Mead

[Paddyg84]

Any suggestions for mead recipes and brewing techniques? Am reasonably experienced in brewing beers and looking to try something new.

 

[RobWalker]

yep, don't use value honey. it makes mead, but only like value ingredients make a curry :lol:

here's where most people start!

For a 5 litre demijohn
-------------------------------

1.6kg honey (never boiled or lose the taste and aromas) (if I meant 1.5kg I would have written it)
1 large orange (at most cut into eight pieces -- rind and all)
1 small handful of raisins (25 if you can count)
1 stick of cinnamon (its brown, its wood, its good)
1 whole clove (or 2 if you like high potency)
optional (a pinch of nutmeg and allspice )( very small mind you )
1 tsp of bread yeast (now don't get holy on me about bread yeast -- after all this recipe is DESIGNED for it)
Balance water to bring batch out to 3.8 litres (did you know, there are 3.785411 litres per US gallon)

 

[evanvine]

What an arrogant recipe!
Did you know that a Demijohn = 4.54 litres!

 

[phettebs]

I only make 19ltr batches so for me it's 12lbs of honey+enough water to top up to 19ltr. I add yeast nutrient and pure O2. EC 1118 yeast. 2 packets.

 

[oldbloke]

I decided I don't like simple mead enough to pay the price decent honey costs, so if/when I make some I do flavoured - berries of some sort, usually. Then it doesn't matter all that much if you use cheap honey!

 

[Paddyg84]

Sounds good. So how long in the Demi John then? Ferment it out with all the orange etc still in it then bottle?

 

[Gayle]

Mead is easy :thumb: it's hardly any difference from making a beer/cider/wine from a kit, since all you're really doing is diluting honey and fermenting it. The main difference is that it takes much longer before you have a delicious drink!

I have made mead roughly from that recipe, I'm not sure I'll make it again :nah: Using bread yeast should make it end up sweet, as the oranges make it very bitter, but I used wine yeast so it fermented dry and needed to be backsweetened. If I were to try it again I think I would replace a litre of the water with pure orange juice (or top up with it), and maybe add some orange peel (without the pith). I also needed pectolase to clear it. Its only 6 months old so perhaps it will improve over the next year or so.

If you're making a mead where the honey is the only flavour in it, use good honey. It might cost you £10-£15 a batch, but it will taste much better, and that's still cheaper than cheap commercial wine! Fruit "melomels" cover up a poor honey better than plain mead. However you need a pound or two (sometimes three, if you believe the members of some forums!) of fruit which can work out expensive in itself. Buy frozen fruit, or freeze and thaw fresh fruit (to break down cell walls), and add them to secondary when racking, as this is supposed to give a better colour and flavour than adding fruit to primary, but it's a personal preference really - and it can be easier to have the fruit in a primary FV bucket rather than a DJ.

If you start off with a plain mead you can think about adding other flavours to it in secondary - my next one will be getting a vanilla bean in it :) 1.5kg of honey in a UK gallon of water works fine for me, but I'm not picky about abv, and I use yeast that will easily munch through the sugars. One pack of yeast is fine for a gallon, for 5 gallons use two packets, and always rehydrate the yeast before adding to the mead. Heat 2 litres of water in a saucepan until boiling, and remove from the heat before adding the honey to dissolve it. Nutrient is an important additon to mead since there's so little in honey - I add 1/2 tsp of nutrient on brewday, then another 1/2 tsp a few days later. Mead can take a long time to ferment, but with enough nutrients it shouldn't take more than a few weeks... then a few months to clear, then a few more months before it's really nice enough to drink... but it should be worth it in the end!

In fact, check out how much a decent 375ml bottle of mead could set you back! ... https://www.vinoshipper.com/wines/moonl ... an_5_5,035

 

[alanywiseman.]

For a 5 litre demijohn
-------------------------------

1.6kg honey (never boiled or lose the taste and aromas) (if I meant 1.5kg I would have written it)
1 large orange (at most cut into eight pieces -- rind and all)
1 small handful of raisins (25 if you can count)
1 stick of cinnamon (its brown, its wood, its good)
1 whole clove (or 2 if you like high potency)
optional (a pinch of nutmeg and allspice )( very small mind you )
1 tsp of bread yeast (now don't get holy on me about bread yeast -- after all this recipe is DESIGNED for it)
Balance water to bring batch out to 3.8 litres (did you know, there are 3.785411 litres per US gallon)

[/quote]

This is a very tasty drop. I did mine to 4.54L (1 UK Gallon) and bottles this morning. FG was 1.024, tasted marmalady and as it warms up it get sweeter. It is definetly worth doing.

The second mead I tried was a Raspberry Melomel. To add to what others have said whenyou are fermenting honey you need to add nutrient and energiser if you can get it. I used Yeast nutrient and Tronozymol in a 50:50 ratio and used 1.5tsp per gallon split into 3 equasl addition. The first before the yeast is added, the second after the lag phase (when you see the first signs of fermentation) and the 3rd at the 2/3 sugar break. If you aerate the must till the 1/3rd sugar break you will have plenty of yeast in your must then from the 1/3 to the 2/3 just stir to keep the yeast in suspensionafter the 2/3 just leave it to finish. It should ferment out in a couple of weeks like a wine.

Try to start with a OG od 1.090 the you can step feed the mead at the end if you want to up the abv. If you wnat lots of info go to gotmead.com there is plenty there.

