So I made a trip to the grocery store...

...and came out with some mead making materials. I mostly winged it after reading a bit online over how to make mead. I got 3# of clover honey, a gallon of spring water, some fleischmann's active dry yeast, a pack of party baloons, a couple apples, and a lime. I made a gallon with 2# of honey and used some cleaned out 750ml bottles I had from last weekend for the rest. It has been sitting for a couple days now and the yeast is really taking off. I'm pretty excited about this whole project, anyone else ever wing it and had success or can I expect something that comes out tasting like I undoubtedly threw it together at a whim?

i "wing" it all the time!!! its a tie between buffalo and spicy but i think the spicy is winning...mmmm... now im hungry...lol...

Yeah, I did it on a whim powered by dreams of DIY goodness. Just to add a little info, I chopped the apples and cut the lime into 8ths and squeezed the juice out and threw in the peels as well. I did a few different things with the 750ml bottles, like adding some tea leaves to one and a spoonful of apricot preserves to another. I'm wondering if the preservatives in that will kill off the yeast or the extra sugar will kick it into high gear.

Hmm, well, one thing I will never use again is balloons, and I would suggest you just go to a brew store and get an air lock for a few bucks, stab a hole in the lid of the galleon jug or w/e, and then stick it in there. Exploding yeasty messes are so not fun, not to mention nasty contamination of your mead resulting from it.

Balloons are fine, its usually the process/method that's at fault.

Lots of people don't bother with anything other than an open bucket covered with a cloth.

A 2 gallon bucket with a 1 gallon batch usually gives enough expansion space when the batch is most lively/likely to erupt. Yet give enough room to stir like help if something you do starts it off, the stirring should allow the maker to knock the CO2 out of a bubbling state to prevent any overflow, then it can be racked to carbon for secondary.

So far so good, it's bubbling away and there have been no catastrophic balloon ruptures. I would go to a brew store if there was one anywhere near me. This is more of an experiment to see how it turns out, if it works out well enough I'll order some legit equipment from the internets.

Ah, well don't forget, all you'll probably end up with initially, is a rather hideous tasting murky brew.

Once its finished, cleared and then aged for at least 6 months, you'll probably have something reasonable, and certainly drinkable.

I don't plan on touching it until the fruit sinks and even then it will just be to rack it. I'll probably give it a little taste around 8 weeks just to see what's up. I'm in no huge rush, otherwise I would just go to the liquor store and have instant gratification! Judging by the process so far, I think ill go ahead and get some more legit equipment this spring once I get some extra cash to spend. A couple 3 gallon carboys and airlocks and a hydrometer so I can track the process better, maybe some real mead yeast....

I would never advise using bread yeast in a mead (or beer, or wine)... From everything I've heard/read it produces inferior results. While it could make something that you could drink, without retching, you won't get as good a result as if you had used a wine yeast. After all, mead IS honey wine...

Joe said it was cool. He didn't mention apples though... If this turns out "good" enough, I'll stop being an affront to the craft lol.

Golddiggie said:

I would never advise using bread yeast in a mead (or beer, or wine)... From everything I've heard/read it produces inferior results. While it could make something that you could drink, without retching, you won't get as good a result as if you had used a wine yeast. After all, mead IS honey wine...

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Check out JOAM. Tasty stuff, and it uses bread yeast. The big downside is that it doesn't flocc well, so you have to use extreme care when racking.

I opened one up today to stir it up and reoxygenate, it smelled like it had developed quite a bit of alcohol. So I gave it a little taste and it was VERY limey, so I added some more honey to sweeten it up. From the sip I put in a shot glass, I would guess it's at about 8 or 9 percent. Was reoxygenating/adding more honey a good idea? When should I get that lime out of there so it doesn't hijack the flavor? It's not overwhelming, but I could see it becoming that way. On a second note, I noticed that it fizzed up quite a bit like it was already carbonated when I gave it a shake, as in it created pressure in the bottle. Is this normal?

Yes, don't knock the JOAM til you've trie it.