Homemade Mead Recipe and Tutorial
Mead is a wine made from honey and water that has been fermented. The earliest evidence of mead traces back to 7000 BC. Its argued that mead may actually be the worlds oldest fermented beverage. Seeing that mead only requires honey, water and warmth I happen to believe that mead through a series of coincidences came to be. Much like cheese was a happy accident mead, beer and wine are probably no different. Mead has always been synonymous with not only the vikings, and Beowulf but romance as well. Tall tales and terms we use today still refer to this love potion. The term "honeymoon" is actually said to refer to the ritual of providing newlyweds with one months supply of mead, this ritual of drinking mead after a marriage was said to encourage conception and happiness. (Hmm? Yes, yes it does.) Honey lips? Well honey on a maidens lips just makes her just that much sweeter right? Honey -equals- Yummy. Honey Wine ... Find your moderation button and press it. I love, love, love mead, but it will get you into bed trouble. I enjoy regular meads best when they are diluted or put into a cocktail, pineapple juice and ginger ale work great.
Mead like any table wine may vary in alcohol content from 8% to a high of 18%. The alcoholic content of your beverage is varied upon how much sugar or honey you have added to your brew. The more sugar, the more food for the yeast to consume and turn to alcohol. Like anything else you would make homemade the homebrewing process insures quality control, and the amount of ingredients you use. If you find that wines give you migraines often its not just the alcoholic content but the sulfates that are added. Sulfites are compounds naturally found, but are often added to wines to prevent oxidation and spoilage. If wine goes sour, you have vinegar. Winemakers add sulfates as product insurance. To some degree all wines contain sulfites naturally. I've read plenty of contradictions as to whether its red or white that are the bigger offenders. What is obvious is that any added sulfites can trigger a much more severe allergic reaction, IE: migraines. (which I know a lot about) More is more. Sulfites or campden tablets are added to sterilize any bacteria in the must, additionally people add it previous to bottling to insure fermentation is ended. This kills everything that is still alive, its insurance for a shelf stable, retail ready product. It also prevents blow outs with bottling. (I will explain that later.) In the beginning I seriously sweated bullets over sterility. In ancient times one would spit in the brew bucket to get those germs rolling. Although I don't spit in my booze I have to say I've calmed down a lot. I don't like the idea of consuming a "sterilizing agent."
Most mead and simple wines you really don't need an entourage of helping hands. I started homebrewing with pectic enzymes, tanins, sulfates etc. For example acid blend is a commercially produced mixture that varies the taste of your finished product, much like adding lemon juice to fish to balance the taste, adding acid blend counteracts aggressive sweetness. I sometimes use orange juice concentrate or fresh citrus juice. (Always be sure you NEVER buy juices, mash or concentrates with additives) Yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, well they are exactly as they sound. They are oompf for the yeast. Natural yeast oompf- bee pollen or a hand full of organic raisins. Pectin the substance that is naturally found in fruits, it is used to gel and set jams. This isn't ideal in your wine, it causes a haze. Pectin enzyme is added to clarify and diminish the cloudiness pectin causes. Tannins are naturally found in tea and fruits, adding tannins helps with longevity and tartness. Its all a matter of your comfort with your brewing process. As I began homebrewing I used the additives as insurance. Then slowly weaned myself off to a point where making wine to me now is second nature. I find it less daunting than doing the dishes or mopping the floors, it's easier than 98% of what I do. I absolutely recommend buying a few books, and starting slow. This not only helps prevent big mistakes, but it really does build your confidence. My first 3 batches of mead were one gallon batches. I used this book
as my bible. I used every suggested additive.
as my bible. I used every suggested additive. 
