How to make easy mead - Two Thirsty Gardeners (2024)
Often mocked for its association with beard-cultivating, battle reenactment types, mead has experienced a resurgence of popularity in recent years. Its origins go way back, but the Welsh (know for their excellence in drinking) claim it to be their tipple of choice since the Romans first herded bees across the Severn Bridge way back in 47 A.D.* Mead comes in a variety of styles; but we chose to ferment a good, honest everyday mead i.e. the easiest possible one to make. The only drawback with mead-makng is that honey can be quite expensive. We opted for the cheapest supermarket variety (presumably sourced from battery farmed bees in cramped hives) but if at all possible, you should try and source your own local honey from free range bees for a better quality drink.
How to make an easymead.
Add approx 3lb of honey (three medium-sized jars) to a litre of water and warm carefully on your stove until dissolved. Its important not to over do it on the heating, as hot honey burns like napalm. When your mixture has cooled sufficiently, pour into a clean demijohn and top up with water. Add a chopped apple, the juice of a zesty lemon and a small handful of raisins, then add 1 teaspoonful of yeast and give it a shake. Fit a bung and airlock, then leave in a warm place.
It should take around two months to clear, after which you should syphon into clean bottles and cork.
It is said that mead is at its best after SEVEN YEARS of maturing, but we have neither the time nor patience to test this theory. Going by our experiments in Cyser** we suggest cracking open a bottle after a year of maturing. Our motto is; if it tastes good, drink it!
A word of warning: Too much mead imbibing will give you HORRENDOUS hangovers. Whilst not on the scale of the infamous ‘Denmark hangover of 1998’ which resulted in a nameless Thirsty Gardener spending three hours curled around a toilet cistern in a Copenhagen railway station, mead hangovers are pretty unforgiving. Go easy.
* Note to editor: This fact needs checking. Not sure about the bees bit. Ask Wikipedia. ** Cider, fermented with the addition of honey
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For more great recipes…
We’ve got more mead recipes in our book Brew it Yourself. If you’re a booze ‘n’ honey fan you’ll also find a recipe for honey ale. If you’re a booze fan in general then there’s loads of stuff to interest you. Available now on Amazon.
How to make an easy mead. Add approx 3lb of honey (three medium-sized jars) to a litre of water and warm carefully on your stove until dissolved. Its important not to over do it on the heating, as hot honey burns like napalm. When your mixture has cooled sufficiently, pour into a clean demijohn
demijohn
A carboy, also known as a demijohn or a lady jeanne, is a rigid container with a typical capacity of 4 to 60 litres (1 to 16 US gal). Carboys are primarily used for transporting liquids, often drinking water or chemicals.
The ratio of water to honey depends on the type of mead you want to make. For a dry mead, the ratio is 4 parts water to 1 part honey; a sweet mead is 2 to 1. Kluz likes his mead sweet, so he typically uses 1 3/4 gallons of honey and tops it off with 3 1/4 gallons of water.
The average mead recipe calls for 3 to 3.5 pounds of honey per gallon of finished mead, depending on the sugar content of the honey. This makes strong mead in the range of 14 percent alcohol.
If you put in a bunch of honey and you get enough yeast (the right kind of yeast where it ferments all the way out) then you'll have a really dry, high alcohol champagne-like mead. You can use less honey to make a lower alcohol mead. Using less honey might make it a little bit more dry, though not necessarily.
A good starting point with most fruits is about 3 pounds of fruit per gallon of mead, though I have been known to use 5 or even 6 pounds of fruit. Fruit blends can produce some great-tasting meads.
This white wine yeast is the primary choice for many mead makers. It ferments at a moderate to fast pace with little foaming and is good for medium to dry meads. It tends to accentuate the honey characteristics so it is a good choice for traditional varietal mead.
Traditional meads usually require six months to 2 years for the flavors to mellow and smooth and any off flavors to diminish. Melomels or fruit meads can take six months to 5 years for the flavors to fully integrate and the tannins and acids to mellow. Metheglin or spiced meads are quicker, six months to a year.
So, if the recipe is made to ferment to about 12% and leave a touch of sweetness, then using something that CAN ferment to 18% will do… what? It will likely consume all the sugars and the yeast will go dormant, having nothing left to do.It will be dry.
The key is to use raw or unpasteurized honey to get the best and most unique flavors for your mead. Commercially processed honey often found in the grocery stores is pasteurized and ultrafiltered.
So many mead makers don't bother boiling at all, preferring instead to simply dilute their honey with warm water. If you do boil, do so only briefly. Mead benefits from extra nutrients. Unlike wort, which is rich in essential nutrients, honey is comparatively low in certain compounds that are critical to yeast health.
In it's most basic form, a Viking mead would have been honey diluted with water and then fermented to create alcohol. Mead is not a liquor since liquor requires distillation.
If you're using less honey to make more of a beer-like mead, those can be fully fermented and drinkable in under a month. Other types can take a few months. It just depends on the amount of honey. Amount of honey primarily is what it depends on, and some yeasts ferment honey faster than others.
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