10.01.10 - It is born

On the 10th of January in the year 2010, I - after much speculation - mixed up a five gallon (~19L) batch of Joe's Ancient Orange Mead. These are the ingredients:

8kg Honey
5 Oranges
125-ish Raisins
5 Cinnamon Sticks
10 Cloves
5 Pinches Allspice
5 Pinches Nutmeg
2 Pinches Cinnamon
SAF Instant Yeast
Water

So I started out by dissolving my honey in hot water and adding it to the carboy. It took a while since I've never done it before. In fact, I've never brewed anything before.

Here's my carboy and my makeshift funnel


Then I cleaned my raisins and oranges and sliced the latter into pieces of eight. My mom said my oranges were too big and ate a couple of slices. She might have been right... or hungry... preferably both. Anyway, I shoved my oranges through the opening of the carboy - not looking forward to removing them - and added all the other ingredients. I forgot to let it cool down and let my mum add the yeast right away... 5 tablespoons. From what I understand, it isn't necessary to multiply the amount of yeast but that's what was used.

Here is my carboy and funnel after I added all the ingredients and shook the thing. Notice the cinnamon sticks and raisins at the bottom!


And here it is sitting next to the Pepsi cooler


This is going to be a brewing log of sorts