You folks were doing a great job even in the early days. You have however gotten better and better with time, just like a fine wine. Seeing now vs then the scoring system adds a lot. Keep up the great work.
@CitySteadingBrews just giving you a hard time lol. I love this video and I'm so glad it's back in this form. This video is how I found your channel all those years ago. Where did the time run off to? This video along with the later traditional one that you made drinkable in 4 weeks are what inspired me to start home brewing and it's made me many friends. My local home brewing store is how I found other people that like Warhammer 40K and now I go for games all the time when im not on the road. This channel was the catalyst for many things that improved my life in many ways. So seriously. Thank you.
This was great video. Also a nice reminder of how you guys have grown and changed. Of course, after watching it I had to go watch Viking Blood 2020 again as well. It was a moral imperative. :)
I remember when I first watched the viking blood video. It was the first mead making video I saw. You guys have always been great at making the process simple and easy to follow!
❤ origin stories..!!. These were the first in series I watched so many years and renewed my brewing bug , I've now gone to pressure fermentation which is amazing. I've turned out 2 brews a whiskey stout and just bottled an apple and ginger spiced mead .the closed cycle in fermentation does so much for Ester and oxidation control.. 👍
Hey. I’ve been watching your channel for a while and I really enjoy the content. I made the Viking Blood Mead and it is wonderful. I'm drinking some right now. Thanks for the recipe.
It's funny you guys uploaded this. I've only been watching your videos for about a year, and I finally decided to make another mead a few days ago since my last one was about 11 months ago. I decided on making viking blood and checked your channel to see how you made yours (after I got the ingredients) and I found your original video from 5 years ago, then I see this video uploaded. I didn't use whole fruit, but I'm trying that Knudsen tart cherry juice you guys used in one of your more recent videos. I'm excited to see how it turns out! You guys have been a great source of information and inspiration.
One of the first videos I caught of CSB and yes, I made this one as an early mead to start with... Maybe not as I'd do it now (for all I've learned from you and others since) but it turned out very well. The mead addiction had taken root. As an odd aside from this, gotta say you look so much younger since then! All the best to both of you this year! :)
Congratulations. That's good news. I've followed you for about three years now. You two are the reason I got into making mead, wine, and beer. I have tried several of ;your recipes and I'm just starting to make up my own. I love your personalities. Thanks for making it so easy to get into this hobby.
Thanks for everything you have done, I've just started brewing late last year due to your videos. I've got several meads blissfully aging at different points in their life, and I'm about to start your Spiced Metheglin today.
Nice to see you take your old content and merge it like you do your new content. Great brew I never seen. Now I am more hipped about trying my newly started brew Cherry Slushy! May us honey to back sweeten if required.
Your timing on this was spot on. I am currently brewing your Viking Blood 2020 and have to remove the dark cherries today. I'm using a 6.5 gallon bucket from Home Brew Ohio in the hopes of ending up with 5 gallons. I made your grocery store mead for my first ever ferment back in November and it was better then any mead I'd had before, and from sneaking a sample two days ago (was checking gravity, poured the sample into a glass) this one is better. Thanks so much for the content, I look forward to more!
I have been watching you guys for over a year now and this spring I finally plan on making two batches of mead. Blueberry cinnamon as well as Vikings mead. Wish me luck! I’m familiar with the science of fermentation but never fermented for alcohol.
Excellent another great video. Most the time when I do my fruit with my honey, I grind it up with my food processor lately I do my best not to purée it down to nothing which I have done which has created other problems with that said, thank thank you for the great video. I plan on making it your way. I hope you both had a great weekend and a great week. Thanks for all the great information.
Well, I wrote you out a long heartfelt thank you for everything since this was the first video that I watched that got me into you guys and after watching the sweet red video I started buying fermentation devices a piece at a time until I could start my own brew, but as I tried to edit my comment UA-cam froze up and deleted it, so I just wanted to say thank you so much for providing me with days of entertainment and until gallons of spirits for me family and friends You gave me a new hobby to love when I thought that I've lost everything I consider you guys friends and I think that's amazing considered some people use your platform to cause distrust and strife between people ❤❤❤
Wow, it is amazing how much both of you have changed, definitely for the better. You both look younger now. I was shocked by the giant bucket fermenter😂
this is done well, you can see how you have progressed the videos to the current formula (much like a brew recipe). it would be cool to see some behind the scenes "this is how we make videos", maybe even some guest appearances from your cats (me and my wife are also cat people )
Hopefully you guys revisit, making this again, as we get closer to Spring. I still continue to get caught up on many of your vids here as, I literally sit here at my computer and watch 3 or 4 in a row. I continue to be inspired by you guys and, making mental notes for now :-) Be well and BREW ON! Side note Brian, Being of Celtic and German ancestry, I too, either say SLAINTE or PROST! 🙂
speaking of Vikings, we have an island here in Sweden, Gotland, where they traditionally have a medieval week every year. there they serve Gotlansdricka, a common drink in the 4th-7th centuries. There are a few different varieties, but the main ingredient is juniper berries. is a company that brews a variant in the USA
Here i see you as the first product and later you were fermented out more and with realy adding the Derica flavor your product became better . And between all this you guys always took a reading . And with all the extra suggars ontop you two became sparkling .
