Piling on here a bit. - +1 for Bernard
MEAD MAKING FOR DUMMIES (Funny) See below.
Mead - My Personal Discovery
After a few sips of a truly awesome Mead crafted by a very talented individual and knowing that there are countless years of trial and error, oral and more recently written history, I determined that I would try my hand at brewing Mead. But before jumping right in I decided some research was in order.
What I found is that there are literally thousands of ways and hundreds of techniques folks use to make Mead. Some rather quickly and some that literally take a year (or many) to be considered anything but "Drinkable". For a first time Mead brewer (Mazer) this can be very confusing and a bit overwhelming.
In this article I will be discussing what I consider to be some “middle of the road” protocols, practices, techniques and recipes. I have found general common themes used by many. I would strongly encourage you to use, modify, deviate from them or even ignore them as you see fit. Many great Mazers have significantly differing practices techniques and protocols. Many more try some truly outrageous things that ultimately create great Mead. This article does not delve into the more obscure practices of the craft bit sticks to the tried and true.
My first career was as a chef and my second career is as a chemist. It dawned on me that combining some of the same skills, practices and techniques I learned over the past 40 years along with the knowledge of the Forums I can likely make some awesome Mead! I will attempt to capture and share some of those experiences practices and techniques here.
Both the Chemist and Chef follow similar criteria, they define the theory and objective, build the experimental design and protocols, practice their techniques and use impeccable precision to generate a reasonably repeatable result every time they perform the task. Think about it this way: If you went to a five star restaurant and ordered an entrée that was crafted flawlessly: would you want it to be exactly as you remembered it the next time you stopped in? As well, if you wanted to know the exact makeup of a complex compound, would you want the chemist analyzing it to perform the analysis from a developed protocol, following it to the letter to get a result as precise and accurate as possible?
With that said, when it comes to crafting your Mead, the statement below is probably the wisest statement made by anyone delving into the practice of turning honey into “The drink of the god’s”. I believe it is the best advice anyone new to the craft should hear.
When brewing Mead: “If you were successful, which I am 99% certain you will be, then enjoy your Mead. When you get ready to make different Mead you will probably have to unlearn some of these practices I have taught you, but hey--- This recipe and procedure works with these ingredients so don't knock it.”
Excerpt from Joes Ancient Orange Mead recipe. (JAOM) - Joe Mattioli
The recipes that are perfected by Joe and by others most often work pretty repeatable for them. They will only work for you as described when your technique, conditions and ingredients match the recipe. What you must understand is that your ingredients and conditions may or may not exactly match the persons who has perfected the recipe and as such your Mead could turn out slightly to significantly differently.
In general Mead is pretty forgiving but endlessly variable. This is primarily due to the fact that ingredients are not only easily obtained they also vary greatly. Along with that, Mead is easily modified allowing for the results to be endlessly variable. I should also point out that each of us have differing palates, preferences and likes. What one person considers to be a “good” Mead others may think is not good at all. (I’m OK with that.) In short, we all have our own opinions, preferences and practices, and unfortunately (right or wrong) we tend to be prejudiced towards those practices.
For any new Mazer I would suggest you start by researching and learning from others. The forums are great places to gain knowledge. (Listen to the experienced folks and filter out the junk.) Consider finding more experienced Mazers locally who have perfected their own techniques and practices, most will be happy to lend a hand or offer advice. Check to see if there is a local brew club that your Home Brew Supply Store could recommend. I find they tend to be predominantly overrun by folks brewing beer and to some lesser extent fruit wine. Yet, many times you will find a few Mazers mixed in. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and share experiences. Then run a few batches of the “tried and true” recipes. Make your own Basic Mead. Honey, Water and Yeast with one of the tried and true Staggered Nutrient Addition (SNA) protocol. If you feel daring, consider trying Joe’s Ancient Orange Mead (JAOM) and or Bray’s One Month Mead (BOMM) to perfect some of the techniques those recipes will teach you. (Consider doing at least one of all three.) Then, experiment and fine tune your own personal recipe, techniques, practices and ultimately your craft.