Much like everything else in my home, most of my self-sustainability stems from my core desire to be cheap and efficient. I stopped buying the additives, therefore I stopped using them. A long the line somewhere I became dumb struck by the quality of my homemade goods. They are not only better quality but healthier as well. Young, quick wines or short meads are much like kombucha or organic raw vinegars health wise. Quick wine can be as easy as tossing some sugar and juice in a jar and waiting a week or two, or as complex as ordering a few gallons of honey and a few cases of bottles. Short wines are naturally acidic and probiotic by nature, they aid in your digestion and they are packed with good enzymes, good bacteria. In America beer is pasteurized. (like everything else) Pasteurizing diminishes not only the enzymes but it severely changes the flavor as well. The life I'm sharing with my family and friends is a labor of love. Homebrewing can be time consuming, but it's no burden by any means. You spend an hour sterilizing your equipment and mixing up your must. (Your juice to be fermented) You stow it away, you drink it. So here it is world, my introduction to homebrewing. Everything a beginner needs to know. Wassail!
Varieties Of Mead
There are countless, I mean ENDLESS varieties of mead and fruit wine. True aficionados can go on, and on and on forever with weird names of mead varieties. I will spare you of the wubba wubba varietal snobbery galore. Here's the gist- You can make ANY type of mead with whatever fruit you want. I've read about banana's, chili peppers, potatoes herbs you name it. I prefer flavoring alcohols with savory ingredients. Bacon, jalapeno, parsley, these things in vodka make for a great flavor component in cocktails. (Bacon & Jalapeno Bloody Mary anyone?) Do I want 6 gallons of spicy chili mead? No. The longer I do this the more of a purist I become. Fruit varieties that I have tried are orange, apple, spiced apple, blueberry and cherry. Other varieties I've made- Buckwheat (honey), vanilla & pear, and of course standard sack mead. You can change the flavor profile by simply using different honeys. Buckwheat honey is dark, rich and earthy much like molasses. Brewing mead with it results in a robust tasting mead that could be compared to a stout. Orange blossom honey is aromatic, clover honey is mild and readily available. Use what you've got. If you don't like buckwheat honey, you won't like buckwheat mead.
You can make your meads and wines with a totaling amount per weight of Honey, brown sugar, sugar, molasses, or maple syrup. Of course if you have less honey or none at all, or more sugar than honey its not exactly a mead. Typically you will want 2-4 pounds of honey per 1 gallon of water. A standard, traditional sack mead will be 3 pounds per gallon, a sweet dessert mead you will go for 4 pounds. Less honey, less alcoholic content, less sweetness.
Brackett or Braggot- Mead made with malt and Hops (Meady-Beer)
Cyser- Mead made with apples - (hard cider)
Metheglin- Spiced mead, I've used cloves, cinnamon and allspice successfully.
Pyment- A mead made with white or red grapes (wine with honey)
Short Mead- A quick mead that is young and not aged and clarified. This is usually fizzy and still carbonated from the gasses naturally released in fermentation. Much like Kombucha this is ripe with enzymes but tastes more sour, and appears to be more cloudy.
Mead or Fruit Wine?
Just like you can make any mead with any fruit, (or none at all) you can make any fruit wine without honey. Regular wine is just grapes, sugar and water. Substitute sugar, raw, white or brown for honey. This is ideal when using bold flavors such as cranberries. If you won't be able to taste the honey, there is no use in spending a small fortune for it. If you live where blackberries grow like weeds, you can make a seriously awesome wine with just blackberries and sugar. (and yeast) Three to six pounds of fruit per gallon, this varies according to what fruit your using. To REALLY get a peach flavor you will need six or more pounds of peaches. In most cases using fruit is an expensive task that really isn't worth doing in large batches.
- Sack Mead, or Cyser -
The Recipe
I prefer sack mead, and cyser. Cyser is a hard cider made with honey that is much like apple brandy or apple jack. Sack mead is a pure form of mead that is very tasty. The only difference is whether or not you use water, or cider. The good news is that this is the easiest way to go about making mead. I've added cinnamon sticks ( 2 per gallon) and cloves (3-5 per gallon) to my cysers. I like the spice but find that its just as easy to spice it as I would like per serving. Like gluhwein, or hot toddies you can sweeten and spice it according to your occasion by gently simmering it with oranges, spices and even more honey.