You guys have got me experimenting with my meads. My experimentation led to my daughter preferring mead to beer and requiring her boyfriend to learn to brew it. Long story short, my soon to be son in law and I share notes frequently and are making our respective mixed berry melomels for their August wedding. You have a bigger impact than you realize.
@@CitySteadingBrews by the way, My Cherry melomel is a Cherry-Vanilla (1 week on a full vanilla bean in secondary) one of my wife's favorites. the mixed berry is a Costco Mead. (Costco honey, Costco frozen organic 3-berry mix) My daughter and her fiancee's favorite.
I think it was at the end of 2022 when I made the current (at the time) version of your Viking blood recipe. When I had it aged 1 year, the taste had completed changed, and it it almost tasted like prunes to me lol. Which is fine, I like prunes, but it just didn’t taste like cherries anymore to me which was unexpected. It was the first recipe of yours that I followed, and the first big success!
I have bounced video to video ranging from 5 years ago to today… the beard threw me off I really thought I had missed so much time. Then at the end of the video you cleaned up the beard again and I felt the world was normal!
I remember you saying somewhat recently you felt the early stuff was cringy and I replied it was not. Haven't watched this video in a long time, but definitely not cringy. Definitely less polished and refined, but still a great and useful video! Not often with UA-cam channels I can say I was there from the beginning. I can here and can definitely say your channel has been among my best finds on UA-cam, potentially THE best. Only ones that come close are the curd nerd cheese guy and the Makgeolli guy.
I tend to make larger batches like 3 to 5 gallons at a time. I can't drink that much that quickly, I like to share. I'm going to try this one next. Great video.
A few weeks ago I commented about flooding the receiving vessel with CO2 to protect the precious liquid during such an occasion, even better decisions would be adding a section of tubing to the spout of the fermenter long enough to reach the bottom of the receiving vessel. BTW i've been making wine since 1991 and have ruined many of batches during my learning curve. I hope this may help at least one person 😊
This was the recipe and video that got me into making mead. I made two sub par flavored meads then this was my third and it remains the best I have ever made. I would like to try it again but infuse some chocolate tones to it instead of cinnamon.
Great Video Sir. I like freezing my fruit at least twice before make my Melomels. Good on you for warning about the water, not a problem for people that have a well like myself.
When useing Ale Pails, i found Gamma2 Seal Lids are wonderful. There is a ring that snaps on the bucket, and a threaded lid. As you know, pop off the ring to sanitize.
I just made my first batch of mead and it tastes like grape wine is that a good or bad thing? And no I didn't do any hrdrometer tests like I should because by the time I already had it bottled was when I learned about those tests so next batch I will
Great to be reminded of your roots! I have a question please - have you ever used sweets (hard candy) in a mead? I’m tempted to have a go with a butterscotch and wonder when to add the sweets, how many and if they’ll completely dissolve… thanks for your help and continued infotainment! 👍👍
I started a cherry tea mead yesterday but instead of frozen or fresh cherries I used sweet cherry nectar. Woke up to a bit of a mess today because I was greedy and filled my 5 litre jug to the brim. This also turned out to be a great sweet cherry ice tea recipe if I were to cut the honey to maybe 1/3. Made a 2l batch of black tea with 4 tea bags + 4 flower herb tea bags, 2l of cherry nectar and enough honey to have gravity reading of 1.12.
You guys have talked about the foot smell a lot. My first batch of mead smelled like kalamata olives and to this day I haven't been able to figure out why. It was just a straight honey mead with a cup of black tea and some raisins. Have you ever experienced this? And if so do you know why? It did age out quite a bit but there were still notes of it for sure. Also, love your guys' content. Been binging through your videos for the last month trying to learn everything I can. I appreciate all the work you put in and how informative you guys make things.
A fun series for you might be to do a mead for every state with ingredients from said state. I am thinking of doing one, using some leaves from the California Bay Laurel, needles from coastal redwoods, yerba Buena, and bark from a madrone. All local/native ingredients to the state. Of course, honey from each state as well. It might get repetitive as some of the states wouldn't have wildly different ingredients, but a lot of them would and would allow for a lot of variation.
@@CitySteadingBrews California bay laurel is very potent in flavor but totally edible, it's related to both the cinnamon tree and the avocado tree. The yerba Buena and the redwood needles, preferably the tips, also totally safe. They've been used for thousands of years in medicine and cooking, and still are to this day. The madrone bark is used for tea and the berries are eaten.
My granddaughter saw my Mead fermenting on the shelf and started asking question. Long funny story made short, in the end she asked if I could make a Peanut Butter & Jelly mead. I immediately went to the CS UA-cam site and started searching. I didn't find it so I have to ask, can you make a Peanut Butter & Jelly mead. Obviously, grape jelly.
