a frosty glass.