Hello friends, how are you , I am new to making mead and want to start a batch of mead to see how it goes , but the problem is that I search a lot of recipes of mead and truth I can not choose a good recipe to make a good mead, you can help me because I don't want to lose the honey that I got somewhat expensive
Recipe for mead
- Thread starter Dionisio
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
meatcleaver
Well-Known Member
meatcleaver
Well-Known Member
sorry, I can never seem to post a link with my Android.
look in the recipe database for Joe's ancient orange Mead. you will be pleased & your honey will not be wasted.
look in the recipe database for Joe's ancient orange Mead. you will be pleased & your honey will not be wasted.
I've been studying this thread; gonna try it soon. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=429241
loveofrose
Well-Known Member
Can't go wrong with a Joe's Ancient Orange or a BOMM. I have a lot of BOMM variations and mead making information on my site:
www.denardbrewing.com
www.denardbrewing.com
gratus fermentatio
Well-Known Member
3 lbs. honey per gallon of container volume, yeast nutrient, yeast energizer/DAP (diammonium phosphate), whatever yeast strain you want to use (follow directions on packet), water to fill level. The rest is mostly just time. You might want to read this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381802/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
It will help a lot, I have a copy on my shelf & still use it.
Regards, GF.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937381802/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
It will help a lot, I have a copy on my shelf & still use it.
Regards, GF.
Last edited by a moderator:
The recipe that you mention use 3 1/2 lbs of honey per gallon but in other recipes people use 3 lbs per gallon, in other recipe people use 500 grams (1.10 lbs apx) per 1.5 liters, the last recipe is valid to produce mead or I need change the dosage of ingredients, in other hand is necessary heat the water with honey or you can mix honey and water directly
I see in internet that people use 500 grams (1.10 lbs apx) of honey in 1.5 liters of water, this recipe is right to produce mead or it requires a change in dosage, on the other hand is neccesary heat the water with honey or you can mix both directly
Last edited by a moderator:
meatcleaver
Well-Known Member
Joe uses more honey plus bread yeast to produce a sweet mead. less honey and/or a different yeast may result in a dry mead. it's a matter of personal preference really.
as far as heating the honey, many will advise against it. almost everyone will advise against boiling. I admit I heated mine in water to completely dissolve it.
as far as heating the honey, many will advise against it. almost everyone will advise against boiling. I admit I heated mine in water to completely dissolve it.
when boiling honey and water lost unique properties of honey as the aroma and flavor, you know how long time you boil mix and I imagine it must replace the water lost to evaporation truth
meatcleaver
Well-Known Member
not sure what you want to know...
yes, boiling the honey drives off aromatics & has an adverse affect on flavor. this is why most mazers advise against it.
I used raw clover honey in my jaom & dissolved it in maybe 2 qts of water heated to maybe 120°F, stirring often until completely dissolved & thoroughly mixed with spices, juice & zest of 1 orange. afterwards I pour into fermenter, top off with spring water & shake like crazy.
add yeast once cooled to 80ish degrees Fahrenheit.
Hope this helps
yes, boiling the honey drives off aromatics & has an adverse affect on flavor. this is why most mazers advise against it.
I used raw clover honey in my jaom & dissolved it in maybe 2 qts of water heated to maybe 120°F, stirring often until completely dissolved & thoroughly mixed with spices, juice & zest of 1 orange. afterwards I pour into fermenter, top off with spring water & shake like crazy.
add yeast once cooled to 80ish degrees Fahrenheit.
Hope this helps
Bro I have a question, after when you placing the wort into the fermenter how much water added before adding yeast
meatcleaver
Well-Known Member
I use 1 gallon glass jugs for primary & fill up to just above the shoulder at the "one gallon" marking on the side. this allows a bit of headspace for the yeast to do their thing.
when you rack to secondary you'll need to fill it all the way up the neck to just under the stopper/airlock
when you rack to secondary you'll need to fill it all the way up the neck to just under the stopper/airlock
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Hi Dionisio - and welcome. Rather than recipes you might simply want to use processes. If you don't have an hydrometer you want to buy one and then you want to mix enough water with the honey to produce a must with a gravity of about 1.090 - 1.100. That will result in a mead that when fully fermented will be about 12- 13%. It will be dry so you may want to think about back sweetening either with sugar or with more honey. About 1 lb of honey dissolved to make 1 US gallon will result in a gravity of about 1.040 - so 2lbs making 1 gallon will raise the gravity to about 1.080 and so 2.5 lbs will raise the gravity to about 1.100.
Honey is notoriously short of nutrients the yeast need - so you want to provide nutrient (including nitrogen) during the early stages of fermentation. You can buy nutrient at your local home brew store or you can take a teaspoon of bread yeast add to a little water and boil in a microwave - the dead yeast cells will provide the necessary nutrient or you could add a handful of preservative free and oil free raisins.