For a moment I thought how did you grow this great beard so fast😂 Your second Viking blood inspired me for my own many years ago. My first mead/mellomel was a Viking blood. I had no sanitizer but boiling water. I had no hydrometer but around 1,5kg honey for a 5l fermenter. The Viking blood was delicious. I used also frozen cherries. Now I use juice/nectar (no water) in my Viking blood. I like it and all the people that try like it too. Thank you for your inspiration and help in the beginning. PS: I need to say I miss your wife in the beginning 😂 Good you choose to do it together 😊
I made a batch over a year ago. It fermented fast and had the lovely "foot" smell. So I bottled it, corked it, and let it sit for over a year. It turned out really good. I think my mistake was that I didn't let the honey ferment first. I put everything together. But the aging made it so good.
@@CitySteadingBrews i might have used the wrong yeast then. I don't know though. It was the "beast". It still turned out good. I'm going to let it sit for another half a year to a year to see how much better it gets.
Love your videos. You're growing your Nordic beard I see. Can you please tell me the name of your cooking/baking channel. I'd like to watch that one as well.
Loved seeing this throwback after watching a lot of your newer work - I can see the core roots, and places where you've tweaked and improved, and it's satisfying for me to recognize some of the differences and then see the edits confirm it! I have a question about various additives used for flavoring - particulalry once you have a completed ferment and realize you wished you had more X in it. For example, if you "forgot" to add some tannin/tea, at what point is that too late? If you made a Skeeter Pee with less lemon juice to start (to keep PH more reasonable) and added more lemon later, does it really taste any different? For berries (like with this Viking Mead), if you add them very early and don't take off the skins for weeks/month until a primary ferment is done, does it change the taste? With cider, I seem to recall a video where you mentioned cloves (or was it Allspice?) could overwhelm a cider if left too long...what about Cinnamon sticks? In sum, I'm just starting and learning, and am only now coming to think I should've done certain things...and I'm curious about situations where one might remove things like berries late, or add other things like tannin very late...how tied to the actual fermentation process vs just the aging timing are the flavors imparted by those various sorts of ingredients?
That's a lot of questions, but... Tannins can be added anytime. Adding lemon juice later may taste a little different than if it were fermented, but not a lot. The berry question... far too much to explain here, and you have options. Any spice or herb can overwhelm if you use too much or leave it too long. All of the rest comes down to experience and testing. There are no set answers really to most of that.
VERY helpful- Thank you! As for the berries, I made two 1 gallon meads a few weeks ago and added 3 pounds of frozen berries to each from the onset...and I pureed them (I assumed it would reduce the risk of them expanding in volume and exploding, which was only half correct!). Right now I intend to leave them on until a first racking, since they're even harder to get off than if I'd just mashed them...but part of me wants to leave them on...I just don't see other recipes leaving berries on a must as long as I was envisioning...and being a newcomer, I don't also think I should be intentionally doing anything too pioneering. LOL
I recently found out about a thing in norse mythology called the mead of poetry. It's where they made mead from the blood of some guy. It made me think of you guys. I assume that's where the idea of Viking blood came from.
I wonder if a persimmon mead would taste good? I painted a couples house and the husband made his own wine and they asked if we (my brother-in-law and I) like wine I said I would try it and they gave us a bottle of Homebrew persimmon wine and it was good but I'm a tequila guy. My brother still has his I couldn't wait and drank it that weekend. I would try it myself but I don't have the patience to wait. Would it be hard for you guys to source persimmons where ever you are?
Great video! I have a question if you want to help me: i followed a few simple recipes (traditional and pumpkin spce) and got the same result after the first fermentation. It always taste very bitter. Sg is around 1.100 with lalvin d47. Is it possible that i should stop the fermentation earlier then 1 bubble every 20 sec? And how to balance that bitterness?
I've got a 2nd rack of Viking Blood Mead myself brewing at the moment. Also, a recipe of my own crafting based off of multiple resources. Looking forward to finally getting it to bottle and then site for another month before I consider it done. I'm curious, in this batch here, did you back sweeten it?
Well... this was a strange one and not all of it got recorded. You see, we thought we were quitting the channel, lol. Anyway, there was more juice and more cherries added in the end. Honestly, this is not our best recipe. The later versions of Viking Blood were far better!
Can you provide the ingredients list please? I think I would like to try this myself. Additionally, I know there is variation with yeast but all I have is QA23 on hand. Would that work well instead of the KIV-1116? I can order some new yeast (KIV-1116) if needed, but figured I would use what I have if it wouldn't hurt anything.
Is the sugar content of my apple juice sufficient for fermentation, as my refractometer reads 17 before the fermenting process, or should I consider adding more sugar to my cider?
