It is time again, friends, to brew a batch of the oldest fermented beverage for which we have historical record. Mead. I don’t drink it, but I like making it and I haven’t made a batch since 2023. I had grand plans for this batch since I found some wonderful people recently that like it. I had planned to make a seven gallon batch (still am technically) and I was going to make it a Melomel, or mead with fruit / berries in it. Well, berries are hella expensive and for a 7 gallon batch, that would have been more than 90 bucks of berries… so no.
Fear not, reader! I will be making some smaller batches in secondary. What is secondary? That’s when you rack the mead after the primary ferment is completed or mostly completed. What is racking? It’s the process of moving the mead from one vessel to another. The current vessel is a brewer’s bucket. No, it’s not a regular bucket with a hole in the top for the airlock. Well, ok, that’s probably exactly what it is but it’s food safe. No PCBs and what not to spoil our good works. Now, I will reveal my plan for this 7 (a little more than 7 actually and I’m a little nervous about that) gallons of mead.
I plan to make some smaller batches of fruit and or spiced mead. Maybe three two gallon batches of berries, cherries, and pear. All of these have been requested in the past. In the final gallon, I’ll try some spices, like star anise, cinnamon, and clove maybe. It’s all a fun game, really. the only rule is not to introduce too much oxygen. Oxygen is the mead killer.
Here’s a little vocab –
- Mead is just honey, yeast, and water. That’s a traditional or Show Mead
- Hydromel – Lighter or lower alcohol content mead with more water to honey ratio.
- Sack mead – A strong and sweet mead with a high honey to water ratio and usually higher in alcohol.
- Dry Mead – Fermented until most of the sugars are gone with little to no sweetness.
- Sweet mead – Mead with a noticeable sweet taste. Sometimes this is from Back Sweetening meaning sugar was added back in after fermentation.
- Still Mead – Not carbinated… any of these could be still or sparkling.
- Sparkling Mead – Carbinated.
- Melomel – Made with honey and fruit
- Cyser – Made with honey and apple juice or mash
- Pymet – made with honey and grape juice like wine
- Metheglin – With spices and / or herbs (classically clove, cinnamon, rosemary, sage, or mint)
- Bochet – Made with caramelized or burned honey
- Braggot – Hybrid of beer and mead
- Capsicumel – Made with hot peppers
- Acerglyn – Made with maple syrup and honey
There are lots of variations on the theme. I am going to keep things simple, though. Once the primary fermentation is done, I’ll add some sacks into the secondary vessels containing the additional goodies I plan to use. The alcohol will leach out the flavors of the additions… kind like a cordial. There may be some live yeast still in the mix and if so, that could kick off more fermentation in secondary. We’ll see. I plan on ending up around 13% or so given the initial gravity reading. I’m using a wine yeast because I had planned on adding berries so I was planning on more acid. It’s fine…. they’ll tolerate acid in secondary. The only issue is it might be too sweet.
I’ll update when I know what’s what. A few months maybe.
“Let him drink the mead of wisdom, that he may speak the words that bind fate.”
— The Poetic Edda, Norse mythology