Recipe and Process
Welcome to the very first post on Snowy Hive Mead!
My name is Joe. I’ve been brewing mead for a while now, and have a few batches under my belt. After spending a lot of time with more experienced mead makers on The Reddit Meadery and The Mead Hall (Discord), and seeing a lot of new folks with similar questions, I decided to kick off the new year with a post containing a recipe and detailed process instructions for a Basic “Beginner” Traditional Mead.
My original plan was to create a video to pair with this post, but due to technical difficulties, it did not work out. I will have videos in the future, though!
This post contains all of the information required to start a batch of mead and get it fermenting happily. I will be adding information on racking on bottling as the batch I created for this post progresses.
First, here is the basic recipe (this is based on the Beginner Traditional recipe from the Reddit Meadery Wiki):
Total Starting Volume: ~2.25 Gallons
Target Final Volume: 2 Gallons
Style: Sweet Traditional Mead
Carbonation: None
Target Original Gravity: 1.126
Target Final Gravity: 1.03-1.04
Target Final ABV: ~12%
Ingredients
| Ingredient | Amount | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Orange Blossom Honey | 8 lbs | This is about 10 2/3 cups of honey. If your honey is crystallized, or partially crystallized, run hot tap water over its container to soften it up before pouring. |
| Yeast: Safale US-05 | 5-6 g | This yeast will likely come in an 11.5 g packet and you’ll use about half the packet. Precision is not important here, but it’s better to have a bit more than less. |
| Water | 1.75-2 Gallons | DO NOT USE DISTILLED WATER. If your tap water is good and doesn’t contain a lot of chlorine/flouride, you can use tap water or filtered tap water, otherwise good spring water is fine. The rule of thumb is that if the water is good to drink, it is probably fine for mead. |
| Go-Ferm | 6.3 g | Re-hydrate in about 1/2 cup of water. |
| Wine Tannin Powder | 1/2 tsp | Optional flavor and fining agent. |
| Bentonite | 2 Tbsp | Optional fining agent. Slurry made form 1 tsp Bentonite powder reconstituted in 1/3 c of water. |
| Fermaid O | 10 g | Added in 4x additions of 2.5 g each. |
| Campden Tablets | 2 tablets, crushed | Optional, recommended. |
| Sparkolloid | 2 tsp | Optional fining agent. |
Equipment
Now
Star San – For Sanitization…don’t fear the foam!
3.5 Gallon Bucket w/Grommeted Lid – You can also use a 3 Gallon Carboy, but a bucket is easier
Airlock – x2, one of these is for later
Spray Bottle – Optional, but nice to have
Hydrometer – You will need one of these
Kitchen Scale, 500 g – For measuring powders, you can estimate based on volumes if you need to
Kitchen Scale, 11 lbs – For measuring honey, maybe optional
Large Bowl – Like 1 gallon size, for sanitizing things
Long Stainless Spoon – For stirring in honey. If you are using a narrow-neck carboy you might have to resort to shaking it, though
Measuring Cups – Probably optional
Measuring Spoons – Optional, though maybe necessary if you aren’t using a scale
Knife/Scissors – For opening things
Blender – Completely optional, but useful for making a Bentonite slurry
Testing/Racking
1-Gallon Jug, x2
Auto-siphon, tube, and clamp
Wine Thief – Or turkey baster, some way to pull must out if you are using a carboy
Bottling
Bottler/bottling wand
Bottles (750ml x8)
Corks/Corker
Method
Sanitization
Mix 6ml (0.2 oz, or about 1.2 tsp) of Star San with a gallon of water in a large bowl. (If you are using a narrow-neck carboy, mix this in the carboy instead, shaking it around to make sure the interior of the carboy has all been saturated by the solution, then empty it into the bowl. Leave the foam in the carboy to settle out…you can drain some more of it into the bowl just before you start adding honey.) Fill your spray bottle with Star San solution to use later (anything too big/long to fit in your bowl can be sanitized by spraying it down thoroughly using the spray-bottle Star San solution), then put any equipment that will be touching the must into the bowl to sanitize. You should also spray down any work surface that you might set sanitized equipment on while working.
Rehydrate Yeast
Add 1/2 c warm water (about 100-104°F) to a sanitized container, put it on your smaller kitchen scale, and tare the scale. Add 6.3 g Go-Ferm to the water, and stir it in (using a sanitized spoon), until it is mostly dissolved. Tare the scale and add 5-6 g of yeast. Stir the yeast in until everything is combined and then set aside. You want to allow this mixture to sit for at least 20 minutes and can work on other steps while you are waiting.
Add the Honey
Spray down the inside of your bucket with sanitizer (or tip out any sanitizer that has collected on the bottom of your carboy, if that is what you are using), and then pour in the honey. If your honey is completely or partially crystallized, you can run hot tap water over the container, or let the container sit in tap hot water until it loosens up/dissolves.
Prepare the Must
Add about 1.75 gallons of room temperature water, plus the 1/2 tsp of Wine Tannin powder and 2 Tbsp of Bentonite slurry (if you are using them) to the bucket and stir vigorously (shake vigorously if using a carboy). It should take 3-5 minutes to thoroughly mix everything together, though if you have crystallized chunks of honey it might take up to 20 minutes.
Once everything is thoroughly mixed, use a sanitized measuring cup, baster, or wine thief to transfer enough of the must to your sanitized hydrometer beaker. Put in the sanitized hydrometer and check the reading. If it’s significantly higher than 1.126 (like 1.13 or higher), add a cup or so of water, mix, and re-test (you’re fine putting this sample back into the must).
Once you’ve got the correct gravity, add in the yeast/Go-Ferm solution (once it’s been at least 20 minutes)…it should have started foaming up on the top, indicating that the yeast are waking up. You can scrape out any solids that stick to the container using a sanitized spoon.
Close it Up
Seal the bucket using the sanitized lid, and put an airlock containing Star San solution into the lid’s grommet (if you’re using a carboy, use a bung and airlock).
Put the bucket into a cool, dark room (about 60-70°F), and leave it for 24 hours until your first nutrient addition.
Staggered Nutrient Additions
Around 24, 48, and 72 hours after starting the batch of mead (as well as one more time, as described below), you will need to open it, stir it with a long sanitized spoon (or gently shake/rock/swirl the vessel) for a couple of minutes to allow CO2 to come out of solution (this is called degassing), and then add 2.5g of your Fermaid O.
I do this by scooping about half a cup of must from the container using a sterilized 1 cup measuring cup, putting it on my small kitchen scale, taring, and then adding the required amount of nutrient. After stirring it in until it’s mostly dissolved, return it to the bucket, and stir again for another minute or so.
Once that is in, replace the lid of the bucket and put it back in its cool, dark place.
The fourth nutrient addition should be added either on day 7, or at the 1/3 sugar break (when a hydrometer floated in the must reads 1.082), whichever comes first.
For this particular batch, the gravity was still at 1.103 by day 7, so I added the fourth nutrient addition, sealed it up, and will be back toward the end of the month to verify when fermentation is complete.
Racking to Secondary
Coming soon…
Bottling
Coming soon…