You link your bucket? Or link one on Amazon if the one you have is not available there already please. I’m having a hard time finding one under $40 that’s decent :/
I made a cherry bourbon meade that came out PHENOMENAL. Started the same way except I used canned cherries. Then racked and added a stick of oak. Racked again and added some bourbon cherries that had been soaked in Bulleit for 2.5 months. Also, instead of clear water, I used half the boiled oak water -- gave it a little more bourbon-y taste!
I'm going to show you how to make REAL Vikings blood. First, take one "Viking" No, wait a minute, wrong recipe - that's for another time !!!! 6 years goes fast!!! Hard to believe this was 2018 :)
Quick! Ran out of yeast nutrient and about to pitch. I won’t be able to get more nutrient soon. Best alternative for a nutrient! I’ve come across some threads that suggested boiling bread yeast (which I have plenty of) and using this as a nutrient. Pros/cons? Fact/fiction?
Hi, this comment has nothing to do with the video. Due to a happy accident, I learned something I would like to share. Recently, after taking a several year break from brewing, I decided to make my wife some blueberry wine. thought to my self I t has been a long time since I made wine, but heck I have made so many in the past... So , full speed ahead right? Things didn't go well at first. I had an unfortunate miss reading of my original gravity. I pitched 1 packet of 71b in a 5 gallon fermenter. About this time I realized my OG was far less than I wanted. About that time I realized the first of my errors. Well I thought at least my error on OG was that the ABV was going to be really low.... it could have been much worse. If I had read thing wrong the other way fermentation might not ever start. So I says to myself, I can just turn this into a step feed. No problemo. 2 days later no activity. Uh-oh, now what? well I pitched another packet of 71b. Day later nothing!?! I figured I had some bad yeast. I am sorry this was so verbose. Here comes the moral to the story: So I figured , bad yeast, what to do? I thought okay bust out some ec1118. However what if it is bad too? Panic was beginning to set in. I thought back to the day of yeast hydration. Pitch the yeast in some water, look for activity. That is what I did and had a happy ferment started in a few hours. So, while yeast suppliers do no recommend hydration as necessary, it is a test for yeast viability. I hope this helps everyone who has had questionable yeast performance. Happy Brewing Eveybody!
You folks were doing a great job even in the early days. You have however gotten better and better with time, just like a fine wine. Seeing now vs then the scoring system adds a lot. Keep up the great work.
Thanks, we appreciate it!
Omg!! Its young old Brian!! Haha
Lol
@CitySteadingBrews just giving you a hard time lol. I love this video and I'm so glad it's back in this form. This video is how I found your channel all those years ago. Where did the time run off to? This video along with the later traditional one that you made drinkable in 4 weeks are what inspired me to start home brewing and it's made me many friends. My local home brewing store is how I found other people that like Warhammer 40K and now I go for games all the time when im not on the road. This channel was the catalyst for many things that improved my life in many ways. So seriously. Thank you.
That whole vibe needs to make a comeback. It was glorious. Making this today. Thanks for all the help!
This was the video that started my mead making journey. Love you guys and your channel. Looking forward to 2024 and more mead!😊
This was great video. Also a nice reminder of how you guys have grown and changed. Of course, after watching it I had to go watch Viking Blood 2020 again as well. It was a moral imperative. :)
Wow! What a throwback - that was the video that helped me find your channel.
I remember when I first watched the viking blood video. It was the first mead making video I saw. You guys have always been great at making the process simple and easy to follow!
Derica is your real MOJO ....... not the stick or spoon 😆😆absolutely love what you two do. Keep up the awesome job.
❤ origin stories..!!. These were the first in series I watched so many years and renewed my brewing bug , I've now gone to pressure fermentation which is amazing. I've turned out 2 brews a whiskey stout and just bottled an apple and ginger spiced mead .the closed cycle in fermentation does so much for Ester and oxidation control.. 👍
Hey. I’ve been watching your channel for a while and I really enjoy the content. I made the Viking Blood Mead and it is wonderful. I'm drinking some right now. Thanks for the recipe.
It's funny you guys uploaded this. I've only been watching your videos for about a year, and I finally decided to make another mead a few days ago since my last one was about 11 months ago. I decided on making viking blood and checked your channel to see how you made yours (after I got the ingredients) and I found your original video from 5 years ago, then I see this video uploaded. I didn't use whole fruit, but I'm trying that Knudsen tart cherry juice you guys used in one of your more recent videos. I'm excited to see how it turns out! You guys have been a great source of information and inspiration.
One of the first videos I caught of CSB and yes, I made this one as an early mead to start with... Maybe not as I'd do it now (for all I've learned from you and others since) but it turned out very well. The mead addiction had taken root.
As an odd aside from this, gotta say you look so much younger since then!
All the best to both of you this year! :)
I love the idea of edited throwbacks like this!
I remember this video. You guys have came a long way. Love it.
Congratulations. That's good news. I've followed you for about three years now. You two are the reason I got into making mead, wine, and beer. I have tried several of ;your recipes and I'm just starting to make up my own. I love your personalities. Thanks for making it so easy to get into this hobby.