You WILL need- An air lock, and a jug or two. A glass one gallon jar with a rubber stopper and air lock will work. These are available at homebrewing supply stores online, and possibly in a town near you. The jug, the plug and the lock will cost around $10-$25 depending on how much overhead the shop demands. In most cases shopping online is cheaper. In a pinch I have seen that people brew with milk jugs as vessels, and rubber balloons as airlocks.
A warm environment- Your mead will thrive at 60 to 80 degrees. A warm place during the first several weeks is ideal. A cool place for aging long term. Purchase one of those little $8 portable thermostats and move it throughout your house. Put it in a kitchen cabinet, a bedroom closet where ever you can put your mead. If it stays in the happy zone fairly consistently then you can put your mead there. During winter there is no room in my house habitable for mead. During summer it often gets too hot. Plan according to your climate.
Stupid Simple One Gallon Recipe-
128 ounces, 4 liters (standard wine bottles), or 10 beer bottles
3 pounds of honey1 gallon of water or cider
1 packet of wine yeast, (in a pinch bread yeast works for small batches)
Orange juice concentrate or the juice from 2-3 oranges, A hand full of raisins
1. Sterilize your tools and jars- Scrub down your working surface, your pot and your fermentation jar. I use a solution of bleach and water. Oxidizers and fancy cleansers are available but not necessary. Be sure to rinse everything thoroughly.
2. Prepare your Must- You can boil your honey and water to sterilize it. I use the no-heat method. Just mix and dump. I only warm my honey to help convince it to get out of its jar. I use warm water to help get out any excess honey remaining in the tub. You want to mix your honey with enough water to reach just under one gallon. Add a hand full of raisins to this.
3. Feed your yeast- This can be done before prepping your honey mixture. At least 15 minutes ahead or up to 24 hours in advance. Combine warm water, orange juice concentrate or orange juice, some sugar and your yeast. I use an old pickle jar that has been sterilized. Shake, shake, shake. This gives your yeast some oxygen.
4. Add yeast to your must- When making a one gallon jug you can simply toss your stuff into the jar. Plug with a stopper and shake, shake, shake. This gives your yeast some oxygen. For large batches I use a long handled spoon and whip, stir, slash, dance, stir. It needs air. Some brewers recommend opening your brew bucket and stirring once or twice a day for the first 10 days. I don't do this. It's a recipe for disaster and frankly its a pain. Every time that lid is opened you need to sterilize anything that comes in contact with your wine. Every time the lid opens you are open to even a single fruit fly contaminating your batch. I'm not a stickler for a sterile finished product, but at this stage in the game you can end up with vinegar.
5. Racking- Racking is fancy pants for transferring. You will want to strain, or simply transfer your wine to another vessel to get it off of the yeast and/or fruit sediment. Using a siphon (pet stores sell aquarium stuff for 30 cents a foot) transfer your wine into a sterile jar. Place the air lock on and age until its clear.
6. Wait- For aging mead expect an average of 2-3 months. A short wine is technically drinkable as soon as the 10 day period is up. Really good mead I've found gets best after at least a one year waiting period. You don't want to wait a year to drink one gallon of hooch, therefore I started making 6 gallons a time.
Drink Up!
: The Knitty Gritty, and Everything else beyond the simplicity :
- Yeast- 1 packet of yeast is enough for up to 5 gallons. The variety of yeast you choose is up to you. For this recipe champagne or D-47 works great. For wines with red fruits Montrachet works well. Blueberries, blackberries, cherries, strawberries etc. Peach and strawberry wines can be made with either Montrachet -or- champagne yeast.
- water or apple cider- UN-PASTEURIZED, chemical free juice or water. Additives will KILL your yeast. If you have city water that is heavily chlorinated consider buying bottled water.
- Tanin- Pectic Enzyme- Yeast Nutrients- Yeast energizer- Use according to varying recipes or to manufacturers directions. There's usually a max out, 1/4 teaspoon per blah blah gallons.
Using the Hydrometer- Sometimes they come with a plastic tube, sometimes its sold separately. Sterilize both, siphon must or wine into the vessel and gently drop the hydrometer into the liquid. It reads much like a thermometer. Read the hydrometer at the liquids lowest point.