If you ferment in a bucket with a lot of headroom - you can aerate by stirring at the start of the day and towards the end - and that stirring helps pull out the CO2 that builds up - both processes good for the yeast. That means it is easier to cover the bucket loosely with a clean cloth. When the gravity drops close to 1.000 you transfer the mead from your bucket into a carboy so that the carboy is filled right up into the neck with perhaps less than an inch between the surface of the mead and the bottom of the bung. Now you want to keep out all air because now the amount of CO2 being produced is not enough to blanket the mead and oxidation can occur.
Depending on the yeast and the ambient temperature you can expect the fermentation to take about 1 week to drop to close to 1.000 and then after transferring (by siphon to minimize the exposure to air) the mead from the fermenter into a carboy you might want to allow the mead to quietly age two or three months. When the amount of lees is about 1/4 of an inch or so and 2 -3 months have passed you want to transfer the mead off the lees and again allow it to age another 2-3 months. You can taste it to see if you might bottle it but know that it is still likely to drop lees and sediment for many months. (I would urge you to taste the mead right from day 1 but that is another story) -
To back sweeten you need to make sure that any yeast cells still present (and there will be enough) are unable to get at the sugar you want to sweeten the mead. You do that by adding K-meta and K-sorbate before you add sugar and after the gravity is absolutely stable for several weeks. Four ounces of sugar added to one gallon will raise the gravity by 10 points; 8 oz will raise it 20 points. If you prefer a drier mead then 10 points may be too much. If you prefer a sweet mead then 20 points may not be enough.
Before you bottle you need to taste your mead - not only to determine how sweet it should be but whether there is enough acidic kick to the mead. You do not want to add ANY acids (whether lemons or acidic acid or acid blend BEFORE the fermentation is done - Honey has no chemical buffers and the acidity of honey can rise high enough to stall the fermentation - so any acid you want to add you add before you bottle (despite what "recipes" suggest).
Making mead is not difficult - you just have to know what the yeast need and what you want.
Good luck -
Honey is notoriously short of nutrients the yeast need - so you want to provide nutrient (including nitrogen) during the early stages of fermentation. You can buy nutrient at your local home brew store or you can take a teaspoon of bread yeast add to a little water and boil in a microwave - the dead yeast cells will provide the necessary nutrient or you could add a handful of preservative free and oil free raisins.
If you ferment in a bucket with a lot of headroom - you can aerate by stirring at the start of the day and towards the end - and that stirring helps pull out the CO2 that builds up - both processes good for the yeast. That means it is easier to cover the bucket loosely with a clean cloth. When the gravity drops close to 1.000 you transfer the mead from your bucket into a carboy so that the carboy is filled right up into the neck with perhaps less than an inch between the surface of the mead and the bottom of the bung. Now you want to keep out all air because now the amount of CO2 being produced is not enough to blanket the mead and oxidation can occur.
Depending on the yeast and the ambient temperature you can expect the fermentation to take about 1 week to drop to close to 1.000 and then after transferring (by siphon to minimize the exposure to air) the mead from the fermenter into a carboy you might want to allow the mead to quietly age two or three months. When the amount of lees is about 1/4 of an inch or so and 2 -3 months have passed you want to transfer the mead off the lees and again allow it to age another 2-3 months. You can taste it to see if you might bottle it but know that it is still likely to drop lees and sediment for many months. (I would urge you to taste the mead right from day 1 but that is another story) -
To back sweeten you need to make sure that any yeast cells still present (and there will be enough) are unable to get at the sugar you want to sweeten the mead. You do that by adding K-meta and K-sorbate before you add sugar and after the gravity is absolutely stable for several weeks. Four ounces of sugar added to one gallon will raise the gravity by 10 points; 8 oz will raise it 20 points. If you prefer a drier mead then 10 points may be too much. If you prefer a sweet mead then 20 points may not be enough.
Before you bottle you need to taste your mead - not only to determine how sweet it should be but whether there is enough acidic kick to the mead. You do not want to add ANY acids (whether lemons or acidic acid or acid blend BEFORE the fermentation is done - Honey has no chemical buffers and the acidity of honey can rise high enough to stall the fermentation - so any acid you want to add you add before you bottle (despite what "recipes" suggest).
Making mead is not difficult - you just have to know what the yeast need and what you want.
Good luck -
Guys I have this recipe and procedure, correct me if I'm wrong in some way.