Thanks for everything you have done, I've just started brewing late last year due to your videos. I've got several meads blissfully aging at different points in their life, and I'm about to start your Spiced Metheglin today.
Love seeing the changes of the channel and the beard.
Nice to see you take your old content and merge it like you do your new content. Great brew I never seen. Now I am more hipped about trying my newly started brew Cherry Slushy! May us honey to back sweeten if required.
Thank you for writing out the recipe for us. This video is "memorable." Thank you.
New subscriber and just wanted to say you have inspired me to give this a go. Thanks and wish me luck.
Happy to help!
Your timing on this was spot on. I am currently brewing your Viking Blood 2020 and have to remove the dark cherries today. I'm using a 6.5 gallon bucket from Home Brew Ohio in the hopes of ending up with 5 gallons. I made your grocery store mead for my first ever ferment back in November and it was better then any mead I'd had before, and from sneaking a sample two days ago (was checking gravity, poured the sample into a glass) this one is better. Thanks so much for the content, I look forward to more!
I have been watching you guys for over a year now and this spring I finally plan on making two batches of mead. Blueberry cinnamon as well as Vikings mead. Wish me luck! I’m familiar with the science of fermentation but never fermented for alcohol.
Excellent another great video. Most the time when I do my fruit with my honey, I grind it up with my food processor lately I do my best not to purée it down to nothing which I have done which has created other problems with that said, thank thank you for the great video. I plan on making it your way. I hope you both had a great weekend and a great week. Thanks for all the great information.
I loved seeing this! Nice work on editing it and pointing out the corrections (birds, we'll just make them birds).
Well, I wrote you out a long heartfelt thank you for everything since this was the first video that I watched that got me into you guys and after watching the sweet red video I started buying fermentation devices a piece at a time until I could start my own brew, but as I tried to edit my comment UA-cam froze up and deleted it, so I just wanted to say thank you so much for providing me with days of entertainment and until gallons of spirits for me family and friends
You gave me a new hobby to love when I thought that I've lost everything
I consider you guys friends and I think that's amazing considered some people use your platform to cause distrust and strife between people
❤❤❤
Well, I tried too, but UA-cam Just crashes my phone. I'll watch you guys on Roku on my TV is I've told you a hundred times. Love you guys
I tried to EDIT 😢😢😢😢😂😂😂😂
You are the CSB that started my mead!
LOL
Love the retro post... And the beard you started with!! You look better now but that was a great beard!
Wow, it is amazing how much both of you have changed, definitely for the better. You both look younger now.
I was shocked by the giant bucket fermenter😂
The "footnotes" pun was the highlight of my day! Thanks for that.
This video got me into homebrewing also this is my favourite drink tastes great
this is done well, you can see how you have progressed the videos to the current formula (much like a brew recipe). it would be cool to see some behind the scenes "this is how we make videos", maybe even some guest appearances from your cats (me and my wife are also cat people )
Hopefully you guys revisit, making this again, as we get closer to Spring. I still continue to get caught up on many of your vids here as, I literally sit here at my computer and watch 3 or 4 in a row. I continue to be inspired by you guys and, making mental notes for now :-) Be well and BREW ON! Side note Brian, Being of Celtic and German ancestry, I too, either say SLAINTE or PROST! 🙂
We have three versions of this already.
this was the VERY first CS video i ever watched... what 4 or so years ago .. i was hooked
speaking of Vikings, we have an island here in Sweden, Gotland, where they traditionally have a medieval week every year. there they serve Gotlansdricka, a common drink in the 4th-7th centuries. There are a few different varieties, but the main ingredient is juniper berries. is a company that brews a variant in the USA
Here i see you as the first product and later you were fermented out more and with realy adding the Derica flavor your product became better . And between all this you guys always took a reading . And with all the extra suggars ontop you two became sparkling .
I like this video, i think its the first video i watch from CS :D
Yeah, it's back when it was just CS!
@@CitySteadingBrews Yes. That video started me on brewing mead. 5 or 6 years ago ;) haha
You guys have got me experimenting with my meads. My experimentation led to my daughter preferring mead to beer and requiring her boyfriend to learn to brew it. Long story short, my soon to be son in law and I share notes frequently and are making our respective mixed berry melomels for their August wedding. You have a bigger impact than you realize.
Wow, really cool.
@@CitySteadingBrews by the way, My Cherry melomel is a Cherry-Vanilla (1 week on a full vanilla bean in secondary) one of my wife's favorites. the mixed berry is a Costco Mead. (Costco honey, Costco frozen organic 3-berry mix) My daughter and her fiancee's favorite.
I remember this. I was hooked on csb with this one.
I think it was at the end of 2022 when I made the current (at the time) version of your Viking blood recipe. When I had it aged 1 year, the taste had completed changed, and it it almost tasted like prunes to me lol. Which is fine, I like prunes, but it just didn’t taste like cherries anymore to me which was unexpected. It was the first recipe of yours that I followed, and the first big success!
I have bounced video to video ranging from 5 years ago to today… the beard threw me off I really thought I had missed so much time. Then at the end of the video you cleaned up the beard again and I felt the world was normal!
