Recipe - Standby Mead

1 ga Water
2 pound Honey
1 Thumb
2 tablespoon Orange peel (no white pith
Please)
Champagne yeast
Size piece of ginger

Bring the honey and water to a boil skimming off the white and brown
foam as you heat it. Simmer/skim for about 5 minutes per gallon (5
gallons = 20 min). When the boiling is almost done, add the ginger and
orange peel. Cool (I usually let it cool "naturally"). Work with yeast
(Werka Mead Yeast is good, champagne or general purpose wine yeast will
do). Bottle after two weeks (while it's still sweet and still quite
active). Refrigerate the bottles after another two weeks (to avoid the
glass grenade syndrome and to make the yeast settle out of the mead). To
quote the original source: "It will be quick and pleasant from the very
start and will keep for a month or more." Other variations included: Add
lots more honey and let it ferment till it stops. Bottle and wait a month
or more, you get champagne. Use some other citris fruit peel, such as lemon
or grapefruit. Add some other fruit flavoring (crushed berries of some
sort). Load up on the ginger (my friend makes Death by Ginger by using
pounds of ginger per gallon!) Primary Ferment: 23 weeks

Recipe By : Michael Tighe

File ftp://ftp.idiscover.co.uk/pub/food/mealmaster/recipes/mmdja006.zip