TUPELO • The newly installed gleaming copper and stainless still brewing at Queen’s Reward Meadery will be making mead brandy one day.
But for now, it’ll be making something much more needed – hand sanitizer.
“We were going to buy a still anyway – just not this early – but now that we have the equipment, we’re going to make hand sanitizer,” said Jeri Carter, the owner of Mississippi’s first and only meadery.
Jeri Carter, owner of Queen's Reward, turns the power switch on the panel of brewing still that will allow them to make 60-gallon batches of hand sanitizer. • Adam Robison
Queen’s Reward opened two years ago, making and selling award-winning wines made from honey.
Honey, water and yeast are the basic components in mead, but for the hand sanitizer it’s ethanol, glycerin and hydrogen peroxide.
Mead production won’t stop completely, but Carter said the priority will be making the sanitizer.
While the honey and yeast take four-six weeks to ferment, it takes about a week for a sugar and water mixture to ferment and change to ethanol. Then it takes only about four hours to make a batch of sanitizer.
“We went to Sam’s the other day and bought all this sugar and they were wondering what we were making,” Jeri said with a laugh.
“I was talking about it with Geoff, and you know, we said we have half the process down where we make the alcohol,” Jeri said. “We just didn’t have the distillation part. So he says, ‘I wonder if we can get a still, and we can do the distillation part?'”
Usually, stills are custom-made and take a little time, sometimes up to a year or more.
“We started calling on a Monday morning at 8 a.m. two weeks ago, and the first place we call, the guy says he actually has a still in stock,” Jeri said. “He was headed to a trade show but it got cancelled because of the coronavirus. He said, ‘I’ll sell it to you, but you have to send me the money first because other people are looking to buy it.'”
So the Carters were prepared to wire the money over to the still maker in Nebraska.
But there was another vital piece of equipment that was needed: something to make steam to heat the still. As luck would have it, the gentleman from whom they were buying the still happened to have a steam plant that was ordered by another customer who no longer needed it. So the Carters got all the equipment they needed with just one phone call.
The equipment was shipped last Monday via truck and it arrived Tuesday. The Carters then called their electrician and plumber, then scrambled to get the right permits from the city and state.
“Just to get a federal permit to do this usually takes a year or longer, and they got it to us in four working days,” Jeri said. “The state could only issue a permit after a federal permit was given, and it was fast-tracked.”
By Friday, all permits were in hand, and the first fermentation process started with the sugar water mixture.
“When it finishes fermenting it’ll be about 20% ABV (alcohol by volume), and when we finish the distillation it’ll be about 90% ABV,” Jeri said.
Each batch will yield about 25 gallons of hand sanitizer.
“The slowest part of the process will be the fermenting, which takes about a week. But then it only takes about four hours to make the finished product,” Jeri said. “We’ll just keep refiling the tanks as fast as we can.”
The sanitizer will be sold in 8 ounce bottled for $8 each, with a limit of two per person. Customers also can bring in their own bottles to fill at 75 cents per ounce, with a maximum of two 8-ounce bottles or 16 ounces.
For updates and questions, visit Queen’s Reward Meadery on Facebook.
https://msbusiness.com/2020/04/queens-reward-switching-from-mead-to-hand-sanitizer/
Honey, water and yeast are the basic components in mead, but for the hand sanitizer it’s ethanol, glycerin and hydrogen peroxide.
Mead production won’t stop completely, but Carter said the priority will be making the sanitizer.
While the honey and yeast take four-six weeks to ferment, it takes about a week for a sugar and water mixture to ferment and change to ethanol. Then it takes only about four hours to make a batch of sanitizer.
“We went to Sam’s the other day and bought all this sugar and they were wondering what we were making,” Jeri said with a laugh.
LENDING A HAND
Carter and her husband, Geoff, wanted to help with the coronavirus response in some way and had heard of some craft beer makers switching production to make hand sanitizer.“I was talking about it with Geoff, and you know, we said we have half the process down where we make the alcohol,” Jeri said. “We just didn’t have the distillation part. So he says, ‘I wonder if we can get a still, and we can do the distillation part?'”
Usually, stills are custom-made and take a little time, sometimes up to a year or more.
“We started calling on a Monday morning at 8 a.m. two weeks ago, and the first place we call, the guy says he actually has a still in stock,” Jeri said. “He was headed to a trade show but it got cancelled because of the coronavirus. He said, ‘I’ll sell it to you, but you have to send me the money first because other people are looking to buy it.'”
So the Carters were prepared to wire the money over to the still maker in Nebraska.
But there was another vital piece of equipment that was needed: something to make steam to heat the still. As luck would have it, the gentleman from whom they were buying the still happened to have a steam plant that was ordered by another customer who no longer needed it. So the Carters got all the equipment they needed with just one phone call.
The equipment was shipped last Monday via truck and it arrived Tuesday. The Carters then called their electrician and plumber, then scrambled to get the right permits from the city and state.
“Just to get a federal permit to do this usually takes a year or longer, and they got it to us in four working days,” Jeri said. “The state could only issue a permit after a federal permit was given, and it was fast-tracked.”
By Friday, all permits were in hand, and the first fermentation process started with the sugar water mixture.
“When it finishes fermenting it’ll be about 20% ABV (alcohol by volume), and when we finish the distillation it’ll be about 90% ABV,” Jeri said.
Each batch will yield about 25 gallons of hand sanitizer.
“The slowest part of the process will be the fermenting, which takes about a week. But then it only takes about four hours to make the finished product,” Jeri said. “We’ll just keep refiling the tanks as fast as we can.”
The sanitizer will be sold in 8 ounce bottled for $8 each, with a limit of two per person. Customers also can bring in their own bottles to fill at 75 cents per ounce, with a maximum of two 8-ounce bottles or 16 ounces.
For updates and questions, visit Queen’s Reward Meadery on Facebook.
https://msbusiness.com/2020/04/queens-reward-switching-from-mead-to-hand-sanitizer/
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