I get bored 😎
I remember you saying somewhat recently you felt the early stuff was cringy and I replied it was not. Haven't watched this video in a long time, but definitely not cringy. Definitely less polished and refined, but still a great and useful video!
Not often with UA-cam channels I can say I was there from the beginning. I can here and can definitely say your channel has been among my best finds on UA-cam, potentially THE best. Only ones that come close are the curd nerd cheese guy and the Makgeolli guy.
Love the beard and hat. Great video too.
This the first video that I've watched and have been fasinated ever since
Awesome to see again
I tend to make larger batches like 3 to 5 gallons at a time. I can't drink that much that quickly, I like to share. I'm going to try this one next. Great video.
A few weeks ago I commented about flooding the receiving vessel with CO2 to protect the precious liquid during such an occasion, even better decisions would be adding a section of tubing to the spout of the fermenter long enough to reach the bottom of the receiving vessel.
BTW i've been making wine since 1991 and have ruined many of batches during my learning curve.
I hope this may help at least one person 😊
DA BEARD!... I found a bottle of liquid tart cherry concentrate at my local store and we are going to do a version of this... SKAL!
I thought you had decided to re-do it as an anniversary thing. this is cool too.
This was the recipe and video that got me into making mead. I made two sub par flavored meads then this was my third and it remains the best I have ever made. I would like to try it again but infuse some chocolate tones to it instead of cinnamon.
This is the original, no cinnamon 😎
I think a Cherry upfront then a hint if Banana & Honey with Cherry making an appearance again at the end would be absolutely astonishing to pull off.
Great Video Sir. I like freezing my fruit at least twice before make my Melomels. Good on you for warning about the water, not a problem for people that have a well like myself.
I love your old look
I Made this suggestion last week glad to see 😂
This is next on my list!
love the beard...lol
When useing Ale Pails, i found Gamma2 Seal Lids are wonderful. There is a ring that snaps on the bucket, and a threaded lid. As you know, pop off the ring to sanitize.
Yes
The "mad scientist concocts a new elixir in his lair
I know the feelin
Only too well
Okay this is quite the situation because I just started a batch of your last recipe for viking blood a couple days ago!
Petition for Brian to grow his beard back
Ehh, no... lol.
I'm definitely going to do this
I just made my first batch of mead and it tastes like grape wine is that a good or bad thing? And no I didn't do any hrdrometer tests like I should because by the time I already had it bottled was when I learned about those tests so next batch I will
I really like Retro CSB. I think if you revisited 10 early recipes/yr we would love it. Like your updated Super Simple Cyser.
The video that started it all.
I remember some when you had a longer beard, so perhaps we'll see them in the future too. 😊
Not sure it got longer than this, lol.
Great to be reminded of your roots!
I have a question please - have you ever used sweets (hard candy) in a mead? I’m tempted to have a go with a butterscotch and wonder when to add the sweets, how many and if they’ll completely dissolve… thanks for your help and continued infotainment! 👍👍
I don't tend to do those, as there's tons of chemicals and other things in those candies much of the time.
@@CitySteadingBrews hadn’t thought of that… Thanks 🙏
I started a cherry tea mead yesterday but instead of frozen or fresh cherries I used sweet cherry nectar. Woke up to a bit of a mess today because I was greedy and filled my 5 litre jug to the brim. This also turned out to be a great sweet cherry ice tea recipe if I were to cut the honey to maybe 1/3. Made a 2l batch of black tea with 4 tea bags + 4 flower herb tea bags, 2l of cherry nectar and enough honey to have gravity reading of 1.12.
Good video - I still mess the cat . Lol
You guys have talked about the foot smell a lot. My first batch of mead smelled like kalamata olives and to this day I haven't been able to figure out why. It was just a straight honey mead with a cup of black tea and some raisins. Have you ever experienced this? And if so do you know why?
It did age out quite a bit but there were still notes of it for sure.
Also, love your guys' content. Been binging through your videos for the last month trying to learn everything I can. I appreciate all the work you put in and how informative you guys make things.
It's probably just youngness. Glad it aged out!
A fun series for you might be to do a mead for every state with ingredients from said state.
I am thinking of doing one, using some leaves from the California Bay Laurel, needles from coastal redwoods, yerba Buena, and bark from a madrone. All local/native ingredients to the state. Of course, honey from each state as well.
It might get repetitive as some of the states wouldn't have wildly different ingredients, but a lot of them would and would allow for a lot of variation.
Careful, those leaves are toxic depending on quantity.
@@CitySteadingBrews California bay laurel is very potent in flavor but totally edible, it's related to both the cinnamon tree and the avocado tree. The yerba Buena and the redwood needles, preferably the tips, also totally safe.
They've been used for thousands of years in medicine and cooking, and still are to this day.
The madrone bark is used for tea and the berries are eaten.
Like the Justinthetrees videos of making the state map out of wood from each state. That would be cool.
