Your First Mead Recipe

So why make this mead first? Simple. It’s an easy mead recipe to make and the taste is absolutely phenomenal. I will provide some optional steps at the end to elevate this mead in its racking stage.

To get started you will need a few brewing items. I am going with smaller items such as 1 gallon carboys to ferment your mead in. The reason I do 1 gallon carboys first is to test a recipe and see if I like it. And honestly honey can get expensive and money is tight these days. So don’t go all in on a recipe unless you know it’s one you like.

Which brings me to scaling my recipes. When you find a tasty recipe on my site and want to scale it, just multiply the ingredients by the number of gallons that fit in your carboy. Pretty simple!

Enough rambling, here is what you need.

Hardware:

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• Mead Kit - This is a great starting point because it gives you all the basic equipment and even a packet of yeast to get started.

• Large Mouth Carboy - This is optional but its handy to have a second carboy to rack your mead into when the time comes.

• Star San - If you are going to make more mead you need a good quality sanitizer. Trust me, get some Star San.

• Hydrometer - This tool helps measure alcohol content and lets you know when the mead is dry or done fermenting. It isn’t necessary if you are just getting started but again it is really handy to have on hand.

Recipe:

Now to the fun stuff. We are making a “Traditional Style” mead with some added ingredients that give the final product added mouth feel, body, and a bright acidic quality.

Ingredients:

• Wild Flower Honey - 3 lbs (14 hg)

• Raisins - 2 oz (60 g)

• Orange Peel - 1 oz (30 g)

• Black Tea - 1 packet

• Spring Water - 1 gallon of your finest grocery store water.

• Yeast - I recommend Lalvin 71b but you can use whatever you have on hand.

The first step is to always sanitize ALL EQUIPMENT before placing ingredients in them. So get cleaning!!

The next step is to start steeping your tea packet in one or two cups of hot spring water. Use water from your gallon jug and always avoid using tap water.

While the tea is hanging out, take the raisins and orange peel and put them in your carboy. I find that the smaller you make the ingredients the easier it is to get out of the carboy. So keep that in mind when shoving ingredients in your carboy hole.

Take the 3 lbs of honey and put it in a large mixing bowl. Whisk in a quarter of your water. You really want to whisk this mixture vigorously to incorporate as much oxygen in your must as possible. You should see bubbles or a foam form. Go ahead and dump this in your carboy. And it’s okay to be “rough” with your mead at this point. You want oxygen to get in the mead, so take out your work-day-aggression by giving the carboy a good shakin’! Remember to leave some room in your carboy for the tea!

The oxygen is needed to help your yeast thrive throughout the fermentation process.

If you still see some honey in the mixing bowl, add the now warm black tea into bowl and give it a good whisking. Then add it all into the carboy.

Give the carboy a good shake to incorporate the ingredients through out the must. If you have a hydrometer take a reading. We are shooting for a specific gravity reading of between 1.100 and 1.110. Its okay to be a little off either way. If everything looks good and you sanitized all equipment go ahead and dump the test solution back into your carboy.

Last steps! Add in your yeast and put your airlock on. Give the carboy another shake and you are set. Place the mead in a dark place away from sun light. Keep your temperature range between 65 and 75 as a rule of thumb.

Tips:

Things to consider when making your mead.

• Was your gravity reading to high?

  • Add some more water if possible.

  • If you can’t add more water consider using yeast nutrients if your must stalls.

    • Fermax is great at getting through a stalled mead.

• Was your gravity reading to low?

  • If you want to get your mead closer to a 1.100 reading, add more honey.

  • If you can’t do that, its okay. Your mead might be a Hydromel or Session mead if your ABV is between 3.5 and 7.5. Or if the ABV slightly higher, good. As longs as your mead tastes good, thats all that matters.

  • Be careful of oxidizing your mead when the ABV is around 5%. It could turn into vinegar. Although, I have never had honey vinegar, so maybe its good. Could make it into a salad dressing or something else?

• Want to elevate this mead?

  • When you rack your mead add in some Toasted French Oak chips and two vanilla beans. The French Oak can sit for as long as you like but I usually pull it after a month. The vanilla beans I leave in until I finished drinking all of the mead.