Make a Date with Mead

With a cold wind blowing outside, it’s time to sit back, have a stiff drink and contemplate the end of another year. Tonight, I’m relaxing with a glass of homemade mead—honey wine—just about the easiest stuff ever to brew. No grains to crush, no long mash or boil, just a little hot water, some honey and some yeast. There are fun legends about mead (search “honeymoon”), but they’re probably all bunk. What is legendary, is just how quickly they’re brewed. I routinely brew my meads at a sleepless 3 a.m. and hit the sack at 4 a.m.

This month’s recipe is a mead that I tasted at the first annual Doug King Memorial Birthday Party. Doug was a Falcon and the guy to first show me and countless homebrewers how to brew all grain (and he answered every annoying question I threw at him). At that party, his friends tasted one of the last bottles of his date mead and I vowed to make a batch from Doug’s notes.

Dates are one of the oldest crops cultivated by man and remain a daily foodstuff in the Middle East. The dark, sticky, toffee-sweet royal Medjool date came to the US when the Sharif of Morocco, fearing a disease-fueled extinction of the beloved variety, gifted date palms to American farmers. As it turns out, the palms grew beautifully out in the desert valleys near Palm Springs. These days, California is a top supplier of several fresh date varieties worldwide.

Capturing Doug’s favorite date flavor requires fresh dates and a heavy-duty food processor. Add, in batches, a little water and a few pounds of halved dates. Make a chunky mess by processing the dates in pulses. Apologize to everyone for errant flung patches of mincemeat-like date goo. Take the remainders and freeze or merrily chomp away.

“If you want clear mead, do what I did: Let it sit in secondary for nine years. What can I say? I kinda lost the carboy there for a while!”

Dissolving both the honey and the date puree requires a little heat. Bring a gallon of filtered water to 160–170˚F, and stir in the honey and date puree. Use a little hot water to dissolve any leftover honey. Chill the remaining water and add it to your fermenter. Mix in the hot date honey syrup. When it’s cool enough (below 80˚F), add oxygen, pitch the yeast and walk away for a month. Rack the mead to secondary and age. When you see a thick pile of gunk at the bottom, rack the mead again.

I normally recommend mead making for the summer time. The wine yeasts don’t seem to mind the heat, so keep that in mind for next June, but get this one started now so it’ll be ready for next year. In a hurry? Reduce the gravity and add the nutrient in small doses, twice a day for the first four days.

Doug’s Date also has the distinction of being my oldest batch of anything ever. If you want clear mead, do what I did: Let it sit in secondary for nine years. What can I say? I kinda lost the carboy there for a while! And yes, the airlock dried up, but the nutty oxidation characters actually worked well with the honey and dates. The date syrup was added prior to kegging to brighten the mead with additional sweetness, acidity and fresh date character. If you’re not planning on nine years of aging, then rack multiple times and use a one-two treatment of bentonite and Sparkolloid.

For my non-date mead recipes, I always use 12–18 pounds of honey and 3.5–4 gallons of water. That recipe provides a great base for any experiment you can conjure.

DOUG’S DATE MEAD
For 5 gallons at 1.101 (before syrup and puree)

Ingredients:
3 gallon filtered water (plus extra for top up)
12 lb. honey (orange blossom/wildflower)
1 gallon puréed jumbo Medjool dates
1 tbsp. yeast nutrient
2 packets Flor Sherry yeast
8 oz. date molasses

Instructions:
Heat 1 gallon water to 160˚F, add honey, date puree, and yeast nutrient. Stir thoroughly. Add to a sanitized fermenter. Top up to 5 gallons and cool to 80˚F. Pitch yeast. Ferment in primary for one month. Transfer to secondary and age for 8–10 months or longer. Before bottling, add the date syrup to taste. ■