Madrone bark makes a pleasantly flavored tea.
My granddaughter saw my Mead fermenting on the shelf and started asking question. Long funny story made short, in the end she asked if I could make a Peanut Butter & Jelly mead. I immediately went to the CS UA-cam site and started searching. I didn't find it so I have to ask, can you make a Peanut Butter & Jelly mead. Obviously, grape jelly.
In theory, but we haven't done it.
By the way - it is an impressing viking beard you've got there.
Thanks.
For a moment I thought how did you grow this great beard so fast😂
Your second Viking blood inspired me for my own many years ago. My first mead/mellomel was a Viking blood.
I had no sanitizer but boiling water. I had no hydrometer but around 1,5kg honey for a 5l fermenter. The Viking blood was delicious. I used also frozen cherries. Now I use juice/nectar (no water) in my Viking blood. I like it and all the people that try like it too.
Thank you for your inspiration and help in the beginning.
PS: I need to say I miss your wife in the beginning 😂 Good you choose to do it together 😊
I made a batch over a year ago. It fermented fast and had the lovely "foot" smell. So I bottled it, corked it, and let it sit for over a year. It turned out really good. I think my mistake was that I didn't let the honey ferment first. I put everything together. But the aging made it so good.
We ferment the fruit with the honey.
@@CitySteadingBrews i might have used the wrong yeast then. I don't know though. It was the "beast". It still turned out good. I'm going to let it sit for another half a year to a year to see how much better it gets.
Yeast won't really do that... it just needed some age, that's all, not uncommon.
Digging the beard.
an oldy but goody
Love your videos. You're growing your Nordic beard I see. Can you please tell me the name of your cooking/baking channel. I'd like to watch that one as well.
It's all plant based food. youtube.com/@plantbasedbistro?si=Fqq9F9SQ6eGF22SQ
@@CitySteadingBrews Thank you!
Loved seeing this throwback after watching a lot of your newer work - I can see the core roots, and places where you've tweaked and improved, and it's satisfying for me to recognize some of the differences and then see the edits confirm it!
I have a question about various additives used for flavoring - particulalry once you have a completed ferment and realize you wished you had more X in it. For example, if you "forgot" to add some tannin/tea, at what point is that too late? If you made a Skeeter Pee with less lemon juice to start (to keep PH more reasonable) and added more lemon later, does it really taste any different? For berries (like with this Viking Mead), if you add them very early and don't take off the skins for weeks/month until a primary ferment is done, does it change the taste? With cider, I seem to recall a video where you mentioned cloves (or was it Allspice?) could overwhelm a cider if left too long...what about Cinnamon sticks?
In sum, I'm just starting and learning, and am only now coming to think I should've done certain things...and I'm curious about situations where one might remove things like berries late, or add other things like tannin very late...how tied to the actual fermentation process vs just the aging timing are the flavors imparted by those various sorts of ingredients?
That's a lot of questions, but...
Tannins can be added anytime.
Adding lemon juice later may taste a little different than if it were fermented, but not a lot.
The berry question... far too much to explain here, and you have options.
Any spice or herb can overwhelm if you use too much or leave it too long.
All of the rest comes down to experience and testing. There are no set answers really to most of that.
VERY helpful- Thank you! As for the berries, I made two 1 gallon meads a few weeks ago and added 3 pounds of frozen berries to each from the onset...and I pureed them (I assumed it would reduce the risk of them expanding in volume and exploding, which was only half correct!). Right now I intend to leave them on until a first racking, since they're even harder to get off than if I'd just mashed them...but part of me wants to leave them on...I just don't see other recipes leaving berries on a must as long as I was envisioning...and being a newcomer, I don't also think I should be intentionally doing anything too pioneering. LOL
You can leave them until first racking, just make sure they stay wet.
I recently found out about a thing in norse mythology called the mead of poetry. It's where they made mead from the blood of some guy. It made me think of you guys. I assume that's where the idea of Viking blood came from.
Well... I doubt they used real blood as it coagulates and gets nasty but hey, anything is possible!
haha true but mead from blood is still probably one of the least crazy things in norse mythology
Throwback to shaggy Brian!!
Hello! Have you ever tried making a matcha mead? Love your videos!
Nope. It would be very much like any tea though.
I wonder if a persimmon mead would taste good? I painted a couples house and the husband made his own wine and they asked if we (my brother-in-law and I) like wine I said I would try it and they gave us a bottle of Homebrew persimmon wine and it was good but I'm a tequila guy. My brother still has his I couldn't wait and drank it that weekend. I would try it myself but I don't have the patience to wait. Would it be hard for you guys to source persimmons where ever you are?
Stop petting....What????
That was fun to watch!
My peeves. 😎
@@CitySteadingBrews LOL
Last batch I made with champagne yeast. Was so dry it was bitter 😅
👍
Great video! I have a question if you want to help me: i followed a few simple recipes (traditional and pumpkin spce) and got the same result after the first fermentation. It always taste very bitter. Sg is around 1.100 with lalvin d47. Is it possible that i should stop the fermentation earlier then 1 bubble every 20 sec? And how to balance that bitterness?
