What are your key principles to making mead?

[DonBon]

I’ve been making a slow start to brewing and have a couple of beers and a mead under my belt, with an elderberry wine currently waiting to be racked off the lees. The mead I made followed a simple recipe from a YouTube channel called City Steading Brews and I made a thread about it at the time. Several of the responses in that thread suggested that the recipe was controversial among brewers because it broke some basic rules about making mead (maybe including bread yeast?), but that it ought to be fine for a first brew.

Now as I start thinking about a second mead, I’m wondering what the various issues with that recipe are and what your core principles for brewing mead are. Is there an accepted “standard” recipe for classic mead? What are the variations I should be looking out for? Are there differing techniques, or is it a question of sticking to traditional ingredients, or something else entirely?

What, for you, makes a good recipe good?

 

[dwhite60]

Don't boil or even heat it.

Enough nutrient for the yeast.

Minimum six months in the bottle. A year is far better.

 

[videojunkie1208]

Research TOSNA protocols. Learn how they work and why your best meads are so much cleaner and faster than you thought possible.

Invest in a good fermenter. Seriously. The difference between a glass carboy and a stainless steel fermenter is light years. Not saying you can't make good mead in glass or even a bucket, but the ease of cleanup, sterilization, and the ability to take constant samples is priceless. That said, while I use SS in primary, I use glass in secondary. Samples are critical during fermentation. During aging I want to be able to see the clarity.

Use a calculator to help predict your mead recipes. Sample your ingredients to make sure that they make sense. Think through your recipe, its ingredients and your process. What ingredients go in primary? What do you add in secondary after the yeast are mostly dead?

Lastly, make meads. Make a lot of different meads. Make meads that make you happy. You want to make a rhubarb mango pepper mead? Go for it! Same with yeasts, try bread yeast, try a beer yeast, try the same recipe with different yeast... the experience you gain from just doing it is invaluable.

Cheers!

 

[videojunkie1208]

Since you asked about recipes, melomels (fruit mead) and pyments (grape mead) are probably the easiest meads to make. You get a lot of help from the fruit/grapes that can cover a multitude of errors.

Generally speaking, you want to tailor your recipes to be between 10% and 18% ABV lower than that, and usually there's not enough honey to get a good flavor, higher than that is difficult and requires some tricks.

 

[Kyzaboy89]

If you look at how Mead and Wine are made today, compared to 100, 200 or 1,000 years ago, standards and practices have changed far and wide. Some will find certain recipes controversial or down right wrong based on their belief of "standard." City steading prefers to do things simpler and more organic rather than adding chemical and nutrient products. The only thing they've used, that I have seen in all their episodes, that isn't purely organic or "natural" would be yeast and sanitizer. This is how I started making meads years ago and it makes drinkable mead, nothing wrong with this or ancient recipes, but over the years I slowly experimented with nutrients, SNA, and more modern practices. However you enjoy brewing or whichever route you take to make your product is up to you. Modern practices are designed to finish a mead faster and cleaner but it's not the only way to do it, simply the widest used and accepted currently. Much like making a kitchen table with traditional hand tools or modern power tools. Both make a product, one is faster, one is simpler which is worth more? It's a matter of perspective from the consumer, do what you want to do.

Sorry for the long post but it bothers me when people are discouraged by someone who believes there's only one way to do things. Do your research, ask as much information as you need and make your decision based on what you want to do then grow from there.

 

[videojunkie1208]

you look at how Mead and Wine are made today, compared to 100, 200 or 1,000 years ago, standards and practices have changed far and wide.

The last decade has seen a revival of mead and its processes. Compared to 20 years ago the current best practices are almost unrecognizable. (Edit)

 

[cmac62]

I really like this process.
Bray's One Month Mead
I have not made a lot of mead, but the best ones have used this protocol. Of course he has a new thread out there for a Kveik fermented mead that he says is drinkable in 3days. Haven't tried this yet. But the TOSNA is definitely a thing to check out.

 

[CKuhns]

Read this.

Its a zip file and must be downloaded.

Just my thoughts and observations

 

[cmac62]

Read this.

Its a zip file and must be downloaded.

Just my thoughts and observations

Thanks for the write up CK. Good stuff.