Air Locks- They can be filled with water, I fill mine with vodka. Vodka is a clear and flavorless liquid that doesn't really evaporate. If it gets sucked into the wine it does not risk bacteria contamination, and when using vodka I feel more confident that I don't have to check things as often.
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| This is Sediment, You move your mead off of this to prevent an off flavor. For long aging you can rack your mead up to three times. |
Heating & Sterilizing your must
Most wine makers suggest heating and sterilizing the honey/fruit mixture by boiling your water and honey. This kills any bacteria you may have missed during your prep. I use the no-heat method, I always have actually. If you are using raw honey it has natural enzymes and bacteria that are beneficial to you. Maybe not beneficial to the wine, but it is a measured risk I take. If you boil and sterilize raw honey you have a honey that is no different than the honey you buy in a mega-mart. Its enzyme and bacteria free. If you are using a store bought honey, its already seriously pasteurized so boiling the hell out of it more is just over kill. If you've ever cooked or frozen strawberries you can attest to the taste difference. This also applies when making wine. Boiling fruit changes its flavor, most often using clean fresh fruit works best. Pouring hot must (water and honey) over fresh fruit is about as far as I would go with sterilizing.
Campden tablets further sterility insurance. They are added to a finished must and allowed to rest 24 hours. Do not add yeast with the tablet, the tablets job is to kill. You don't want dead yeast.
-Bottling-
To me bottling is the hugest pain in this process. If you are making a one gallon batch you might find that having a party and showing off your mead making skills is a better use of your time than spending an hour cleaning and bottling 4 bottles of mead. If your looking to get into the big games really do your homework and buy a few books. At the bottom I will link resources I've used and loved. I can't recommend these books highly enough.
Sterile bottles, double lipped beer bottles or double lipped wine bottles, twist off's are a no-no
beer caps, or sterilized corks
Once your wine is ready-steady and sure to go in bottles sterilize bottles and caps or bottles and corks. As I mentioned earlier, this is where more sulfites are often added. Adding sulfites 24 hours prior to bottling insures that the yeast is dead. If you put live-wine into wine bottles they can pop, over flow and make a mess. (This doesn't really happen with beer bottles, it will just carbonate itself.) For corks you will want to soak them 24 hours in advance to soften them. Do this by covering your corks with hot water. Cover and rest them overnight. Old beer bottles from Stella, Amstel, Sam Adams and a few other beers have regular double lipped bottles. Twist off bottles will not seal. I'm not a snob, they just wont seal. You can find a smaller cork or smaller cap but standard caps and corks work for standard double lipped bottles.
Use your siphon and a bottling hose to fill each bottle. Do this away from pets and children, do this when you are feeling patient. Using a capper or corker seal a cap around each bottle, or insert a softened cork into each wine bottle. I have this thing, it my friends does both. Yeah buddy!
-Carbonation-
For a fizzy, carbonated mead or wine you will add sugar or more honey before bottling. Use special champagne bottles and closures or beer bottles and caps. If you have a keg set up you can use a soda keg and artificially carbonate using your CO2. (That's what I do.)
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| If your airlock fills up, with overflow simply pour out some of the scuzz. This is actually a good sign that your yeast is lively. |
-Troubleshooting-
A hydrometer- This is useful for determining the alcohol content of your wine. Measure the specific gravity before adding your yeast and after fermentation to show alcohol content. You will want to start with a hydrometer reading of 1.085 to 1.125. The lower the number, the dryer the wine. A finished wine should measure about 0.100 points lower than when you started. This is useful when making larger batches, trouble shooting and tweaking recipes, not essential for making a one gallon jug if you follow the 3:1 ratio. (3 pounds of honey, 1 gallon of liquid) The directions that come with the hydrometer are useful. I keep mine nearby because I'm awful with math and remembering how it works. (the starting minus the finishing = the percentage ... or something like that.)
- Your airlock should begin "blipping" or bubbling rapidly, no longer than 4 days after you have mixed everything up. Once it has slowed to 1 blip per minute you are ready for racking.
- If your air lock is not blipping at all, or rapidly bubbling you may have not added enough sugar or food to your yeast, or there might be air contamination.
