Building Unity Farm - Making Mead and Cyser

The entire family visited Unity Farm for the holidays.  After all the gift giving, merry making, and yuletide time by the fire was over, what should a family do at a farm with apples, honey, fermentation equipment (there's a basic chemistry lab in the cider house), spring water, and microbiology know-how?   Make mead of course!Mead was the earliest fermented beverage created by man - evidence of honey and fermentation products begins about 9000 BC.   Mead figures prominently in Hindu writings, the work of Aristotle, and the Old English poem Beowulf.   There's a new vocabulary to learn when deciding how to make Mead."Show" Mead - a higher alcohol, full flavored mead made with more honey and less water"Small" Mead - a lower alcohol, lightly flavored mead made with more water and less honey (Queen Elizabeth the First enjoyed a very dilute mead)Melomel - mead with added fruit or fruit juicePyment - a melomel made with grapes and often herbs.   You could call it a honey-fortified wineCyser - a melomel made with apples.   You could call it a honey-fortified hard ciderZythos or Braggot - a mead fortified with malt.   You could call it a honey-fortified beerMorath - a melomel made with mulberriesMetheglin - a mead made with herbs or spices.   The name means "Mead of the Glen".   Some believe it is the root of the term "medicine"Rhodomel - a metheglin made with rosesAt Unity Farm, we tend to prefer our beverages fermented dry.  We ofte...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs