“Ant mead” is an ancient mead recipe that was originally made by a lost tribe of Eskimo crocodile hunters in Antarctica (hence the name) They would follow polar bears until the polar bear led them to it’s secret stash of honey. Once located, they would wait for the bear to go to sleep and sneak into the bears lair and steal the honey. Given the rarity of honey (and Polar Bears) in the area, Eskimo’s did not get to make mead very often.
OR
“Ant mead” is the mead i make from all my honey scraps. Whilst draining the honey into buckets, processing comb and capping or scraping up the mess.
You can believe whatever story you like
BUT I always end up with a few kilo of “Less than great” honey. Ants invariably always manage to get all over it and it just looks a little like an amber speckled mess (hence the name “Ant Mead”). Prior to making it, i run all the scraps through a fine strainer, this filters out the majority of the ants and the left over appendages that somehow always manage to break off, any wax particles and whatever else has managed to get in it.
The resulting honey is cloudy, a bit grainy a mixture of all your frames and not really good enough to put on your toast BUT in this waste nothing environment its put to work .
Ingredients
Whatever honey you have once you have processed all your premium product.This is often a pretty crappy colour and a bit on the cloudy side.
When we harvest our honey, there are often frames that got filled very early in spring, this is light and really sweet. Honey from later in the season is often a little dark and heavy as the bees no longer have a glut of spring flowers to harvest and take whatever is available. The scraps we use for Ant mead is a mix of everything.
Step 1:
Weigh your honey
Now. here is where a little brewing experience comes in AND the need to dust off your old hydrometer. If you don’t have hydrometer, BUY ONE they cost about $8.00au from any good brew shop and about $15au from the crappy ones.
Start by adding about 1.5L boiling water per 1 Kilo of Honey.
Now usually i don’t use boiling water as it tend to kill off a few too many enzymes and all the good stuff in your raw honey BUT i make an exception for this stuff, remembering, this is my scraps. Boiling water will just help a little with any other bad stuff that may be hanging around from all your processing.
BUT as a guide I usually want my SG to be around the 1090 – 1110. This can be tinkered with depending on the final Alcohol % you want in your final product
Hint
A starting SG of 1100, a final SG of 1010 with give you an est Alcohol % of about 11.70%
A starting SG of 1120, a final SG of 1010 with give you an est Alcohol % of about 14.10%
Pretty simple here,
if your SG is a little low. add a little more honey and test it again
OR
If its a little high, add more water to dilute it.
I used Vinter’s Harvest SN9 wine yeast but you can use any wine or champagne yeast. the only thing you need to remember, use a yeast that will tolerate the est alcohol % you are aiming for. If your yeast stops fermenting too soon, you will end up with a sickly sweet result.
Check your yeast and ferment at the temperature range they recommend
Starting SG – 1100
Final SG – 1010
Est Alc % – 11.70Taste:
Surprisingly good given that it was made from all the honey scraps that would usually end up down the sinkFrom this point I did a few things with my batch.
Thing 1:
The raw product tasted good. it was fresh BUT obviously lacked the usual complexities of your std mead. I added a few cloves to the batch and a stick of Cinnamon and left it for a few months. Result was great.
Thing 2:
Prior to my fermentation reaching its finished SG, I poured a liter into a clean plastic coke bottle and added placed it back in the fermenting fridge with the lid on tight and left it until the cloud had settled (about 2 months)
The final few % of the sugar was used and turn my dull boring Ant mead to a Sparkling Ant Mead with very little effort. The plain taste of the original and the added bubbles made a really nice Champagne style. This was then consumed in front of the fire watching Game of Thrones.
Thing 3:
On a very cold night we mulled a batch of this to make a nice warm night cap sitting by the fire.
Mulling is a excellent way to use up you “Less than drinkable crap” that you would usually just give away to people you don’t like.
This mead was still good by itself BUT was even better mulled.
See >>here<< for our std mulling recipe
The moral of this Story:
Waste nothing
Ferment first
Make adjustments later