Mead: The Beginning

Mead is wine made from honey. This is the oldest fermented beverage on earth.  Honey moons are called such because it was good luck to drink mead at your wedding. There is a lot of information out there about the history of mead; look it up!

My first meads were quite a long time in the making. Since I had decided that I was going to make some once I got some new honey. I purchased two books to study how I should make mead. Based on what I had read in terms of reviews, “The Compleat Meadmaker” by Ken Schramm is considered the bible of mead makers. There are simple methods and then he goes on to very complex methods. Most importantly, he really knows his stuff; everything is explained as a science and not an art. There are accompanying indexes of different honey compositions and explanations as to how all the ingredients interact and what you can expect when you mix them with certain fruits, spices and honeys. This is a must buy for any mead maker; hobbyist or professional!

The other book I purchased was “Making Wild Wines & Meads” by Pattie Vargas & Rich Gulling. It has 125 unusual herbs, fruits and flower recipes.  It is great because it is fairly simple and tested blends.

I started my first three 1Ga. batches of Mead On Nov 14 2009. The initial fermentations were very rigorous and everything was very exciting. It quickly slowed down and I transferred my 1st fermentation into carboys to take it the mead off the spent yeast on Nov 24th. I transferred them again on Dec 12th and now everything has really slowed down but they are still active as you can see by the airlock being off of its closed position. It means that the carboy is still pressurized.

I added the faint red circle to show what I mean by the air gap which shows that there is pressure in the carboy. (sorry for the backdrop!)

The wines have really cleared up over the last week. The light colored mead has always been clear though. It is a different honey and it is a Dry Mead.

(The marbles present in the last two are there to maintain the volume and the air gap at the top of the carboy, volume was lost in siphoning into the new carboys)


The Wines that I am making are as follows:

1. Dry Mead: 2.5 lbs of my honey (light colored) heated in water bath for 10mins + rest in water

2. Apple Melomel: Unpasteurized Apple Juice + 1.5 cups of orange Juice + 3 lbs of heated dark honey (from Jim) + acid blend

3.    Natural Sack Mead: 3.5 lbs of heated dark honey (from Jim) + golden raisins + 1.5 cups of orange juice + some grape tannin + acid blend.

All of these meads obviously have yeast and a yeast nutrient and energizer added to the mix and other small ingredients.