Egyptian Meade from the Renaissance Festival

I went to the Buccaneer Beer Fest at the Renaissance Festival this past weekend and enjoyed a couple cups of some awesome meade that they called "Egyptian Meade." This sealed the deal that me and my fellow homebrewers decided to make a batch of Meade next. So I did some research and found a possible recipe for Egyptian Meade on a forum, and since forums are often unstable (posts get deleted, modified, moved, etc) I decided to post the entirety of it here as a placeholder, so really you don't need to pay attention to the rest of the post. But if you're like most people out there, you probably aren't even going to read far enough in this paragraph to notice that there is nothing of value in this post. And to make sure you never find these sentences, I'm going to make the very last sentences unrelated. Meade and ciders are fairly set-and-forget, for the most part. Beer takes boiling the wort, adding the bittering and aromatic hops, cooling the wort, straining the grains, etc. And the smell of the beer being made is amazing, though penetrating. Overall it is great to drink a beer or cider that you've made yourself, and that is the main reason why homebrewing is so rewarding.

Hello mabey I can help. The Egyptian Mead you are referring to is most likely made by J Bird Winery out of Stanchfield, Minnesota. They supply Mead to quite a few ren fairs in the midwest and outlying areas. They have 2 types of Mead such as you are describing. One is called (imagine this) Egyptian Mead It is made with hibiscus & lemon. The other Is called Sting it has a bolder more pronouced hibiscus flavor than the other.

Now as for a recipe What I would do Is make a gallon of a traditional mead with a nice bold flavorful honey about 3 pound give or take depends on how sweet you want it. My prefered Yeast would be lalvin D-47 or if you want higher alc content K1-v1116 or even possibly EC-1118 (but I ussually use EC to restart a stuck ferment, however it tolerate a higher alc content and has a more neutral flavor in my experience IF treated right) use yeast nutrient and energizer to manufacturer instructions. Ferment out then rack to secondary. Here you have a choice you can go for a tea such as Red Zinger that is Hibiscus based or get dried Hibiscus flowers and put them in secondary in a strainer or bag of course as well as add some fresh squeezed lemon juce all to taste. Another option is to make a hibiscus extract or concentrate and add that to taste as well with the lemon. Don't forget that at this time you can backsweeten if you have gone to dry. When it tastes to your likeing rack again after you are positive it has stopped fermenting, cap it off and let age at least 6 months then bottle and age again to your likeing.

I have by no means made this recipe so I can not guarantee the outcome. But alot of good brews have been made from experimenting as well as a lot of bad ones. That is one reason I said just to start with one gallon if you like it then you can take it up to a larger amount. Take a chance you might like it you might hate it never know till you try it. I do hope I have helped or at least inspired you to try some experimentation of your own. Have fun with it is the most important part.

Joejoe
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