First mead batch help. 1 gallon try recipe anyone?

I want to make an easy but delicious batch of mead. Before I do I want your best recipe. I'm thinking a little sweet. Like the mead at the renaissance festival. I want it strong...of course. My wife isn't a big beer drinker so I want something she will like. I would like to do a 1 gallon batch to start off.

What's your recipe?
Directions?
How long will it take for the whole process?

THANKS!

This is a good recipe my husband and I made before we decided we should take down extensive details. I just tasted it after 1 1/2 years of sitting and, boy! was it yummy. This is a sweeter mead.

It's best to make when the roses are in bloom. It will be close to when blood oranges are available, if lucky.

Scent of Rhyal - Orange and rose. a 5 gallon batch (easily converts down to 1 gallon)

15 pounds of orange blossom honey (3 pounds for 1 gallon)
added to water raised to 150 degree F. (We wanted to retain most of the essence from the honey.)

6 blood and 4 regular organic oranges juice and zest (just use 2 blood oranges or 1 blood and 1 regular for a 1 gallon batch)
We wanted to use all blood oranges but could only find 6 at the time. It's probably best to add later when must has cooled so the mead can retain vitamins from oranges.

10 oz. rose petals from garden (no pesticides!) (2 oz for a 1 gallon batch)
It is recommended to cut off the white base of the petals to avoid bitterness.
You can make into an infusion in a separate pot with a lid, or add whole into honey must at peek heat, but I think we add it to the cooled must to retain the floral esters.

EC-1118 yeast

We may probably have used Irish moss and Super Fermenter at the appropriate times but the details are lost. I have no idea about the s.g. We had not used hydrometers until recently. My husband often added one clove per gallon to his meads, but I don't know if we did for this batch.

Once primary fermentation was finished we added 10 teaspoons McCormick pure vanilla extract.

This is a really good recipe. Sorry I left so many questions unanswered. I hope you enjoy the brew as well as we did, and I hope the variations weren't too chaotic.

Tomico

Go with JOAM

I say JAOM

Does a 1 gallon batch take a year and a half? If so I should renew my lease now. That's a lot longer then I thought. I might have to buy a house before I get into making mead.

Use a nice varietal honey, like orange blossom or acacia. 3lbs honey, water to 1 gallon, yeast nutrient/energizer, your choice of wine yeast, wait for the magic to happen; should take a year or so.
Regards, GF.

It is sad it takes so long, and why so few people actually bother with mead. Who wants to start up a new hobby, do it for a day, and then wait a year before anything comes of it?

I have a feeling that 9 out of 10 people who try it will make a batch, wait 2-3 months, it will taste like butt, they'll dump the rest down the sink and pick up a new hobby.

Unfortunate, really.

If you want a mead that will be drinkable young, you need to put in work.

You will need to aerate, and or degass, however you want to call it. (from here on out why dont we just call it derate, or aerass?)

Also you will need to give the yeast nutrition in the form of DAP and and yeast hulls.

So, 3 lbs honey
1 tsp DAP
Some yeast hulls( I used half a packet of bakers yeast that has been boiled in a little water.)
Water to make 1 gallon
Lalvin D-47 yeast,or any other yeast that your local homebrew supply recommends for the job.

So you gonna take your honey, put it in a fermenting bucket, or a Homer home depot bucket (if you dont think they are safe then dont use them), that has been sanitized with proper sterilization steps ( please read up on them). Then take a sanitized spoon and mix in the water, along with the DAP and yeast hulls. Make sure to stir HARD for at least 5 minutes, your trying to infuse the "must" with o2 at this point.

Now your gonna rehydrate the yeast as per packet directions.

Now your gonna add the yeast.

Now your gonna cover it with a clean towel.

The next day, your gonna take a sanitized spoon, sanitize your arm, and stir the living crap out of the must for at least 5 minutes.

Now your gonna do that again for the next 5 days.

After that you can rack it into a one gallong glass jug or a 4 liter wine jug, install airlock, and wait a three weeks. After waiting your gonna rack it off the sediment into a one gallon jug. Then wait for it to clear, and bottle. Enjoy

I served a 5 week old mead using this method and people loved it.

Or you can do JAOM, which is highly suggest.

Welcome to mead, good luck and have patience. And read previous posts, the same questions are asked and the same answers given all the time.