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S2E34 TRANSCRIPT and Recipe:

Reconstituted Yule Metheglin Recipe

Ingredients

Montrachet yeast (1 packet)

Yeast nutrient, 1 oz.

12 lbs. high-quality honey (thyme, thistle, or wildflower honeys are nice for this recipe)

Zest of four large or eight small oranges

5 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces

12 cloves, broken

10 large slices fresh ginger, bruised with a hammer to release flavor

5 gallons water

 

Equipment

Large cooking kettle

Candy thermometer

Jar

Muslin

Rubber band

Food-grade five-gallon fermenting bucket

Brewing airlock

Glass carboy, 5 gallon

Champagne bottles

Caps and capping press

Method

Start the yeast 2 days ahead. Take a sterilized jar and add a tablespoon of honey. Pour on a ¼ pint to ½ pint of boiling water and stir to mix. When cooled to 20°C or below, add the yeast and yeast nutrient. Keep covered but not airtight, a muslin cover affixed with a rubber band or string is ideal.

Put the spices, zest and ginger into a large cooking kettle. Add about 2 gallons of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes, covered.

Put all but 2/3 cup of the honey into a food-grade fermenting bucket and strain the herb liquid through muslin cloth onto it whilst still hot. Stir the honey until dissolved. Top up with water to four gallons total.

Allow to cool to 20°C and then add the prepared yeast starter

A fierce fermentation should begin quickly. After a few days to a week the rate will have slowed and the must can be poured into a carboy and topped up to five gallons with cooled boiled water prior to fitting the air-lock.

Keep in a warm place until fermentation stops.

Move the carboy into a cool place and when ready to bottle, stir in 2/3 cup additional honey.

Rack off into champagne bottles, and cap.

 

Mark: Welcome back to the Wonder Science-based Paganism. I'm your host Mark. 

Yucca:  And I’m Yucca. 

Mark: And it has rolled around to this time of year. Once again, we are at the autumnal Equinox. 

Yucca: Yeah. 

Mark: Which is sometimes called Mabon, although there's great debate. And in some cases scorn about that term. And I prefer to call harvest.

Yucca: Mm. So it's for me, at least it's amazing that here we are all around. It's this year has flown by, but also just seasonally what's happening doesn't quite feel like we're there yet. It's still, the summer has just been really, really dragging. We're still having our hot days. The nights are, you know, you need sweaters and whatnot, but there's that chills just not there yet.

And we wonderfully, still got some rains recently. I just haven't quite turned that corner. Although I suspect in the next few weeks, it'll be like the snap of a finger and it'll all of a sudden it'll be autumn, but it just really isn't here yet. 

Mark: You know, here in California, where I am coastal Northern California we're in really kind of a Mediterranean climate cycle. And. I agree with you this year, that the things that I look forward to kind of signal the change into autumn are still not really happening. There's a particular kind of hard blue that the sky becomes because the angle of the light is different.

And I know the angle of the light is still different, but I'm not seeing that blue. And it may be because of smoke in the air or something else, but could be, yeah, could be. Moisture as well. But I'm just, I'm not seeing the signals. People's gardens are still pouring out tons and tons of vegetables.

And although the nights are coming sooner, it's still feels as though summer really has kind of got its talons in and it's holding on.

Yucca: Yeah. So of course it's, it's going to be different everywhere, but that's interesting that that's happening and in both of our climates, 

Mark: Right because they are so very different. 

Yucca: they are Yeah. so it's always fun to see where