Ingredientes
500 grams of honey (honey of flowers and eucalyptus)
1.5 liters of water (boiled water)
1 gram of yeast (bread yeast)
Production process
I cooled bolied water to ambient temperature (20°C), after I add honey and using a metal spoon I dissolve it completely without any residue of honey, then add yeast and plug the container giving strong shocks for a period of 5 minutes then I put the airlock and leave the container in a shady spot leave the container there for 3 weeks leave the container there for 3 weeks then by the method of siphoning I separate the fermented mash in a separate container the remains of dead yeast this container leave it in the refrigerator for a period of 2 days , then filter the liquid of the remains of yeast that might be , I add 7 grams of sugar per liter at liquid to generate gas and proceed to bottle and leave it there for a period of one week.
According your experience you believe that my process is right or tell me where I can improve
Ingredientes
500 grams of honey (honey of flowers and eucalyptus)
1.5 liters of water (boiled water)
1 gram of yeast (bread yeast)
Production process
I cooled bolied water to ambient temperature (20°C), after I add honey and using a metal spoon I dissolve it completely without any residue of honey, then add yeast and plug the container giving strong shocks for a period of 5 minutes then I put the airlock and leave the container in a shady spot leave the container there for 3 weeks leave the container there for 3 weeks then by the method of siphoning I separate the fermented mash in a separate container the remains of dead yeast this container leave it in the refrigerator for a period of 2 days , then filter the liquid of the remains of yeast that might be , I add 7 grams of sugar per liter at liquid to generate gas and proceed to bottle and leave it there for a period of one week.
According your experience you believe that my process is right or tell me where I can improve
Deafmeadmaker
Deafmeadmaker
Before you siphon the must off of the dead yeast cells, add potassuim metabisulphite. (1/4 tsp for 6 gallons.) This will kill off any live yeast remaining. If there is too much yeast cells, the sugar will make them grow. The way your recipe is now, you will carbonate the mead or have the bottles explode. It is very tricky if you want carbonation but you don't want shattered glass. Please be careful.
What is your opinion of my recipe. I'm fine in the amounts of the ingredients? You use the ingredients in smaller quantities?. when using sodium metabisulfite How long it should be on the must before the siphoning. Adding the sodium metabisulphite is enough to stop the activity of yeasts, even so the cooling will be necessary or that's enough.
Deafmeadmaker
Deafmeadmaker
It looks like a good recipe for mead. The amount of honey used is what is recommended for 1 gallon or 3.5 liters. The water is correct. You can use bread yeast, but if you can get a hold of Lavilin D47 or Red Star Monchalet, it would also work. I usually add the potassium metabisulphite after I've siphoned the mead to a new container. Since you are making a 3.5 liter batch of mead, you won't need a lot of potassuim metabisulpite. 1 ml. will be plenty to kill active yeast cells.
If all you have is sodium metabisulphite, then you can use it to kill the yeast, but it may change the taste a little. I've used both before and noticed a very small difference in taste. If you like the way it tastes, then keep doing that. There is no one exact way to make mead. Try it one way and make your next batch the other way and see which one you like more.
The temperature has to be below 23 degrees C. or it will harm the yeast when fermenting. Allowing the mead to clear in temperatures between 23 and 26 C. will help. Good luck to you. Let us know how it turns out.
Thanks for recommendations. It looks like I'm not using honey properly, because you say that 500 grams of honey can be used in 1 gallon or 3.5 liters. In this case I believe that you get dry mead. I am right. Moreover I read that potassium metabisulfite can cause healthy problems when inhale or handled incorrectly. Perhaps it would be convenient to use potassium sorbate or sodium benzoate to fulfill the same function?
Deafmeadmaker
Deafmeadmaker
I looked up this web site for potassium metabisulfite and it cleared up a lot of questions. http://www.foundationwebsite.org/Miscellany35.htm
The amount of honey you use will vary. If you like sweeter meads, add more honey. Weather you choose to add more or not is up to you. Do what you think will taste good.
According to Wikipedia, potassium sorbate can be used for the same purpose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_sorbate
Please don't inhale the stuff. We've all used various chemicals in our homebrewing that we forget to remind others. Don't go breathing or inhaling the stuff, it's bad for you.
I have obtained the mead to indicate on the previous occasion, and I did try my university professors, they have told me that the mead has little alcohol and it is better to leave a few days or weeks for more alcohol, and so I left it three weeks in fermentation, How long time do you recommend to keep in fermentation?
Moreover, I asked a teacher if it is safe to use potassium metabisulfite and told me it is very expensive to use in mead production, I asked if it was better to use potassium sorbate and told me that wine is not advisable to use chemicals. Now, he has told me I should stop fermentation using cold. What do you think about this?
