Mead recipe

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Steve62

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The boss has been talking to her friends and now wants me to make her some mead....(note to self, ban her from leaving house)

Can someone supply me with a recipe for mead and also any guides on said brew as I've never tried this before

Thanks in advance
 
The boss has been talking to her friends and now wants me to make her some mead....(note to self, ban her from leaving house)

Can someone supply me with a recipe for mead and also any guides on said brew as I've never tried this before

Thanks in advance

There's a nice book out there, by Ken Schramm. Might be worth to casually put it somewhere the boss might pick it up. She might have a try herself! :whistle:

You know the saying: give a man a fish et cetera.
 
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Strictly speaking a Mead should only contain honey but dont this a few times, its the cml recipe.

honey 1.5kg upwards
handfull of raisons
juice of a lemon
chopped apple
nutrient and yeast
Add more nutrient every 2 days for a week or so

Personally i like a high alcohol yeast and if its too dry add more honey at the end.
 
My first meads I kept very simple:-

3lbs of honey (you can go higher, just don't go lower...)

1 gallon bottled water

1 teaspoon citric acid

1/2 teaspoon malic acid

1 teaspoon nutrient (I use Tronozymol these days, but used to use Youngs Yeast Nutrient), not enough nutrients in honey

1 cup very strong (6 bags) unsweetened black tea

1 packet yeast (CML is good, I've also used Gervin universal wine yeast and Lalvin 71b-1122 (found the Lalvin isn't as strong a ferment, but good for melomels).

Make sure to de-gas the fermenting mead at minimum once a day, twice is better. In 1 gallon DJs I do this by giving it a good swirl.

Will be a while before you'll be able to drink it once done though, straight mead often has a serious burn to it at first. If you want it faster, consider adding spices (metheglin, I found a chopped up vanilla pod bunged in during primary did a lovely job) or fruit (melomel, made a yummy raspberry mead with a load from my mum's garden) to soften the burn. Or just suck it up, and figure you get worst burn drinking shots... :twisted:

I'm currently experimenting with a "hydromel", 680gs of honey, no acids, 1 gallon water, no nutrient and some ale yeast, the idea been to produce a beer strength mead in a short time, then prime it and drink it sparkling (looking for something similar to Lyme Bay's Yore). Problem is, despite using ale yeast, no nutrients etc, it's still bubbling away in primary weeks later... :lol:

Anyway, mead making doesn't have to be complicated is the moral of this tale, keep it simple and at worst you'll get a rough mead that seems a bit on the fizzy side.... At best, you'll get something deliciously rounded that has anybody tasting it converting to been mead drinkers. :thumb: Either way, it'll just about be drinkable.
 
I'm currently experimenting with a "hydromel", 680gs of honey, no acids, 1 gallon water, no nutrient and some ale yeast, the idea been to produce a beer strength mead in a short time, then prime it and drink it sparkling (looking for something similar to Lyme Bay's Yore). Problem is, despite using ale yeast, no nutrients etc, it's still bubbling away in primary weeks later... :lol:

I've made a couple of hydromels to get used to making mead, both with tesco orange blossom honey. First was 1 gallon with 850g honey, came in around 6% using Lalvin D47 yeast. Took s few weeks to ferment out, but as I was being lazy and going by bubbles not FG it was probably done sooner, also it was crystal clear at bottling. Only got a slight sparkle from priming but the last bottle which was 6 months old (and in summer) had carbed a lot so it must have been down to the house being too cold.

2nd and current batch is the same honey, 6 jars (2.04 kg) in 10L, I stopped fermentation early, can never remember if it was 1.004 or 1.007 but either way it's about 7.5% +/- a few points. Fermented with S-04 for 10 days stabilised with camden and sorbate so it's still and very tasty, nicer than the bone dry carb'd one.

It's personal opinion but my wife and I both preferred the sparkling one with low carbonation, the 2.5 volumes was very aggressive and killed a lot of the flavour.

There's been experiments done on the gotmead forums and they found Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale to be the best ale yeast, it ferments dry but sweet and is perfectly drinkable in a month as in actually delicious not "just drinkable." Someone else did a test and found that Wyeast 1056 American Ale was the best (much smaller sample size), so US-05 might be worth a shot. Caveats - GM tested using orange blossom honey and a 1.100 OG. I think the other experiment was the same but might have been a touch higher.
 
Yeah, I was planning to prime to similar levels I use for real ale. I'm from the midlands, so not a fan of over carbonated ales, although some of the real ales Meantime Brewery make are quite nice if a bit weird from how fizzy they are (tasted in the Cutty Sark pub on my last visit down there). If you ever had Toby bitter though in the 90s in a London pub, ewwwwww. lol Still nicer than the lager back then though....

Any news on the mead front Steve? You had a go yet? It's addictive once you get started, especially when combined with foraging... ;)
 
I got mine from biggerjugs: https://www.biggerjugs.co.uk/collections/brewing-ingredients-additives/additives. They have an ebay store if you prefer too. Most brewing suppliers who do wine ingredients sell them though. I like the malic as I reckon it gives the mead a hint of apple, goes nicely with the flavour from the citric. Alternatively you could throw in some apple and fresh lemon juice, but that involves chopping and juicing. ;) lol
 
Quick update, as I mentioned we were experimenting with hydromel. We tasted it finally today, it was delicious. Next time though plan to use a tiny bit more honey, and maybe some mexican orange blossom honey rather than el cheapo stuff.

Try it, it's mega simple and yummy straight from the fridge.
 
Quick update, as I mentioned we were experimenting with hydromel. We tasted it finally today, it was delicious. Next time though plan to use a tiny bit more honey, and maybe some mexican orange blossom honey rather than el cheapo stuff.

Try it, it's mega simple and yummy straight from the fridge.

Yes! I’m still drinking one I made ten months or so ago and it’s lovely. I feel like it’s dried out more than I remembered but it’s still got a lovely aroma and delicate flavour.
 
Yes! I’m still drinking one I made ten months or so ago and it’s lovely. I feel like it’s dried out more than I remembered but it’s still got a lovely aroma and delicate flavour.
I don't know if you agree, but I prefer it to normal mead, it's easier to drink.

Sent from my NEM-L51 using Tapatalk
 
I look at hydromel as more an alternative to beer or cider whereas mead is an alternative to wine, so horses for courses really.
 
I put my mead on yesterday, added a stick of cinnamon and a few cloves to give it a spicy taste, bubbling away nicely in the brew fridge
 
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