Good Luck :thumb:

 

[wilsoa1111]

totally agree if u want a basic straight mead defo use the good honey- suma stuff off amazon works great but probs needs the spices, i didnt add any to mine and while it tastes great at it stilll smells v funky like the original honey (i love it guests not so much)

Also i used champagne yeast and it was still plenty sweet enough (just right imho), the suma honey is v concentrated and v set/crystalline, no back sweetning was required pos due to lvl of unfermentable in there. the great thing about champagne yeast is it ferments quick and clean then drops like a stone, not traditional but hopefully less methanol and fusels.

 

[Lampie]

Mead is easy :thumb:

If you start off with a plain mead you can think about adding other flavours to it in secondary - my next one will be getting a vanilla bean in it :) 1.5kg of honey in a UK gallon of water works fine for me, but I'm not picky about abv, and I use yeast that will easily munch through the sugars. One pack of yeast is fine for a gallon, for 5 gallons use two packets, and always rehydrate the yeast before adding to the mead. Heat 2 litres of water in a saucepan until boiling, and remove from the heat before adding the honey to dissolve it. Nutrient is an important additon to mead since there's so little in honey - I add 1/2 tsp of nutrient on brewday, then another 1/2 tsp a few days later. Mead can take a long time to ferment, but with enough nutrients it shouldn't take more than a few weeks... then a few months to clear, then a few more months before it's really nice enough to drink... but it should be worth it in the end!

I was also thinking about making some vanilla mead adding the vanilla bean in second fermentation, and even thinking of putting a bean in the bottle.. The bean in the bottle looks nice and I hope it will improve the vanilla taste too.

 

[Gayle]

I was also thinking about making some vanilla mead adding the vanilla bean in second fermentation, and even thinking of putting a bean in the bottle.. The bean in the bottle looks nice and I hope it will improve the vanilla taste too.

A bean in the bottle would be lovely! To keep costs down I suggest you buy your vanilla beans online; supermarkets charge £3-£4 for one dried up pod, you'll get 10 delicious sticky pods for the same price off ebay :thumb:

 

[Lampie]

I was also thinking about making some vanilla mead adding the vanilla bean in second fermentation, and even thinking of putting a bean in the bottle.. The bean in the bottle looks nice and I hope it will improve the vanilla taste too.

A bean in the bottle would be lovely! To keep costs down I suggest you buy your vanilla beans online; supermarkets charge £3-£4 for one dried up pod, you'll get 10 delicious sticky pods for the same price off ebay :thumb:

Will look at some markets here if they have some nice beans.. Just started yesterday with the mead so have some time to look around for some beans :).

 

[phettebs]

My current mead is oak and vanilla. It's still in the secondary and will not be bottled until December. I only kept it on the oak and vanilla for 3 weeks at the beginning of secondary. I'll taste it later in the fall and see if it's faded so much that I need to redo it before bottling.

 

[simkin]

Gayle isn't kidding. Just took a quick look and ebay sells 20 vanilla thingies for £3.70 ( inc post ) from a top rated seller. Thinking of a vanilla brew of some kind myself now - I shall toast Gayle with the first one Vanilla's a great flavour. Supermarkets take the mickey on a lot of spices, I feel.

 

[Gayle]

Gayle isn't kidding. Just took a quick look and ebay sells 20 vanilla thingies for £3.70 ( inc post ) from a top rated seller. Thinking of a vanilla brew of some kind myself now - I shall toast Gayle with the first one Vanilla's a great flavour. Supermarkets take the mickey on a lot of spices, I feel.

Aww cheers :grin: 20 pods is even better! I agree with ya, supermarket spices are very overpriced :? The ebay sellers' pods probably vary in quality as some are more expensive but all of them are bound to be be better than the supermarket pods! I've been brewing with them, making vanilla extract, custard tarts, ice cream etc, and when you've finished with the pods for their intended purpose, dry them out and stick them in a jar of sugar for baking and hot drinks :)

 

[Capone]

Hello PaddyG84,

There are hundreds of recipies and videos on brewing mead online, If its your first Attempt i would keep it simple.

There are alot of yeast strains available some better than others for making mead.

Not to say it wouldn't work well but I have never tried Bakers yeast in any type of home brewing yet.

Lalvin D-47 is said to be one of the best for making mead but i myself have not tried it yet.

I have only used Lavin EC-1118 for my Mead and Melomel as it was available at the time in my local HBS and i read
somewhere that its good at restarting a stuck fermentation and its a strong competitive yeast that works well to prevent
wild yeasts growing in the batch, if it gets in.

Anything that lowers the chance of a bad batch has my vote especially if its a batch that takes close to a year to make.

Good Luck with your brewing. :thumb:

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

My current mead is oak and vanilla. It's still in the secondary and will not be bottled until December. I only kept it on the oak and vanilla for 3 weeks at the beginning of secondary. I'll taste it later in the fall and see if it's faded so much that I need to redo it before bottling.

Could you post the recipe?

 

[Dibison]

Thought this would be the best place to ask;

Made up a mead myself (well melomel technically) when I calculated the ABV it came out about 6-7 percent however when I took a hydro reading it was up at 10%

It this just due to the unfermentables in honey but still making the water denser or am I missing something? :wha:

 

[RobWalker]

honey is almost completely.fermentable, it needs to be sweetened after.fermentation if you want sweetness :)

 

[Dibison]

Really I coulda swore I read somewhere that it was only something like 80% fermentable, I used the figures on the jar anyways but my hydro reading was still quite a bit off what I'd expected to see...

If its near enough completely fermentable then I'm outa ideas :P

Oh well just means I'll actually end up with a wine strength wine, was aiming to keep it sorta low but oh well, it's still smelling lovely!