Joe's Ancient Orange Mead

Joe's Ancient Orange Mead, or JAOM, is a simple homebrew mead recipe that originated from Joe Mattioli on MoreMead.com and seems to be pretty popular with homebrewers on HomeBrewTalk.com.

Mead is a beverage of love! Originally the word "honeymoon" came from the provision of mead to newlyweds for 30 days (or one moon) after the wedding. The beverage was attributed to the birth of sons and was drank by many many civilizations. Meadmakers were regarded as dignitaries and were congratulated when the child was born. Now, anybody can make mead in their home with ingredients found at the grocery store!

I made a 1 gallon batch of JAOM tonight. It's extremely easy with ingredients you can get from any grocery store. I'm using a 1 gallon apple cider container that I've saved (actually I have 4 of them for various mead and beer batches I've done). The only "specialty" equipment I'm using is the rubber stopper and 3 piece airlock I bought at my Local Homebrew Store.

From the information I can gather this yeast will ferment from 13-15% before stopping. The OG (Original Gravity or sugar content reading) was 1.132 which is pretty high. High gravity means high alcohol content! However, it will also finish pretty sweet with residual honey and orange flavor (maybe somewhere around 1.030). I'm really looking forward to drinking it!

Here are a few links for this recipe, some pictures and discussion about other homebrewer's experiences with making it. Good luck with your own batch!

Joe's original post on MoreMead

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