I am convinced that along the way you will have a lot of fun, learn a bunch of new techniques and practices and will likely wander off on tangents that may make truly amazing Meads. - I’m currently thinking about a bunch of pretty neat options outside of the “norm”. Perhaps next in-line for me is a Bakers Honey Burnt Bochet with Sea Salt in primary, vanilla and oak cubes added to secondary.
Practices and Techniques:
I spent hundreds of hours researching the Web and reading books. Finally realizing there is so much information available that I literally found it just too daunting to try to decipher and make sense of it all. As a result I compiled the very simplest common threads others had settled upon throughout their Mead making process.
Many would-be Mazers get so overwhelmed with the vast amount of information available and or then fret over every little detail they never actually put a batch together. The simple truth is that it truly is pretty darned easy to make a good mead. As I have proven, you can make a good mead by doing nothing more than combining yeast and honey in some water.
If you can read and follow some very simple recipes along with practicing some good general techniques then you very likely can make Mead. Consider making Joes Ancient Orange Mead (JAOM). If you find that is not too difficult consider following the Staggered Nutrient Addition (SNA) approach fast being adopted by the Mead brewing community. As you perfect your skills, consider the advice recommended in Brays One Month Mead (BOMM) recipes. Each of the above have their own merits and as literally thousands will attest, do produce a good quality mead. But then… so does pouring Honey in Water placing it in a warm place open to the air and letting it ferment from wild yeast naturally. (Many Meads are made this way even today.) But then again… so does using computer generated spreadsheets, in-line hydrometers & pH meters, thermo couples, heat or chilling blankets and solenoid valves attached to a blue tooth device that not only record every factor but automate the entire process and send notifications to your phone letting you know when you have “wandered” from defined parameters.
With all of that said, I eventually settled on the following common themes:
- Patience
o Time generally is your friend in each step of the process.
- Sanitation
o Yeast and Bacteria can grow in similar environments Sanitize everything that touches the Must. (Including your hands)
- Quality Ingredients
o Buy the best quality ingredients your budget can afford
- Fermentation is an inexact process and requires good practices and techniques.
o Yeast are live organisms (Fungi) and are engineered to thrive in a specific environment.
 Food Source, Temperature and time requirements for your yeast of choice should be understood and adhered to as closely as possible.
 Oxygen in general is not good unless in the early stages of Primary fermentation when the yeast need it to bud / reproduce.
o CO2 and Alcohol inhibit yeast.
 Yeast will take a very long time to die and prior to doing so go dormant.
- Mead is not finished until it clears and ages.
o Sometimes it takes a month or twelve and often even a few years.
- Each Mazer has their own techniques and practices that most often work for them, none are wrong, just different. What works for them may or may not work for you.
- Mead is pretty forgiving and endlessly variable.
o Most anyone can make a reasonably good Mead. (Even when using what I would consider questionable practices and recipes.)
As a result, my first batch of mead made was done so using the following “recipe”.
I sanitized everything that would or could touch the Must. I took four gallons of water from my kitchen tap. (It tastes pretty good and has no chlorine or fluoride, is a bit hard as I don’t “soften” my water.) Added 15 pounds of wildflower honey from a local farmers market to a five gallon ale pale. Then sprinkled in a single packet of dry Lalvin D47 yeast. Then placed a lid and airlock, set it in my basement (Constant 64 Deg F) and let it go.
My theory was that fermentation would take place, and in fact it did! A little over 30 days later the airlock stopped bubbling. I assumed primary fermentation was complete. I then racked it to a glass carboy and racked again each time lee’s showed ¼” or more. After a few months it cleared up pretty well. However, and not too surprisingly after about 3 months it still tasted pretty darned “hot” cheep vodka hot or rubbing alcohol hot, so I used a fining agent and allowed it to clear completely (Read a newspaper through it clear) and after another rack bottled it in beer bottles with crown caps. Then set the bottles in a closet under the stairs in a plastic bin. (I was afraid of bottle bombs as I did not “inhibit” the yeast) Once a month I opened and checked a bottle and found that over time this Mead was slowly transforming, and in about 16 months I found myself staring at the glass I poured and looking at the bottle in my hand, thinking this stuff is GOOD not great but GOOD!!! I can do this! (Two years later it was VERY good. Unfortunately I went through it pretty quickly. Fortunately I set aside five bottles and will open one a year to see how this ages.)
