What is mead?
• Honey wine – a beverage with a long
history
Mead can be:
• Sweet
• High in alcohol
• Made with fruit or
spices
• Carbonated
• Dry
• Mildly alcoholic
• Made from honey only
• Still
Ingredients
• Honey– Varietals vs. blends
• Water
• Yeast– Wine vs beer yeast
– Liquid yeast vs dry
• [optional] fruit/herbs/spices
• [optional] water adjustment– Usually for pH, sometimes for hardness
• [optional] yeast nutrient
Equipment needed
• 5 – 8 gallon pot
• Bucket or glass carboy for fermentation
• Airlock and drilled stopper
• Vinyl tubing to transfer the mead
• 2-2.5 cases of bottles– long neck, not screw top
– Swing top
– Wine bottles
• Bottle capper for long neck bottles or a corker for wine bottles
• [optional] chiller to cool down the must for the yeast
• [optional] hydrometer to figure out alcoholic strength
• [optional] thermometer (to cover at least 100-200°F)
Alternative processes
• Classic: Set and forget it
– Easy, takes time
• Staggered nutrient additions
– More effort, quicker end result
Classic process overview
• Heat water (no heat is also a choice)
• Add honey
• Cool down the must*
• Add yeast
• Ferment
• Bottle
• Aging
• Drink!*Unfermented
wine
Key points
• Sanitation is a big deal – look at your
process for places to be cleaner
• Bacteria can spoil your mead, creating off
flavors (they may taste bad, but they won’t
make you sick)
• Fermentation is a race between yeast and
bacteria – make sure the yeast win!
Yeast management
• Pitching is adding the yeast
• Yeast need:
– Sugar & oxygen
– But also nitrogen and other nutrients
• Yeast like:
– A steady temperature, slightly acidic environment,
some trace chemicals not found in honey
• Pitching more yeast helps fermentation go
quicker
Yeast
• Increase the amount of yeast you pitch by
making a yeast starter
• Improve the nutrient profile by using malt extract
in your yeast starter or by using yeast nutrients
when you add the yeast
• Improve the yeast’s environment by acidifying
the water (using natural citrus or adding acid –
citric or malic acid are common)
• Oxygenate the must after it’s cooled
Yeast selection
• Wine yeasts can handle a higher alcohol
environment
• Different yeasts are better at eating sugars
– e.g. a champagne yeast will scavenge most
sugars, leaving a drier mead
• Liquid yeasts are likely to be purer strains
• Dry yeasts tend to be sold with greater
yeast volume
Heating (optional)
• Goal– sanitation and dissolving the honey
• Boiling vs pasteurizing– Boiling will drive off aromatics and lose some honey character
– Boil: allow the water to boil, add honey, bring to a boil again for 5-10 minutes
– Pasteurize: allow the water to boil, add honey, make sure the mix is around 160°F
• Have the pot off the heat when you add the honey to avoid scorching it on the bottom
Chilling
• Need to cool things down so the yeast can
be added
• The quicker the must is chilled, the less
chance for bacteria to get in.
• Yeast like the temp to be 60-75°F
• Can use a chiller (copper tubing with hose
connections) to quickly get the must to
pitching temperature
Fermentation
• 70-75°F is a good temperature
• Fermentation may take a while (several months is not unusual)
• It’s done when there’s no sign of activity – bubbles or foam on top
– Quick bubbles in the airlock
– Hydrometer readings stay unchanged (and are close to where you expect the final gravity to be)
• Transferring (or racking) the mead during this process is a good idea (as stuff collects on the bottom)
Bottling and aging
• Make sure that the mead is done fermenting!!!!!
• Bottle directly to have a still mead
• For a carbonated mead, add a little less than ¼ cup sugar to the mead before bottling
• Very young meads can have some harsh flavors that will age out
• Sweeter meads tend to be drinkable earlier than dry meads
• Allow the mead to age at least a couple of months more before trying it
• Most meads improve over time and often reach their peak at 2-5 years
Problems
• Stuck fermentation– Mead isn’t fermenting, but the specific gravity is much higher than expected
– Add more yeast with yeast nutrient
• Bottling too soon: highly carbonated mead– Very dangerous!
– If a batch seems to be picking up too much carbonation in the bottle, chill the bottles. In the worst cases, empty the bottles into your fermenter and give the batch some more time to finish
• Bad flavors– May age out, give it time.
– Sour or medicinal flavors may indicate bacterial spoilage. Be more careful with sanitation in the future
Recipe1 – Sweet raspberry
melomel• Ingredients
– 13 # honey
– WYeast liquid sweet mead yeast
– 5 # raspberries
• Process– Pasteurize honey in water
– Chill and pitch yeast
– Freeze raspberries
– When fermentation has slowed, thaw raspberries and add them to the fermenter.
– After 1 week, transfer the mead to another container, leaving the raspberry mush behind
– Bottle when fermentation is complete
Recipe – traditional dry mead
• Ingredients– 12 # honey
– Champagne yeast
• Process– Pasteurize honey in water
– Chill and pitch yeast
– Transfer the mead to another container as needed to remove sediment
– Bottle when fermentation is complete
• Starting Gravity – 1.089
• Finishing Gravity – 1.010
Resources• Look online for information, recipes, and shopping
• http://www.talisman.com/mead/meadfaq.html is a good
primer
• Got Mead: http://www.gotmead.com
• Ken Schramm – The Compleat Meadmaker
• Contact me with questions:
– Jester Goldman
– 231-7684
