Want to start mead brewing
Mead is the nectar of the gods, it is pure ambrosia, and it is just plain yummy. In all honesty, mead is a type of wine made with honey instead of grapes. And just like with wines, there are dry meads and sweet meads.
There are also quite often flavoured meads, like cherry, vanilla, elderflower, hawthorn, and everything in between. So don’t worry, there will be a mead for you whether you like it dry or sweet.
How did mead come into the world
Since mead is basically honey and water with some yeast added to start fermentation. Nowadays, we tend to use a sachet of yeast for our brewing, but in the olden days, we would have used the yeast from the environment. So when you think about how little ingredients are in mead, you can imagine how easy it must have been for those people way back in history.
There is quite some strong archeological evidence that mead, was probably the first alcoholic beverage. Since archeologists found some pottery remains from 7000 BCE that had traces of mead on them. But it was only 4000 years after that, that there was evidence of mead being drunk in Europe.
How mead came to Ireland
It was only when an Irish monk named Modomnóc introduced bees to Ireland in the 5th century, that mead could even become a thing. Apparently, the bees were so devoted to this monk that they followed his ship. And settled in Ireland, where the people now had access to honey and thus mead.
It must have been a big success because you can find references to mead in many Irish stories. One of the most famous ones is the story of the Children of Lir, where they drink a cup of mead just before being turned into swans. If you have never read it, I highly recommend it. Unless you just want your kids to get used to their new stepmom, then I would steer clear of this story.
Unfortunately, nowadays, mead isn’t very popular anymore in Ireland. But that just gives you the perfect excuse to start experimenting with brewing a batch for yourself.
Honey is not just made by honeybees
Honey is produced by bees, bumblebees, and even by some wasp species. Although, only the 7 types of honeybees are efficient and prolific enough to make it worth the effort of harvesting the honey for human consumption. Of course, there are also other types of bees, apart from our honeybees.
There are solitary bees like the mason bees, but these would never produce enough honey for us humans since they mainly live alone. Then there are also stingless bees, but they also produce less honey than our honey bees, and their honey is too runny for long term storage.
Then there are bumblebees, who don’t make nearly as much honey as the honey bees do, and their hives are as messy as a teenager’s bedroom. So if we were to harvest their honey, we would kill all the little bumblebee babies. And that would not be a very animal-friendly way to get our honey.
Lastly and probably everyone least favourite black and yellow insect, the wasp. Only a handful of wasp species actually produce honey, and what honey they do produce, is again not in the same amount as our honeybees. Then again, who would have the nerve to harvest some wasp honey, I know I wouldn’t dare.
How much honey to use for your mead brewing
It all depends on how sweet you want your mead and what yeast you would use. Because there are different types of yeast. Some like bread yeast and beer yeasts only give an ABV of about 5% to 8%. But white wine yeast tends to be able to give you an ABV of 10% to 15%. Lastly, there are the champagne yeasts that can go as high as 18% ABV. But typically, people prefer to use white wine yeast because it makes the flavours stand out better.
So if you use a yeast that has an alcohol tolerance of 14% ABV, and you use your standard demijohn of a gallon, and you buy your standard jars of 1 pound or 454 gr of honey.
- dry mead, you use 2 jars
- medium mead, you use 3 jars
- sweet mead, you use 4 jars
Then you simply top your demijohn up with water and your yeast, then you sit back and wait for the plopping sound of your airlock. The measurements given above are rough estimates which will work fine but if you want to adjust or create a recipe then I recommend visiting mead makers batch builder.
How to ferment that honey into mead
With yeast of course and some water, well actually a lot of water. And let’s not forget that all-important yeast. And you tend to also want to add some yeast nutrients, you can either buy those in packets or use tea or some raisins.
This is because unlike regular wines, where there are loads of different nutrients on the grapes for the yeast. Honey is basically just a whole lot of sugar with not that many nutrients for the yeast itself. And by adding that little bit of yeast food in the form of yeast nutrients or some raisins, the yeast will just be able to work that bit better.
You also want to make sure that you use chlorine-free water since the chlorine will kill the yeast. And if your yeast has died because of the chlorine in your water, you will be waiting a very long time for your mead to finish.
The importance of keeping things clean
But just as important as making sure that you don’t have chlorine in your water, you also want to keep any pesky germs out of your brew as well. So you will want to sterilize all of your equipment, that means not just your demijohn but also all the other implements you will use for brewing your mead.
So clean your measuring jug, and your spoon, hydrometer, and all your other mead brewing implements. Because brewing is a lengthy process, you don’t want to wait for months, only to find out your batch has failed because you had some bug floating in there.
How long will it take to brew mead
First, you will go through your primary fermentation, which will take somewhere between 3 to 6 weeks. At our house, we prefer to leave it for about a month, but that is mainly because it is easy to remember that way. For if you started your mead the first Saturday of the months, then you know you should be able to rack it the first Saturday of the following month.
After racking, which is simply transferring your mead from the first demijohn to a second one. While leaving all the dead yeast at the bottom of the first demijohn. But after racking, you start your secondary fermentation, which can last anywhere from 1 to 2 months. At which state it should be done fermenting, you can check that with your hydrometer. If the value doesn’t change for days at a time, you will know that the yeast is completely done with fermenting.
After your second fermentation, you will want to let it age for anywhere from 6 months to a year or even more. You can leave your mead to age in bottles or in your demijohn, doesn’t really matter as far as your mead is concerned.
So what are you waiting for, order yourself a mead or wine brewing starter kit and do some mead brewing. And please let me know about your brewing adventures in the comments.
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