- If you measure your specific gravity with a hydrometer before adding your yeast you know where you are starting. If your air lock is not bubbling after 7 days, if something smells bitter, if for any reason you are really un-sure of your process you can measure the gravity to insure it is fermenting along. As the sugars are consumed the gravity will drop, if your not making progress this measure will tell you. You can add more sugar and yeast.
I have had batches where testing the gravity gave me piece of mind and helped me to solve my problems. One major factor is oxygen. I used a food grade bucket that was not intended for brewing, it allowed air into my wine. I had to pitch more yeast and really pack it back up. Buying my $17 brewing bucket has done good by me. Every now and then you will have to replace seals, or vessels entirely to insure it is airtight.
Resources
Fermentation Vessels-
You can find glass carboys and fermentation buckets at any brew supply resource. Many antique stores and thrift stores often have glass carboys. You can never tell how old those are, if they contain lead etc. Also they are pretty damn heavy. Fill a 5 gallon glass jar with liquid and you have one heavy jug. Drop that, shatter it you have a bloody boozy mess. I use the Better Bottle's P.E.T Carboys, I especially love the one with the spigot. They are BPA free and you wont cut an artery if you drop one.
Bottling-
I've gotten bottles from friends and family, Grolsch bottles are GREAT for mead making but it is very expensive beer. You can buy these bottles and replace the seals. I like bottles I can use again and again. I've found the cheapest place to purchase wine bottles was Cabela's. They sell them reasonably cheap and during the holidays they offer free shipping. Wine bottles are nice but rarely do I have anyone to drink a bottle with.
You can find glass carboys and fermentation buckets at any brew supply resource. Many antique stores and thrift stores often have glass carboys. You can never tell how old those are, if they contain lead etc. Also they are pretty damn heavy. Fill a 5 gallon glass jar with liquid and you have one heavy jug. Drop that, shatter it you have a bloody boozy mess. I use the Better Bottle's P.E.T Carboys, I especially love the one with the spigot. They are BPA free and you wont cut an artery if you drop one.
Bottling-
I've gotten bottles from friends and family, Grolsch bottles are GREAT for mead making but it is very expensive beer. You can buy these bottles and replace the seals. I like bottles I can use again and again. I've found the cheapest place to purchase wine bottles was Cabela's. They sell them reasonably cheap and during the holidays they offer free shipping. Wine bottles are nice but rarely do I have anyone to drink a bottle with.
William's Brewing.com I buy my beer kits here. Its beer making for dummies. They also carry everything else you need for home brewing.
Beer-Wine.com I'm pretty sure this is where I purchased most of my start up needs. They also carry everything you need for homebrewing, in addition they have friendly customer service that's helped me.
The Pet Store- Tubing, siphons, thermometer labels, gadgets, etc. can be found at the pet store or hardware stores. Be wary of hardware stores, often they sell tubes that are not safe for food.
-The star of the show, Honey-
Bulk honey can be found locally from any apiary. I have found that truly local to the Pocono's is not affordable for mead making. For three pounds of honey it ranges from $18 and upwards. (Again this all comes down to how severely your local business owner likes to bend you over.) I really do support local, local, local but only when I can afford it. I really dislike being taken advantage of. Honey sold at big box stores currently runs about $7 per three pounds, it's not rich with nutrients but it does the job. This is ideal especially when your making flavored meads because it is not the front and center taste. It has help from fruit or seasonings. When your using just honey, only honey buy the best you can afford.
Draper's Super Bee Apiaries, (Millerton, PA)
They have provided the honey for many batches of my mead. I ordered 6 gallons in bulk and had extraordinary results.
BOOKS- These three books are tremendously wonderful. I suggest taking baby steps with your brewing process. I started with Wild Wines & meads, then went onto the compleat meadmaker, and finally my dad gave me his old edition of The complete joy of home brewing.
BOOKS- These three books are tremendously wonderful. I suggest taking baby steps with your brewing process. I started with Wild Wines & meads, then went onto the compleat meadmaker, and finally my dad gave me his old edition of The complete joy of home brewing.
