HOMEBREW: Go Tell Aunt Rhodamel (Rose Hip and Petal Mead)
Today, I’m enjoying their beauty. Tomorrow, they’ll become part of a very special rose mead, along with dried Alchymist rose petals from June, preserving this liminal moment, walking the razor edge between the seasons, grabbing at moments in time together, sharp as a hooked thorn.
Go tell Aunt Rhody, go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody that the old gray goose is dead.
The one she’s been saving to make a feather bed.
The old gander’s weeping, because his wife is dead.
The goslings are mourning, because their mother’s dead.
She died in the mill pond from standing on her head.
Go tell Aunt Rhody that the old gray goose is dead.
I know it’s hard to find sweetness in this world right now. The thorns are more plentiful than the roses for a lot of us, and the dark nights are long, and the justice we long for often eclipsed by more and more of the same structural wounds under a dark blood moon. You can yell all day at Rousseau that the social contract is dead, but, then, so is he?
Pour honey on those cares, friends. Then put your hips into it, let it boil up, just a little, and then and let it steep, and ferment. Add flowers, feed it, give it time time time. Whisper hope to it in the dark, then decant that and bottle it up, but not forever. We will make it through, and mourn those who did not, with cups of tart and sweet mead, our bread and roses, a balm for our weary hearts.
Go Tell Aunt Rhodamel Rose Mead
Go Tell Aunt Rhodamel Rose Mead
Ingredients
- 5 oz fresh rose hips
- 6 large underripe blackberries (still reddish)
- 2.5 lbs light honey blackberry honey, clover, or wildflower
- ½ tsp Pectic enzyme
- 1 tsp. yeast nutrient
- ¼ tsp. FT Blanc Soft tannin
- 1 packet Wine yeast Vintner's Harvest CY-17
- Water to make up one gallon
- 1 lb light honey for secondary
- 1 oz Dried rose petals or more, to taste
Instructions
- If you have fresh rose hips, freeze them with the fruit in a fine nylon mesh bag (finer mesh than the rose seeds, which are *tiny*)... This will start to break down the cell walls and increase juice and color extraction.
- Sanitize a wide-mouth primary fermenter- either a large fermentation jar that is more than one gallon, or a 2-3 gallon bucket.
- Heat 12 cups of filtered water to a boil, and add the frozen rosehips and berries. Bring back to a simmer and then remove from the heat and let cool.
- Add 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme to the pot & mix well. Let sit one hour so the enzyme can do it's work.
- Meanwhile, measure the honey, yeast nutrient, and tannin into the fermenter. If you can put your honey container on a scale, you can measure directly into your fermenter (subtract the 2.5 # from the total weight and stop when you have removed enough- less mess!).
- Hydrate the yeast in 4 oz of water (boiled and then cooled). If you are using Go-ferm, add that to the water before the yeast- I use 1/4 tsp. of nutrient per batch.
- Pour the rosehip tea in the fermenter, and add the nylon bag. With clean hands, squeeze the bag a bit to release the flavor and color. Mix well with a sanitized spoon to dissolve the honey. Top up with water to make 1 gallon.
- If you are using bentonite, add now, dissolved in a few oz of warm water (boiled and cooled).
- Pitch the hydrated yeast, check and record the specific gravity (SG) with a hydrometer and seal the fermenter with an airlock. Write down your starting gravity in your brewing notebook and/or on a piece of painters tape or other label on your fermenter.
- After 7-14 days, remove the bag with the rose hips. Let settle a day or two and rack into another sanitized wide mouth fermenter.
- Boil a cup of water in pour over 1 oz dried rose petals. Let cool, and using the nylon bag as a strainer, pour the tea into mead. Tie off and add the strainer bag with petals and one lb. additional honey. Stir with a sanitized spoon. Check and record SG and replace the lid and airlock
- After another 7-14 days, remove bag, let settle, and rack into a sanitized carboy. Check and record the SG again and compare to your starting gravity... this will tell you how much of the sugar has fermented out into alcohol, and how close your mead is to finishing. You can also taste it now and see how it's progressing.
- When mead is clear and fermentation is complete, it's ready to bottle (be patient- this can take time!). Rack again before bottling if you like, or be very careful to not disturb any remaining sediments.
- If you want a sweeter mead, you can add a preservative stabilizer like potassium sorbate (to prevent further fermentation- ½ tsp per gallon if you are adding more fermentable sugar, or if you like, you can use ¼ tsp if you want a still mead and aren't adding priming sugar) and a bit more honey. The stabilizer stops further fermentation by the yeast, which could cause exploding bottle bombs if you added too much sugar before bottling to get a sweet mead without using stabilizer.
- If sparkling mead is desired, add priming sugar and use heavy bottles and crown or swing caps (rack off sediment before bottling if you are doing this). Don't overdo the priming sugar- use a priming calculator and be precise.
- Leave the bottles at fermentation temperature for 7-14 days before cellaring or chilling, especially if you added priming sugar to make a sparkling mead. Like any mead, you want to age this before enjoying... six months to a year is ideal, if you can wait that long! It won't hurt you to drink it sooner, but it will be better after it has mellowed in the bottle and had time to develop its true character.