Anyone have a good mead recipe?

[Ladd]

My brother stopped by over the weekend and brought me a 45lb bucket of honey (it's either clover or wildflower)... So now I am on the hunt for some good mead recipes!

I am thinking three 5 gallon batches, one traditional sweet or semisweet, and two for anything else, so I am looking for three recipes. I am open to just about any suggestions!

Thanks!

[akr71]

My brother stopped by over the weekend and brought me a 45lb bucket of honey (it's either clover or wildflower)... So now I am on the hunt for some good mead recipes!

I am thinking three 5 gallon batches, one traditional sweet or semisweet, and two for anything else, so I am looking for three recipes. I am open to just about any suggestions!

Thanks!

Talk/PM to Graham

[Graham.C]

I'm still experimenting, since they take a minimum of three years to mature it's hard to play around. I think if you use nutrient and DAP you can accelerate the conditioning time, but I have never done that. The thing with honey is that it lacks nutrients, so you either have to wait for the stressed out yeast flavors to mellow or you have to add something else to your mead. A lot of people use raisins, but my next batch I am going to try mashing some grains and using the extract from that (braggot). I have also tried blueberries, cider, cranberries, with decent results. I recommend a couple table spoons of lemon juice and a cup of really strong tea for acid/tannic structure. Use the gotmead calculator to calculate the OG you want (for sweet, semi-sweet, dry) Use a clean ale yeast or a sweet mead yeast if you want a sweet wine, use a wine yeast if you want a dry, or something in between if you want in between. The trick to mead making is once you bottle it, put it somewhere that it will slip out of mind. Try a bottle every year until its tasty. The best mead I had was 15 years old. Ok, that's what I know in a nutshell but you wanted a recipe.

My first batch was JAOM, which was quite drinkable within 6 months and was fairly sweet, like an off dry riesling. It was really decent actually and was the first thing I ever fermented (at least on purpose).

Like I said above, I don't have a recipe I stick with. Every batch I switch things up trying to get a feel for it, but this is one.
6-8.5kg of honey (6 for dry, 7 for off dry, 8.5 for sweet)
Four tbsp of lemon juice, or some wine acid blend from your LHS
A cup of strong tea, or some tannins from your LHS
Yeast nutrient (optional)
Yeast energizer/DAP (optional)

Do not boil the honey, screw what you know about sanitation, heated honey tastes like pollen and white sugar
You can warm the honey in a pot inside another pot of water, or what I do is pour all the honey into a sanitized carboy then use warm tap water (I'm on a well, use spring if you are on city) to get the last bit of honey out of the container. Add water and other ingredients (except nutrients/DAP have instructions when to add them along the fermentation). Shake the sh** out of the carboy with a bung in it to airate and mix the honey. If you didn't heat the honey, this will be hard, expect a workout, if you did you should be fine. Add two packets of yeast (or white labs liquid mead yeast). Put on airlock and forget about it for six to twelve months, except to be sure the airlock doesn't dry out. Bottle and put in the deepest reaches of your basement/closet/inlaws house. Sneak a bottle every six months to a year. Unlike wine there are no fruit esters to oxidize so it will only get better with time if you have a clean batch. It will probably end up over 15%ABV, so the booze needs time to mellow anyways. If you keg (a great way to store mead if you have the capacity) and CP fill your bottles you can really reduce the chances of mother of vinegar (needs O2) corrupting your prize.

Good luck!

Like I said, there are faster ways to get to a finished product if that's your thing. Check out the interwebs for those, I have never tried them except JAOM, but be warned. Like someone said on here the other day, the internet does not know your tastes. I once tried a rushed malomel that was supposed to be good in four months and is now just getting tasty 30 months later.

[Graham.C]

Oh I forgot to add, if you want to make a metheglin (spiced) go easy on the spices. There is not much body in a mead to support much spice and a little goes a long way in my experience. Plus most spices are just easy to add at bottling as they are at the start which lets you play a little more. Something I learned the hard way.

[Ladd]

Thanks a lot Graham for all that info! Some awesome suggestions and tips in there! The first thing I did was hit the internet and spent the rest of the weekend reading about how to make mead (I have never made one before). I did see a bunch of recipes that sound like they may be pretty good, but you sum it up perfectly with beware of internet recipes. Been there, learned that the hard way myself... I figured this would be the best place to start with my questions! Tap into some local knowledge! When I think I have something that sounds interesting, I'll post it for your opinion if you are interested? I would like to make sure it sounds right and balanced before mixing up any ingredients.

I am curious though, do you use starters (made with must) for your mead's or just pitch the packets/vials? I would like to stay away from anything that I don't absolutely have to add such as nutrient and energizers, but I read that it can be tricky to ferment without the nutrient additions. In your opinion is that just the norm because people are generally impatient, or is it common to have a stuck fermentation due to stressed yeast? I am sure back in the day they weren't adding supplements to make mead, so I am not really sure what to think.

