I woke up this morning and decided to start a batch of mead. I am on the move a lot, so I decided to make a small batch that uses no specialized equipment and will be portable. Thanks to Joe Mattioli at http://www.gotmead.com, I found the perfect recipe for my travels.
Mead is a wine that is brewed using honey and water, and fermenting with yeast. Mead is incredibly easy to make. All of the ingredients that I used in making my mead can be purchased at the local grocers. The total cost of my ingredients came to around $20.
You will need the following ingredients to make 1 gallon of wine:
• 1 gallon of spring water (room temperature, do not refrigerate).
• 3 lbs of unprocessed honey.
• 1 balloon, (large enough to stretch over the mouth of the spring water jug).
• 1 package of Fleishmann’s yeast.
• 25 raisins (get a small box).
• 1 orange.
To make room for your ingredients, pour half the spring water into a clean container. Slice your orange, so you can fit them through the mouth of the spring water. Add the orange slices, twenty-five raisins, yeast, and honey into the spring water container. If your honey is too solid to pour, place the honey container in a bath of warm water. This will soften the honey and allow for an easier time when pouring it into the spring water. Fill the container up with the remaining spring water, leaving a couple of inches from the top. Put the cap back on the mixture and shake the container vigorously for a few minutes.
When the mixture is evenly mixed, you take the cap off and place the balloon over the mouth of the container. Poke a small hole in the balloon. This will allow for the gases to slowly escape, while preventing foreign contaminants from entering your mixture. If the balloon does not feel tight enough, you may need to use rubber bands around the mouth of the container to keep it on tight.
Over the next twenty-four hours, your balloon will start to inflate. Watch carefully to make sure the balloon does not inflate so large that it pops off. If you feel there is too much stress on your balloon, you can poke another hole to allow more gases to escape. When you are comfortable that your balloon will hold, place your mixture in a cool, dry place like a closet or a kitchen cabinet. The fermentation process will last two to three weeks. At the end of this period, the balloon will go limp.
Patience is the name of the game at this point. For your batch of mead to get really tasty, you will need to let it sit for at least two and a half more months. During this time, you will notice that the cloudiness disappears as the wine slowly clarifies. If you can stand it, allow your mead to process for six months and your taste buds will love you for it.
I am hoping to consume this batch of mead with my friends and family at a Peace Corps send off party. There is no telling when that will be, I am still playing the waiting game. The wait has been rather painless, because I have been keeping myself busy with fun projects and new experiences. Next on my immediate list is making kefir.
OK,I just made my mead and I’m left with 2 questions:
1. Are you supposed to have left over spring water?
2. Do you have to siphon the mead?
Thanks in advance!!! XD
Well, according to this recipe, you should have as much left over spring water as was displaced by the honey.
As for decanting, siphoning off would work, as would decanting through a funnel w/ cheesecloth in it as you’re mainly looking not to stir the sediment, or get the sediment in the final product.
Also as a note, this is technically a melomel due to the inclusion of the citrus fruit.
http://www.honeywine.com and http://www.gotmead.com are two other excellent sites for mead resources.
This is very up-to-date info. I think I’ll share it on Delicious.
I have extra kefir grains do you want them?
Started drinking the batch that i made a couple moths ago. It has a very tart flavour and is definatley high in alc content, two small glasses was enough to get a good buzz on. I just picked up some proper supplies, carboy, lock, etc, going to whip up another batch and try something different this time.
28th of May mine will be ready!
I don’t think I shock it enough though. Make sure to seriously mix your brew up before starting the process. And once you start, don’t move it or shack it up in any way.
If I were to bottle my mead, would I need to get an expensive filtering kit, or could I just run it through some coffee filters or something? I don’t mind a little sediment, but would hate for it to referment in the bottle and blow out the corks.
Instead of raisins us peachs apricots,,,,,, it leaves a very nice fruity taste
Reminds me of my favorite movie “The 13th Warrior”
We made mead back on Guam in 1944 only we called it “raisin-jack”. Just take a coconut and clean out hole in the top. Put a cork in it after adding a dozen or so raisins to the coconut in the milk. Hang it in the top of the quonset hut or tent, whatever your accomodations happen to be and wait for the cork to pop out. Now that’s cheap raisinjack, or mead. dr. dixie
Случайно наткнулся через гугль! Очень интесно
По моему мало развернутая мысль, хотелось б более обширно почиатать.
After the mead is done fermenting(after the balloon deflates), should I take the balloon off and replace the cap or leave the balloon on?
Eruvanna - The oranges are there to add some citric acid to the mix. So it still is technically a mead and not a melomel. it would be a mel if you added more orange and/or mashed it to impart a more orangey taste to the mead.
Talon - The raisins are there for extra food for the yeast as there isn’t too much of the food that yeast likes in honey.
Kenny - After the mead is done fermenting, you can keep the balloon on there. Actually you have to choices from there. You can keep it in the jug and let it clear and age “sur lie” (on the lees [which is all the yeast everything that settles on the bottom]) or you can rack (transfer to another jug/carboy) to get it off of the lees. If you rack it though, you will have to siphon it into the other container and not disturb any of the lees on the bottom. It will clear up a bit faster with racking, but will still have to age a couple of months (minimum) before enjoying or it will still have that alcohol bite/burn to it.
I have a batch of this going right now and it’s coming along nicely. The primary fermentation is slowing down and should probably be ready to rack in about a week. I’m actually planning on waiting a little longer until the oranges and raisins drop to the bottom of the jug before I rack it though. That way it’ll help get the most out of everything and with all the fruit on top of the lees on the bottom of the jug it’ll make it easier to rack without having to disturb the lees.
