Making Good Mead

I have experience making mead, beer, wine, brandy, whiskey, etc. Mead is my specialty. If you follow my process, then you can make the best mead possible.

First, you need good honey. Select a dark flavorful RAW honey that you like. Wildflower honeys tend to be good. In my opinion, a readily available varietal honey that makes a good mead is blackberry blossom. Mix 16 pounds of the raw honey (unheated and no sulfites) with spring water for a total volume of 5 gallons. A CRITICAL STEP is to aerate the water. You don't want free oxygen in the must after fermentation begins. But the yeast do require oxygen at first. I add pure oxygen. However, there are simpler ways. You can add the water via a wine aerator. Another alternative is to add the water 1/3 gallon at a time using a gallon jug each time that is violently shaken for a period to infuse air. The water should not be hot as less air is absorbed at higher temperature.

Next, add some nutrients including 1 tablespoon of DAP (diammonium phosphate) and 1 tablespoon of yeast energizer. Add one teaspoon of calcium carbonate as a pH buffer. MIX THOROUGHLY!

Activate 5 packs of k1v-1116 yeast, pitch yeast, and add airlock. FERMENT AT 60F (temperature control is critical - I add a 5 gallon carboy to a 5 cf upright refrigerator on an external thermostat). NOTE: Adding a large mass of yeast is important to ensure a large viable culture gets to work quickly to suppress competing microorganisms. Furthermore, the low fermentation temperature favors the yeast over the competition.

It takes about one month for fermentation to complete. The process is standard after this including eliminating all air exposure after fermentation, three rackings to remove sediment, and may include deaerating and use of a clarifying agent before bottling. The process is very consistent in my experience with 16-17% ABV and off dry. A big traditional mead normally takes months or longer to age. But this can be consumed immediately without off flavors. Of course, mead always gets better with age.

It's all about using good honey and getting a healthy fermentation.

Thanks for sharing this here.  My husband and I are mead drinkers and one of our goals once we move and have space is to start making our own.  It will mostly be his project but I will help.

I had the "honor" to bump into a Biker with my car and he was from one of the tough gangs and as we were waiting for the police to come I told him about the quality of sloe wine I made at home.

He responded excited that he was into mead (as an ex Norwegian who wonders)

So we met and he pulled me into his garage which was well insulated and somehow it had a red brick chellar character.
His mead was not from this world, even he used the basic Viking recipes.

3 Kg good Honey
1 Liter apple juice with pulp and 1 Liter grape juice (which you use to start your yeast in beforehand)
7 Liter water
a table spoon full of flour
Lactic acid (2 and a half shot glasses)
4 gram yeast nutrient salt

and then under daily moving (swinging the Bottle slightly around) about 3 month and you can play Viking Berserker.
Unfortunately, I not like sweets at all, so the wine was ok but not for my taste.

I have still contact to him and one day he came to Thailand.
I had to help him to find honey from stingless bees because they are not capable to reduce the water contant like other bees do.
These bees ferment their honey to make it last forever.

I never tried the outcome but he was over the moon with the results.. The mead so he said would be also for my tase buds, because of the very voluminous and sour taste.. (Whatever he ment with that)

I have considered making mead and there are local beekeepers around here producing a lot of honey. One of them has 50 hives!
I have some online FB friends that make mead. One is in Vermont USA and the other is somewhere in Czechoslovakia.
Some photos of the equipment used would be much appreciated, if you have the time. I imagine that a dedicated space is required, and I'd like to get a rough idea of how much planning I need to do.

Riona Abhainn wrote:Thanks for sharing this here.  My husband and I are mead drinkers and one of our goals once we move and have space is to start making our own.  It will mostly be his project but I will help.

Temperature control is important. Get a small refrigerator (with NO tiny freezer as this will just lead to condensation and mold at these operating temps) and put it on an external thermostat. I recommend the Inkbird ITC-308 available at Amazon. Standard 5-6 gallon carboys fit perfectly in these little fridges. Set it at 60F. Get back to me if/when you start as I can recommend excellent sources for raw honey.

Joshua States wrote:I have considered making mead and there are local beekeepers around here producing a lot of honey. One of them has 50 hives!
I have some online FB friends that make mead. One is in Vermont USA and the other is somewhere in Czechoslovakia.
Some photos of the equipment used would be much appreciated, if you have the time. I imagine that a dedicated space is required, and I'd like to get a rough idea of how much planning I need to do.

No photos as I don't make mead any longer. I work on a small organic farm and I would give out bottles over a period of several years. The farmers always gave good feedback. This is partly how I dialed in the process. But I admit it was mainly based on MY taste. But everyone seemed to love it. I made about 30 5 gallon batches over a period of about 5 years. The process is very reliable. You'll need only standard equipment plus the small fridge and thermostat. But I will make suggestions below.

