First time reccomendations

Hello Meaders, I've never brewed any mead and would like to attempt some today.

I currently brew beer from kits (probably 10+ batches so far), and have all the equipment associated with that process... I almost never go into a secondary with the beer... so I typically will have 2-3 extra 7 gallon fermentation vessels just sitting around.

I would like to try a mead, but I really don't want to spend a ton of money on honey. The brew store near me sells a light blended honey for $4 per pound.

Ideally I'd like to produce as much product as possible, and don't necessarily need a 14% ABV or anything; I'd be happy with anything over 5%.

Does anybody have any low alcohol (maybe using less than 5lbs of honey) yielding 3-5 gallons? Thanks!

cieje said:

Hello Meaders, I've never brewed any mead and would like to attempt some today.

I currently brew beer from kits (probably 10+ batches so far), and have all the equipment associated with that process... I almost never go into a secondary with the beer... so I typically will have 2-3 extra 7 gallon fermentation vessels just sitting around.

I would like to try a mead, but I really don't want to spend a ton of money on honey. The brew store near me sells a light blended honey for $4 per pound.

Ideally I'd like to produce as much product as possible, and don't necessarily need a 14% ABV or anything; I'd be happy with anything over 5%.

Does anybody have any low alcohol (maybe using less than 5lbs of honey) yielding 3-5 gallons? Thanks!

Click to expand...

I made a vanilla mead using 12 1/2 lbs of honey per fermentation period. You may be able to get between 1 and 2 gallons of quality mead with 5 lbs. If you produce a melomal with more fruit than honey you can get around 3-5 gallons, you could also use maple syrup as well but make sure to use the real stuff.

Mead is not like beer when fermenting, the honey has plenty of food (sucrose and other sugars) for the yeast to eat which produces alcohol but no nutrients like beer brewing will provide. It's like giving you a protein diet with absolutely no carbs or fats. Eventually you would die of starvation even with all the protein you could eat. Raisins with your mead is a cheap way to deliver nutrients to your yeast. Maybe 1 cup of sliced raisins for your 3 gallons?

Find out what kind of fruit you would like to add to your wine and you can proceed from there!

Also, $4 a gallon is pretty high. Try finding an apiary nearby (beekeeper) and you can get some better quality honey for less.

Use this calculator to figure out about how much honey you'll need to make the batch size, and ABV you want...

IMO, light colored (and oh so often flavored) honey is a poor choice for mead. Once it's done fermenting there will be even less flavor and color left. Also, $4/# is a bit steep. Then again, I picked up a 5 gallon bucket (60#) that came out to $2.75/#...

Look for local apiaries with better quality honey and/or better prices per pound. Very often you can get a gallon bucket (about 12# of honey) at a better per pound rate. Don't be afraid to spend the money on the honey though. It's the biggest factor (IME) in making great mead.

Also, do NOT boil your honey/must. Don't heat it above 100-110F in fact. Doing so removes a lot of the more subtle/delicate flavors that are in the honey. You make mead, brew beer, different terms since the processes are very different.

5# of honey in a 3 gallon must will yield you about 8% ABV... I typically use 3-4# of honey per gallon for my batches.

Something else you'll need to think about is yeast selection. IME/IMO, your better off using wine yeast here. Lalvin D47 is a sound choice for a 14% (or under) mead. It's tolerance level is 14%, so if you formulate to a lower OG, it will finish dry.

Take a look at the guide on the Got Mead site as well as look through the forums there for more advice. There's a lot of people that have been making mead for decades there so they've done a lot.

cieje said:

Hello Meaders, I've never brewed any mead and would like to attempt some today.

I currently brew beer from kits (probably 10+ batches so far), and have all the equipment associated with that process... I almost never go into a secondary with the beer... so I typically will have 2-3 extra 7 gallon fermentation vessels just sitting around.

I would like to try a mead, but I really don't want to spend a ton of money on honey. The brew store near me sells a light blended honey for $4 per pound.

Ideally I'd like to produce as much product as possible, and don't necessarily need a 14% ABV or anything; I'd be happy with anything over 5%.

Does anybody have any low alcohol (maybe using less than 5lbs of honey) yielding 3-5 gallons? Thanks!

Click to expand...

Brew a one gallon batch. 3lbs honey, I'd go with a nice varietal, since you're in FL, you can get orange blossom pretty cheap, probably close to $3/lb, maybe less. So 3lbs honey, yeast nutrient/energizer, DAP, and water to 1 gallon. You should be good to go.
Regards, GF.