Next up… a batch of strawberry vanilla mead… Yum!
Is quick rise active dry yeast okay, or do I need to use the traditional stuff?
So, I started this recipe 3 weeks ago, and the balloon is still inflated. Sediment has collected at the bottom, and the color has started to clear up.
Can I let this sit for another few months before drinking? What are the next steps?
Alisha: The Fleishmann’s Active Dry Yeast is what I used for my batch. I’m not sure about the quick rise version though. I think that the quick rise and bread machine versions are different strains of yeast and may have some slightly adverse effects on the taste. You can always give it a shot and let us know how it comes along. It’d at least give us an answer on the “Is _____ yeast ok for this recipe?” questions that always seems to pop up.
Ira: To go over what I went over briefly in my last post… You can either let it age as is “sur lie”, in which case you don’t have to do anything until it’s ready to drink. Or you can rack it off into another container and let it age in there. Two different routes… your choice on which way you want to go with it. I personally am going to wait until the oranges and raisins hit the bottom too, and then rack it and let it age a little longer. (I’m not going to lie though… I really just want to take the balloon off and see how it’s coming along.)
Rally a great post. I’m definitely going to give this a try. For some reason I keep thinking about prison wine.
ЪБВБЧОП, дБЧБКФЕ ЕЭЕ РП ФЕНЕ!!.
A few questions -
Which is the preferred method: decanting with a funnel and cheesecloth; or racking it?
Also, I have a number of empty and washed out beer bottles with the closeable tops (i.e. Grolsch Lager). Is this type of bottle suitable storage for the last few weeks before I start drinking?
Adrian, I was just wondering about your strawberry vanilla recipe. Would you care to share, because that sounds damn good? No problem if you don’t, never hurts to ask though.
Ira: Racking is definately the preferred method, but the funnel/cheesecloth method should work just fine. You may need to do a couple passes with the cheesecloth though to get all the dead yeasties out.
As for the Grolsch bottles, as long as the seals are fine, they work great for bottling mead. Make sure the gaskets are still fresh though, or you’re going to have some problems. Worse comes to worse, just go to a local home brew store and pick up some new gaskets. They’re relatively cheap and that way you know it’s good.
Kelly: I haven’t gotten around to making it yet, but the recipe I’m planning on using (for a 1 gallon batch) is:
2.5 lb honey
1-2 lb fresh, frozen, thawed strawberries
1 vanilla bean, split
1 pkg yeast
Water to top (about 3 qts)
Dissolve honey in water at low temperature on stove. Put strawberries in a hop bag (or cheesecloth bag, or fresh pair of nylons will work too) and mash in your primary fermenter. Pour honey water over strawberries. Add yeast and shake for 5 minutes to oxygenate. Let ferment for about a month. When done fermenting, rack off of strawberries into a secondary (optional to rack onto more strawberries if you want a more potent strawberry flavor [I wouldn't go over board though... maybe just 1/2-1 lb of strawberries]). Also, when racking add split vanilla bean to secondary. Just split it down the middle and drop it in. No need to scrape it or anything. After another month re-rack it into another clean secondary. Let age and enjoy a couple months down the line.
Should be tasty and have good amount of strawberry flavor with vanilla and honey undertones. May finish up a little on the dry side, so before you bottle, you might want to taste and possibly back sweeten with a little extra honey (personal preference though).
As for the batch I have going now… coming along nicely. I thiefed a little bit out a while ago for my grandmas birthday. Despite being super young, after opening up for few minutes, it was already pretty drinkable. Half of my co-workers want some now. I almost want to start a batch at work so we can all watch it come along.
[...] Making Drink Mead Making 101 [...]
Just wanted to say thanks Adrian, sounds good, I’ll try to get some going soon.
if you forgot the raisins and the mix is only couple hrs old is it ok to pop the balloon of quick to toss em in?
Yea Logan. Should be fine.
thanks man. im lettin it sit till end of feb for my 21st. an traded the honey for the finished mead haha
A lot of of people talk about this subject but you wrote down really true words!
Can you go blind from drinking this? I read that methanol can cause blindness, but now I’m confused….
no this is honey wine not grain alcohol
I thought this sounded interesting so I am currently trying to do it.. But It has been ~48 hours and my balloon has still not inflated. Did I do something wrong?
Patience my pretty, all will become clear in time.
Also yeast takes time to get to work in the winter at lower temperatures (if you are in the Northern Hemisphere)
Ahh, that’s probably it.. I have it fermenting in a closet that is probably the coldest place in my house. Not THAT cold.. But cold. Thank you
Whelp, did this recipe and made two gallons about a year ago. Some things I did were to rack into a secondary, through a funnel and two coffee filters. Let it sit in the secondary for about a month. Before I bottled I went through another two coffee filters. I also sweetened it a little before bottling. The bottles had some funk at the bottoms after everything was said and done - clearly dead yeast since none of it refermented in the bottle and I didn’t pop any corks. I figure since most of the beer I drink has funk in it, it’s not going to hurt. What do you know, it tasted fine. I only have one bottle left and I’m saving it for Superbowl, which is also my birthday.
I shared this recipe with a buddy of mine and I made three more gallons - blueberry, peach, and strawberrry vanilla. Let’s hope these go smoothly as well.
Hello!
I have a plan to make some mead to the summer and i love the idea with the balloon! How big shall the hole bee? Like a pencil point? thx for the good but easy guide!