-A good mixing attachment on a cordless drill is very useful.
-Make sure to size the fridge properly (verify the carboy fits well). DO NOT get a fridge with a mini freezer!
-Use the Inkbird ITC-308 thermostat (see Amazon).
-I highly recommend plastic carboys as the glass units are heavy, slippery when wet, and dangerous when they break.
-Ferment in 6 gallon carboy and transfer to 5 gallon carboy when racking.
-Always use raw honey. It makes a material difference.
-Don't use light bland honeys like clover or orange blossom. Not much going on. Go with DARK complex honeys that you like.
-Mixing with fruit is a PITA. I've tried it all. Traditional mead is by far the easiest and the best in my opinion.
-Lots of people recommend pasteurizing and sulfites. These are not only not necessary, they detract from results. The high ABV of my mead protects from spoilage. The combination of pitching a huge cell culture and fermenting at low temperature ensures good fermentation.
-Don't forget bottles and bottling equipment.
-Buy your honey in 5 gallon buckets (MUCH more cost effective!).

This is how I make it at the moment.

Our carboys are 5 litres (5 quarts) in size. We usually make one or two of these at a time.

We measure out 2kg (5 pounds) of raw honey into a stockpot. Add some hot water to help dissolve the honey but not to overheat it. This then gets poured into the carboy, and then we add cold water and shake it vigorously to get it all mixed. Then I add a teaspoon of mead yeast or special wine yeast and around 20 organic raisins (the raisins work in the place of yeast nutrient). You can also add spices at this point. It gets shaken around again, airlock goes on, and it sits at room temperature until it's not bubbling much, around 4-6 weeks.

I then taste it, and add lemon juice until it tastes right, then it either gets fermented a little longer in the carboy, or put into bottles. Can be drunk right away, or stored for a while in the bottles. Sometimes they are very fizzy and need to be opened carefully, other times they are not.

Sometimes I add spices, sometimes edible flower petals, sometimes fruit.

I have the book "Make Mead like a Viking" and will get around to trying his wild fermenting ideas one day. I think wild fermenting makes more of a beer-strength mead rather than our current wine/port strength one that we like.

i’ve been making mead with wild yeast (100+ batches) for quite a while, and vastly prefer a dry mead to a sweet one. i’ve fine-tuned a protocol for ‘training’ my yeast colonies for better performance for my preference.

it’s probably the oldest alcoholic drink in the world, with almost endless variations. there are probably nearly as many ways to make it.

edit: for clarity’s sake, i make fully wine-strength (12-14%) dry wild-yeast mead. how you interact with wild yeast can greatly affect attenuation (this is undoubtedly true of all yeast, but i can only speak from my experience).

greg mosser wrote:i’ve been making mead with wild yeast (100+ batches) for quite a while, and vastly prefer a dry mead to a sweet one. i’ve fine-tuned a protocol for ‘training’ my yeast colonies for better performance for my preference.

it’s probably the oldest alcoholic drink in the world, with almost endless variations. there are probably nearly as many ways to make it.

edit: for clarity’s sake, i make fully wine-strength (12-14%) dry wild-yeast mead. how you interact with wild yeast can greatly affect attenuation (this is undoubtedly true of all yeast, but i can only speak from my experience).

Would you be able to share your recipe and any tips you have for working with wild yeasts? 12-14% mead from wild yeast sounds like something I would like to make.

apologies for the long delay in responding- i made a mental note to do it when i had a minute and it never happened! forcing a minute to happen now.

my process is less a recipe than a technique to be somewhat selective of the wild yeasts you’re using. it works on the assumption that the initial yeast colonization of the starter ‘bug’ is very diverse and that a more select strain that will be able to handle both a high-sugar early period and a higher-alcohol later period is present, we just need need to weed out the less favorable yeasties before they outcompete our preferred ones.

i do it through a days-long period of step-feeding the bug. at the beginning i’ll start with a cup of water, with whatever i’m trying to culture yeast from - could be grated fresh ginger and/or turmeric, twigs, flowers, or fruits that collect yeasts on their skin like blueberries, apples, etc. i’ll mix in 2 teaspoons of honey and stir heavily in a very aerating kind of way. i’ll whip the bug like that several times a day for 2 days. (in early stages where you don’t need to worry about your mead/wine getting oxygenated, good aeration really helps the yeast). by the second day, there’s usually some sign of life, bubbling and a sort of head building up on top. if that’s not happening, i’d add more yeast-providing material and continue the heavy stirring process. if in another 2 days nothing is happening, i’d toss and start again - something is wrong with the source of yeast.

usually, though, it’s going by day 2. i’ll add more yeast-carrying material and stir in another 2 tsp of honey, same process, and 2 days later, another 2 teaspoons, until i’ve reached somewhere near the ratio of honey to water that the initial must will be. if the bug still shows itself to be active a few hours after the last addition of honey, it should be good to use for mead. by then, the bug is around a week old, has been through many different levels of sugar, as well as a growing amount of alcohol, and likely a growing level of acidity as well, as bacteria turn some of the alcohols into acids. it’s not a super-hospitable environment for yeast anymore (as the later stages of turning must into mead will also not be), and the fact that we still have at least one active strain of yeast is a good sign that the mead will ferment fairly well to dryness.

if i’m doing more than one gallon for a batch of mead (i do make a lot of one-gallon batches, just to fine-tune recipes, etc, or when i can only get a bit of a flavoring ingredient), i’ll generally start with a one gallon version, and once that first gallon is going well i’ll use it as an extra-large starter bug for the full batch.