I would suggest and have found that even though this technique worked surprisingly well there are improvements that can be made. Let’s explore some of those.
The Basics: (For the Chef & Chemist in you)
The notes in this section are intended to be more like a “basic recipe” with the techniques and practices that will allow you to create something amazing. These are not exacting science and or the extremes of the craft. Those are for you to determine or discover on your own.
If you want to make a Mead worthy of the title “A drink of the gods (or if you prefer the goddess) then consider listening to folks who “have been there done that”. Be sure to experiment, document and capture what works for you along the way. Then continue to perfect your craft.
Think about when you learned to make a family tried and true recipe./ In my case Grandma’s Molasses Cookies… Grandma did not write everything down in detail, use a gram scale and eye dropper to add ingredients then bake them exactly 8.25 minutes at 350 Deg F and let them cool to exactly 180 Deg F before removing them from the cookie sheet. Grandma, didn’t even refer to her recipe any longer and did what “felt right”. (The cookies always turned out AMAZING!) It just so happens after she passed we found a hand written recipe on a 3 x 5 card that said things like add “X” Cups flour, “X” ounces sugar, “X” eggs and enough molasses and “love” until it tastes and smells “just right”. Then roll into a ball in your hand flatten with a glass and bake until golden brown and the smell is “heavenly”. To this day I unfortunately cannot make Grandma’s Molasses cookies taste exactly like she did. (I am a Grandpa not a Grandma and think the Grandma’s Love part is the key. *Sigh*)
The point to this little rant is that you can make great Mead time and again using good general techniques and practices. You just need a Grandma (or Grandpa) to help you along the way.
Ingredients – Good quality ingredients are important.
Buy the best quality ingredients your budget allows. Your end result will reflect it.
Honey
- Mixed Honey from C**tc* or W***m**t works but then so do varietals from Dutch Gold®, Sue Bee® or even locally sourced varietals from your local honey producer.
o Often local honey quality, flavor and aroma is significantly better than other sources and cost is not that much more if bought in bulk.
- There are a lot of varieties of honey available, find one that you think will add the flavor profile you want in your mead. Look for one that will pair well with your other ingredients.
- If your not sure what works well together consider the fact that many of the same flavor profiles you use in cooking do well in mead.
o Clover Honey and Hibiscus Tea
o Orange Blossom Honey and Cranberry’s
o Wildflower Honey and Strawberries.
o Bakers Honey, Cinnamon, Cloves, Vanilla and Charred Oak.
o Tupelo Honey, Black Tea & Blueberries or Currents
o The list is endless….
- 100% pure honey is roughly made up of the following:
o Honey is about 30 percent glucose, 40 percent fructose, 7% Sucrose with other sugars in the mix. (Many of which are much more complex.) With a small amount of Dextrin and some starch. All of this is suspended in about 18% water.
 Determined from a Minnesota locally sourced wildflower honey using Liquid Chromatography (LC) in a research laboratory.
o Making any given volume of honey about 80% fermentable sugars.
Yeast (fungi)
- Pretty much any yeast will work:
- There are a lot of varieties of yeast available, find one that will be able to produce the alcohol content and flavor profile you want in your mead.
o Champagne or Wine Yeasts are a good place to start.
o Some Ale Yeasts work. (BOMM)
o Bread Yeast (JAOM)
- Determine what your fermentation conditions are, consider amount of ambient or electric light, the temperature and if it fluctuates day to night etc.
- Yeast are engineered for and work best under specific conditions, try to match the yeast you choose to the conditions you will be placing them in.
o If you’re not sure what yeast would work best in your fermentation room conditions, check out the yeast producers sites.
o Use common sense and try a few recommendations from others.
- Yeast are living organisms (And yes are Fungi) they can survive and adapt to almost any reasonable environment. They will also become stressed if not adequately cared for.
o Stressed yeast can make your Mead undrinkable for a very long time by throwing some off flavors or producing undesirable by products. (Fusel Oils or Esthers to name a few.)
o The good news is that in Mead these “off flavors” most often will age out.
o The not so good news is that patience will often be required!
