Making Mead for Beginners

The flavors in Mead depend on the honey and type of yeast. There are 2 main types of process, either like beer or like wine. If you buy mead at a liquor store, it is usually the wine type. Depending on the characteristics you want, you use different yeasts. Mead ranges from sweet to dry, may have lots of carbonation, medium carbonation, or none at all. And it's essentially the easiest fermented beverage to make while still maintaining a wide variety of possibility for creativity. 

 

You can make a small batch of sweet beer type to get started making your own the same way I started out. Just take a jar, add boiling water and honey in a 85% water and 15% honey ratio. Stir to dissolve the honey. Let it cool completely, and add 1tsp of yeast. Any yeast will work. If you don't want to spend money on a fancy wine or beer yeast, you can use bread yeast, but it tastes better with the wine or beer yeasts. I suggest ale yeasts for this recipe. After you add the yeast, stir it a bit and put the lid on the jar loosely. Store it somewhere dark. Keep it out of sunlight at least or it will taste like the rear end of a skunk. Within an hour or two, it should be cloudy like yellow milk. After about 2 weeks, the yeast should have exhausted its supply of sugars. When it is ready, it should be clear with sediments on the bottom. Add 1 tsp of honey to another jar the same size. Pour the mead out into the second jar carefully so you don't get sediments in the second jar. Tightly lid the second jar and swirl it around to dissolve the new honey. Leave it for a few days to a week and it's ready. When you pour it, it should foam up like beer. But the taste is more delicate.

 

Variations:
Hippocras is when the mead is brewed with spices. You boil them in the water. This is something you develop based on your own taste, but I like orange peel, clove, cardamon, and cinnamon.

Melomel is when you add fruit juices to the mead before you ferment them. You must boil the fruit juices if they are not pasteurized already and make sure it's cool before adding the yeast.

Bochet is mulled mead. You pour the mead into a pot after only the first fermentation, then add spices and orange or lemon peel and heat it together. Served hot on cold winter days, it is a repast fit for royalty.