HB_in_Subic
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2014
- Messages
- 619
- Reaction score
- 90
This is not going to finish quickly as you are using Bread yeast. Read thru this thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=49106 to get an idea of how long it will need to age as it uses Bread yeast also. Take gravity readings and rack off the lees when it hits 1.00.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
I think your teacher may not know a great deal about yeast and wine making. Cooling yeast does not kill them. It only slows them down and puts them into suspended animation. When you bring the mead back to room temperature they will revive and continue to ferment any residual sugars. Potassium Meta-bi-Sulfite is not expensive. That is used by wine makers to sanitize their equipment - and at weaker concentrations to kill wild yeasts and inhibit oxidation. Potassium Sorbate - also not expensive - is used by wine makers to prevent yeast cells from budding (reproducing) but it will have that effect only when the colony of yeast is small - so wine makers ROUTINELY add K-Meta and K-Sorbate IF they are adding sugars to wines or meads that were fermented dry (completely).
K-meta is perfectly safe to use - unless you deliberately try to sniff it.. It will burn your throat and irritate your lungs and make you cough... It produces sulfur dioxide which is what kills bacteria and yeast.
500 g of honey in 3 L of water will produce a mead with about 5% alcohol - so it is more like a beer than a wine.
A wine would have about twice that amount of alcohol. The issue for wine makers is NOT to make a drink with a lot of alcohol but to make a drink that is full of flavor - and since ALL the flavor from honey comes with the honey and since honey is - for all intents and purposes - sugar - and since alcohol is made from sugar - then diluting a small (relatively speaking) amount (500 g) of honey with a large (relatively speaking) amount of water (3 L) you won't have a very rich flavored mead.. You would be better (in my opinion) either making about 2 L of mead or doubling the quantity of honey...(In my opinion, you want to use about 1 part honey to 3 or 4 parts water).
You mean that is right to use 500 grams of honey in 1,5 or 2 liters of water, if using 500 grams of honey in 2 liters of water. What type of mead would get?. On the other hand. How many days or weeks should to keep fermenting mead to obtain an alcohol content of wine?. And finally What amount of potassium metabisulfite you recommended me to use every half-liter or liter of mead?
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
If you are looking for flavor then you probably want to use 500 grams of honey in about 1.5 L of water... the key is to use an hydrometer and dilute the honey to get a specific gravity of about 1.090 - 1.100.
what kind of mead will that be? A fairly pleasant mead.
How much K-meta to add? If you are back sweetening? You need to add both K-meta and K-sorbate. If you are not back sweetening and you are making about 4 L or less then there is no good reason to add K-meta. K-meta is available in the USA in powder form and in tablet form - You want the tablets and you crush one tablet and dissolve it in water (it does not dissolve in alcohol) for every 4 L of mead.
How long should your ferment the mead? Until the gravity drops to 1.000 or below. Yeast is a living organism - it dances to its own drum beat so tapping your fingers won't make it work faster. But that said, it will probably convert all the sugars to alcohol in about two weeks or less (depends on a whole range of factors) BUT then you want all kinds of micro chemical changes to take place (aging) and that can take weeks or months (again, depends on many factors). You might want to go to your local library and look for books on mead making...
what kind of mead will that be? A fairly pleasant mead.
How much K-meta to add? If you are back sweetening? You need to add both K-meta and K-sorbate. If you are not back sweetening and you are making about 4 L or less then there is no good reason to add K-meta. K-meta is available in the USA in powder form and in tablet form - You want the tablets and you crush one tablet and dissolve it in water (it does not dissolve in alcohol) for every 4 L of mead.
How long should your ferment the mead? Until the gravity drops to 1.000 or below. Yeast is a living organism - it dances to its own drum beat so tapping your fingers won't make it work faster. But that said, it will probably convert all the sugars to alcohol in about two weeks or less (depends on a whole range of factors) BUT then you want all kinds of micro chemical changes to take place (aging) and that can take weeks or months (again, depends on many factors). You might want to go to your local library and look for books on mead making...
Bro, I could not find potassium metabisulfite, I just found sodium metabisulfite, you think that this compound can stop the fermentation ?. Then I'll try mixing 500 grams of honey in two liters of water and add 2 grams of yeast and keep fermenting for 5 weeks, then I'll filter, put in the bottle, add potassium sorbate and sodium metabisulfite and place it in the refrigerator for a week. What do you think of this procedure?
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
What is the purpose for refrigerating the mead? But you want to measure the gravity and not simply use volumes and weight.. I have no idea how much water may be in your honey.. You want a starting specific gravity of about 1.090 or thereabouts for most basic meads... once you know what you are doing you can play around with the concentration and go for higher and /or lower gravities (1 part honey: 4 parts water or 1: 2 or 1:1.5 or ??? ) but you need to know what you are doing...