- Yeast in their aerobic phase of development need oxygen and nutrients to reproduce / bud and stay healthy.
o Oxygen (air) is good for the yeast but only in the early stages of Primary when the yeast need it to reproduce or bud.
o To keep them healthy use a Staggered Nutrient Addition protocol during the aerobic phase in primary.
 I have settled to adding nutrient at yeast pitch, the 1/3 & 2/3 sugar breaks.
- Yeast in their anaerobic phase convert sugar to alcohol & CO2 until finally going dormant and eventually given enough time die.
o The goal we strive for is to keep them “happy” and “healthy” long enough to not only reproduce but to go from an aerobic to an anaerobic environment while producing alcohol & CO2 before going dormant and or dying.
Nutrients & Aeration
- Honey is naturally pretty deficient in nutrients. Additional nutrients in your Must although not required make for yeast that are less stressed and will often provide a quicker and “cleaner” ferment.
- There are many nutrients available. (Fermaid K, Fermaid O, Dead Yeast, Raisins, etc)
- Staggered Nutrient Addition. – The SNA I have settled upon for a 5 gallon batch of mead:
o 2 tsp DAP/Fermaid K (2-1 Blend) at yeast pitch.
o 1.5 tsp at the 1/3 sugar break.
o 1 tsp at the 2/3 sugar break
- Calculate sugar breaks based upon OG and expected FG
o An OG of 1.110 & Expected FG of 1.005 = 105 Gravity points
 1/3 Target 1.070 & 2/3 Target 1.035
- Aerate 2X’s a day up to the 1/3 Sugar Break.
o Air is required for yeast to reproduce / bud.
- After 1/3 break Daily release CO2 until the 2/3 Sugar Break.
o CO2 & alcohol inhibits and stresses yeast.
 Nothing you can do about the alcohol obviously it’s production is kind of the point of the process.
Water
- There is an ongoing debate in the forums about water character for Mead brewing.
- I will not go into the details here but would suggest the following:
- Use good quality Spring Water or Well Water with no additional chemicals or softening.
o Both spring water and well water will bring with them some of the trace minerals and micro nutrients that are good for Mead.
- I personally use tap water from my local municipality that is not softened and has NO added chemicals. It is just pumped from a very deep aquifer and run through a Reverse Osmosis skid.
o It should be noted that tap water often brings chemicals from your municipality.
 DO NOT USE municipal water unless you either boil it or are 100% sure there are no water treatment chemicals added. (fluoride, chlorine, ammonia etc.)
 Boiled water from your tap works as most of the water treatment chemicals added and after 5 minutes of boiling you will have nearly sterile water.
• How does it taste? If it tastes kind of “flat and lifeless” is it something you want to use in your Mead?
- Distilled or filtered water works but again brings few trace minerals or micro nutrients.
o But again, how does it taste? Is it something you want to use in your Mead?
Sanitation
EVERYTING that touches the Must shall be sanitized. (Including your hands).
- Bacteria and wild yeast are everywhere, some can thrive in both aerobic and anaerobic environments. They can and will reproduce and create toxins, infections or undesirable flavors.
NOTE - Some bacteria can even use alcohol as their food source!
- Infections do happen, the chance is greatly reduced with good sanitation habits.
o This should not be over stressed and should not over worry you. However, if you just put $75.00 to $100.00 into your carboy or brew bucket do you really want to take the risk?
- There are many acceptable ways to sanitize your equipment all with a little thought and care will reduce the risk. (Boiling, Alcohol, Bleach, No rinse Star San® etc.)
Fermentation
- Specific Gravity readings are Critical!
o Hit the targets for Original Gravity (OG) and nutrient addition as close as possible.
- Use good quality spring water and Honey.
o Your Mead is only as good as the ingredients you use.
o Spring water brings with it the additional nutrients needed without fluoride or water treatment chemicals.
- pH is important – Adjust your must to
o It is generally considered optimal for yeast production if the pH is between 3.7 and 4.6.