Thanks again for your suggestions and tips! I am super excited to try my hand with meads!

Matt

[Graham.C]

I have yet to have a stuck fermentation, but perhaps that is the lemon juice/tea or maybe I am just lucky. I have used DAP before, but I don't anymore. That being said I have been making mead for only about five years and now only do a 5gal batch at a time, so I have only made a half dozen batches plus some one gals to experiment with. I haven't made starters but I just started doing that for my beer about a year ago and I think it would work well.

It would be great to share idea, results, etc. PM or post up here. I am generally good at staying on top of threads here and if we keep it public others can use it.

I forgot to mention, you can use sulphites to stop the yeast in their tracks if you want a sweeter wine. I used to use it for sanitizing, but its not potent enough for beer so I stopped.

[Graham.C]

I keep meaning to come over to the island for one of the Alender meetings, perhaps when/if I do I can bring some mead.

[Ladd]

I keep meaning to come over to the island for one of the Alender meetings, perhaps when/if I do I can bring some mead.

That would be awesome! I still need to get in to the meetings, I haven't made it to any yet due to playing 8-ball on Tuesday evenings in the Charlottetown CCS league at Dooley's. We always seem to be short a player and I never get the chance to get a night away from it. It will be over soon though and I will be able to start going. Can't wait to meet some more fellow brewers!

I think for my first batch I'll try the basic recipe that you have outline above. I have seen other people recommending the lemon juice and tea as well so I will definitely include that. I'll post the specifics on what I have done after I brew it up. I am thinking for the second batch, making the same recipe and tossing in a few pounds of raspberries. Any suggestion on how much to add? I have read that people are adding anywhere from 1-5lbs per 5 gallon batch, and I am sure it is the brewers taste specifically that accounts for that, so I was thinking of aiming mid range and going 2.5-3lbs. Still not entirely sure what to do for the third batch but am still looking and reading.

I am planning to use WLP720 - sweet mead yeast (have it on the way right now!). Any experience with this bug? Am curious how it attenuates compared to the specs on their site. I read some comments that it can perform a little better than they give it credit for... I really want to try to plan out my OG so that I end up around 1.010-1.020 without having to back sweeten if I can. Not like it will be the end of the world if I have to, but for the sake of practicing control, this is what I am aiming for!

Thanks again for your suggestions, I appreciate it!

Matt

[Graham.C]

No I have always used dry wine yeast, but I was thinking about ordering some of the white lab stuff for my next batch.

I recommend ordering the complete mead maker by Ken Schramm, its the best book on the subject. Lots of great tips in it. His berry Malomel (Mambo in your mouth) is as follows. Its not just raspberry but maybe you can use it as a guide.
12# honey
3 Gal of H2O
2 tsp yeast energizer
2 tsp yeast nutrient
3# strawberries
3.5# Black Raspberries
2# Blueberries
2.5# Dark sweet cherries

This is one I have always wanted to try. It looks awesome. You should be using the fruit in secondary, not primary to preserve the esters (otherwise the might get blown off during primary).

[dean2k]

My first batch was JAOM, which was quite drinkable within 6 months and was fairly sweet, like an off dry riesling. It was really decent actually and was the first thing I ever fermented (at least on purpose).

I did the same thing as Graham and also started with Joe's and can attest to Graham's statement. The instructions say 2-3 months, but my batch is really only starting to mellow out now at 8+ months.

[Ladd]

No I have always used dry wine yeast, but I was thinking about ordering some of the white lab stuff for my next batch.

I recommend ordering the complete mead maker by Ken Schramm, its the best book on the subject. Lots of great tips in it. His berry Malomel (Mambo in your mouth) is as follows. Its not just raspberry but maybe you can use it as a guide.
12# honey
3 Gal of H2O
2 tsp yeast energizer
2 tsp yeast nutrient
3# strawberries
3.5# Black Raspberries
2# Blueberries
2.5# Dark sweet cherries

This is one I have always wanted to try. It looks awesome. You should be using the fruit in secondary, not primary to preserve the esters (otherwise the might get blown off during primary).

That sounds absolutely delicious! I may try that for my third batch! I'll have to check that book out as well! Thanks again!

I did the same thing as Graham and also started with Joe's and can attest to Graham's statement. The instructions say 2-3 months, but my batch is really only starting to mellow out now at 8+ months.

Ya I read this about mead and intent to follow Grahams direction of hiding it somewhere dark and testing a bottle every 6 months or so. Thanks for the input guys, I am getting really excited to get these going!

[CorneliusAlphonse]

Hmmm I may have to put on a couple 1 gallon batches of mead... using the empty 4.5 later jugs Jayme had a while back

[Graham.C]

Hmmm I may have to put on a couple 1 gallon batches of mead... using the empty 4.5 later jugs Jayme had a while back

That's how I started. Did about a dozen 1G batches. The only down side was if you drink a bottle every few months, you run out in less then a year so it was hard to get a handle on how it aged. Then again, it was a great way to experiment. I might try it again.