Rack when it's finished. Bubbles don't mean a lot. If you need to, sweeten the mead. ua-cam.com/video/-HFqEL5rCK0/v-deo.htmlsi=YdMD5T4fSRbc17lC
Congrats of being self-employed!
Thanks!
I've got a 2nd rack of Viking Blood Mead myself brewing at the moment. Also, a recipe of my own crafting based off of multiple resources. Looking forward to finally getting it to bottle and then site for another month before I consider it done. I'm curious, in this batch here, did you back sweeten it?
Well... this was a strange one and not all of it got recorded. You see, we thought we were quitting the channel, lol. Anyway, there was more juice and more cherries added in the end. Honestly, this is not our best recipe. The later versions of Viking Blood were far better!
Great re-boot. Did you add any nutrients to the must during fermentation?
Nope.
I have my brewing setup on a pretty short shelf and my airlock is too tall. Is it possible to use a one-way check valve?
Can't say I have tried. Maybe just run tubing into a mason jar of liquid?
Can you provide the ingredients list please? I think I would like to try this myself. Additionally, I know there is variation with yeast but all I have is QA23 on hand. Would that work well instead of the KIV-1116? I can order some new yeast (KIV-1116) if needed, but figured I would use what I have if it wouldn't hurt anything.
We will add the list.
Sure, that yeast will be fine.
Not all heroes wear capes!@@CitySteadingBrews
Is the sugar content of my apple juice sufficient for fermentation, as my refractometer reads 17 before the fermenting process, or should I consider adding more sugar to my cider?
Is that brix? If so that is about 1.064 sg and can definitely make plenty of alcohol for ciders.
@@CitySteadingBrews it's brix, thank you for your response 😊
You link your bucket? Or link one on Amazon if the one you have is not available there already please. I’m having a hard time finding one under $40 that’s decent :/
amzn.to/4bjuVA5
Watching! I think you guys forgot to grade it so I`m guessing a 7? Bee keeper making wine like Jesus but 5-6 gallons at a time!
We didn't do scores back then.
Refer to Foot Notes.... LoL
I made a cherry bourbon meade that came out PHENOMENAL. Started the same way except I used canned cherries. Then racked and added a stick of oak. Racked again and added some bourbon cherries that had been soaked in Bulleit for 2.5 months. Also, instead of clear water, I used half the boiled oak water -- gave it a little more bourbon-y taste!
I'm going to show you how to make REAL Vikings blood.
First, take one "Viking"
No, wait a minute, wrong recipe - that's for another time !!!!
6 years goes fast!!!
Hard to believe this was 2018
:)
I have to say i loved the beard from the beginning i wish i could grow a beard im 39 still nope
Quick!
Ran out of yeast nutrient and about to pitch.
I won’t be able to get more nutrient soon.
Best alternative for a nutrient! I’ve come across some threads that suggested boiling bread yeast (which I have plenty of) and using this as a nutrient.
Pros/cons? Fact/fiction?
You could do that. Or just omit if you had to. It should still ferment. There was none in this recipe.
@@CitySteadingBrews awesome! Thanks for the help! Btw I love your channel, I’ve learned a lot from you guys. Keep up the great work!
Have you thought about putting cherries in second dairy to bring out the cherries flavor out better?
It doesn't actually change anything. ua-cam.com/video/EzaMkTp5B_0/v-deo.htmlsi=m_EBzqEDyWhGYcNH
Hi, this comment has nothing to do with the video. Due to a happy accident, I learned something I would like to share. Recently, after taking a several year break from brewing, I decided to make my wife some blueberry wine. thought to my self I t has been a long time since I made wine, but heck I have made so many in the past... So , full speed ahead right? Things didn't go well at first. I had an unfortunate miss reading of my original gravity. I pitched 1 packet of 71b in a 5 gallon fermenter. About this time I realized my OG was far less than I wanted. About that time I realized the first of my errors. Well I thought at least my error on OG was that the ABV was going to be really low.... it could have been much worse. If I had read thing wrong the other way fermentation might not ever start. So I says to myself, I can just turn this into a step feed. No problemo. 2 days later no activity. Uh-oh, now what? well I pitched another packet of 71b. Day later nothing!?! I figured I had some bad yeast. I am sorry this was so verbose. Here comes the moral to the story: So I figured , bad yeast, what to do? I thought okay bust out some ec1118. However what if it is bad too? Panic was beginning to set in. I thought back to the day of yeast hydration. Pitch the yeast in some water, look for activity. That is what I did and had a happy ferment started in a few hours. So, while yeast suppliers do no recommend hydration as necessary, it is a test for yeast viability. I hope this helps everyone who has had questionable yeast performance. Happy Brewing Eveybody!
Brian looks older in the beginning of this video, even though he was younger...
You heard it folks. Drinking makes you young. Hahaha
Heh