- Making a yeast starter for 2 to 3 days & the 1/3 – 2/3 staggered nutrient addition with aeration makes your yeast healthy and healthy yeast mean a quicker and cleaner ferment.
o It also means a lot of Lee’s due to producing Billions of healthy yeast.
- Air is your enemy after 1/3 Sugar Break
o Remember to release CO2 up to 2/3 sugar break.
 No Splashing! While Racking etc, check airlock liquid periodically.
- Time is your friend. - Stick to the schedule if at all possible;
o If problems arise check pH & SG adjust appropriately then wait it out & recheck.
- Honey is made mostly of fermentable sugars, it's about 30 percent glucose, about 40 percent fructose, about 7% sucrose with about 20 other more complex sugars in the mix, along with some dextrin all suspended in about 18% water.
o Due to the water content and other trace non-sugars of Honey 1 pound of Honey is the equivalent of roughly 0.80 pound of sugar.
o 1 lb of Honey in a gallon of water will provide a gravity of 32 to 38 points (1.035) and 35 points of sugar when fermented out results in about 4.7 % ABV (0.035 * 135 = 4.72). (Rough calculation and not exact but appears to be pretty close.)
- This assumes your yeast during fermentation will convert all the sugars to alcohol, but remember no matter how good or healthy your yeast are they will often not do so. (But occasionally do.)
Temperature is important!
- Yeast are built specifically for a given temperature range and all of the yeast producers claim best results from the middle of that range.
o Hit your yeast temperature tolerance middle to low of the range.
 If not able to hit the middle or lower end exactly then ensure you are inside the yeast temperature tolerance.
 Often Mead brewed at the upper end of the tolerance range tend to stress the yeast and produce fusels and other unwanted flavors.
 When brewed below the lower end of the range your ferment could stall and not complete. Leaving your Mead much too sweet.
o Hold your temperature in primary and secondary as constant as possible.
 Fluctuations in temperature stress yeast.
Additional Thoughts
Mead is pretty forgiving you can often get away with practices or techniques that are arguably not the best. If you have never brewed Mead. Take a look at what folks are recommending; go with what appears to be good solid advice by the majority. I strongly suggest that if you want a Mead that you will be confident will turn out well each time you brew it start by “staying in the middle” and controlling or treating each step of the process exactly as you did the last time it turned out well. Changing or incorporating new techniques and or practices one or two at a time.
I have not yet perfected “awesome” but believe I am getting pretty darned close. “Awesome” Mead takes time. (Patience Gwasshoppah!) At any given time I have One to Three 5 gallon batches bulk ageing. Some after a few months taste good and for those I get pretty excited about. I also have a few that may in the future be just OK and that I will eventually be able to share with friends and family but will never really be what I would consider anything but good. I have had a few that I would consider to be just barely drinkable and have needed to either let it age a good long time (More than a year or two), blend it off, or just drink it myself chalking it up to expierence.
If you aim for a starting gravity of between 1.115 and 1.125 - and if you choose to use "enough" fruit in either your Primary or Secondary to produce the kind of flavor profile that you like, and you taste the Mead as it develops and ages, I would bet that in a very few attempts at making mead you will know what works for you. Just be sure to keep careful notes. (Trust me your memory is not as good as you think it is.)
I am still developing, my protocols and recipe. I find that often the synergy between the ingredients does transform the flavors and they do turn out pretty well. I take a disciplined approach to change and only change one variable at a time. I document everything and keep pretty detailed notes. I then incorporate the ingredients, techniques and practices that give me the desired result (if any) into my recipe. It is important to me to be able to identify cause and effect.
At some point I will create a truly amazing Mead and when that happens, I will preserve that recipe and use it time and time again. This “master” recipe will be my go-to for a great mead as I am pretty confident I will be able to reproduce it. The point is there are so many options out there I will never be truly “done” experimenting as I will continue to look for the next thing to improve and will go off on tangents with Melomels, Cysers, Methaglins, Bouchets, Braggots and Lambics to name just a few. However most often (not always) my experimentation will take a disciplined approach.
