mead at home
- Thread starter Alcofermbrew
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Hi Alcofermbrew - and welcome. You'll get lots of advice from folk on this forum but it may not always be so easy to weigh the advice people offer - You might first want to read the "NewBee Guide" which is posted at the right hand side of the menu bar at the top of the page. You might also want to listen to some of the more recent podcasts hosted by Gotmead featuring Squatchy; and books by Ken Schramm, Steve Piatz and by Robert Ratliff are all very useful.
But mead is very simple. You take some honey, some water, some yeast and some nutrients and you mix them together and after a short while the yeast gives you a delicious wine. The more honey you add the more flavor there is but then the amount of alcohol also rises. The more water you add, the more honey you need because the water dilutes both the flavor and the final alcohol content. Different yeast work best under different conditions and different yeast highlight and enhance or hide or provide different aspects of the honey and/or the fermentation process itself. Nutrient additions are all but crucial as honey has virtually none that the yeast need. All other things being equal any yeast will ferment dry (no sugar or sweetness left) any solution of honey and water. If you prefer a sweeter mead then you need to either provide more honey than the yeast can in fact ferment - all yeasts having a limited tolerance for alcohol -( and a limited tolerance for sugar (or honey) in concentration) - OR you need to add more sweetener after the yeast has fermented all the sugars in the honey water solution (called a "must"). But to do that you need to stabilize the mead to stop the yeast from treating this added sugar as their food. When you can make a good mead from honey, water, yeast and nutrient then you are a mead maker and you can happily play with all kinds of other ingredients - fruits, spices, herbs, nuts, hops and the like (and others may very well disagree: I am a certified contrarian) but trying to make a mead using fruits and nuts and spices when you are a beginner tends to mask and hide systemic problems that you may have with your practices. Start simple - That's my advice. Start simple - and know what your goal is before you begin any batch (how much alcohol? How sweet? How tart? How effervescent? ) And enjoy the journey as much as the destination!
But mead is very simple. You take some honey, some water, some yeast and some nutrients and you mix them together and after a short while the yeast gives you a delicious wine. The more honey you add the more flavor there is but then the amount of alcohol also rises. The more water you add, the more honey you need because the water dilutes both the flavor and the final alcohol content. Different yeast work best under different conditions and different yeast highlight and enhance or hide or provide different aspects of the honey and/or the fermentation process itself. Nutrient additions are all but crucial as honey has virtually none that the yeast need. All other things being equal any yeast will ferment dry (no sugar or sweetness left) any solution of honey and water. If you prefer a sweeter mead then you need to either provide more honey than the yeast can in fact ferment - all yeasts having a limited tolerance for alcohol -( and a limited tolerance for sugar (or honey) in concentration) - OR you need to add more sweetener after the yeast has fermented all the sugars in the honey water solution (called a "must"). But to do that you need to stabilize the mead to stop the yeast from treating this added sugar as their food. When you can make a good mead from honey, water, yeast and nutrient then you are a mead maker and you can happily play with all kinds of other ingredients - fruits, spices, herbs, nuts, hops and the like (and others may very well disagree: I am a certified contrarian) but trying to make a mead using fruits and nuts and spices when you are a beginner tends to mask and hide systemic problems that you may have with your practices. Start simple - That's my advice. Start simple - and know what your goal is before you begin any batch (how much alcohol? How sweet? How tart? How effervescent? ) And enjoy the journey as much as the destination!
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soes anyone have one? I love love love mead but find it hard to get hold of, and when I do find it, its expensive. so I figure, whats a better way to toast the sabbats than brewing my own mead from local honey and using that?
but i have no idea how to begin and would really appreciate some help
thaaaanks
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but i have no idea how to begin and would really appreciate some help
thaaaanks
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