Ye Olde Meade - The Making Of

And Today is a new day, after a random dream about a zombie apocalypse i've decided to make up a batch of Mead. And share the magic of mead making for all of you alcoholics out there.

few things to consider here.

1. Legality 

Check if it is legal in your country or state town or provence, where i am its legal to make homebrew booze as long as its not moonshine / spirits, so beer / wine / ale / mead / cider etc, all good.

2. Hygiene

You Will NEED to make sure EVERYTHING you use is clean and sterilised or you may end up making vinegar or the bad kind of alcohol that blindes / kills you, 

3. Risk of poisoning blindness and death > see point 2.

If you're allergic to any of the ingredients, obviously avoid them.


So, aslong as those 3 points are understood here we go:

Assuming you are not completely hopeless and can mix things together clean things and have use of limbs this is easy! (if you dont have use of limbs ask for help from someone who does)

im going to be doing 2 batches of 2 litres here

Ingredients:

1. Honey
2. Water
3. Sugar
3. Fruit
4. Yeast
5. Some kind of nutrients for the yeast

Equipment:

1. Liquid container / Demijohn / Large Bottle
2. Something to sterilise everything
3. A funnel may be Useful but not needed.
4. Balloons / airlock bungs
5. Secondary Liquid container / Demijohn / Bottle (optional)
6. Bottles to Bottle it when its ready.

Now obviously your bottles / containers / Demijohns need to be sealable and clean

Adjust and experiment with ingredients to your taste / the amount your making.


There's many ways you can do this but this is my way. the cheap easy lazy way.

1. Clean and Sterilise everything (i'll assume you're not thick and can work this out)
this step is important so dont skip.

2. I'm using Bottled water bought from supermarket this is the easiest option and provides you with the containers you need also. im using 2 2litre bottles here but you can get larger bottles / jugs my 1st batch i used a 5 litre jug.

Pour out (or fill with boiled water(let cool first!) if you didn’t buy it) roughly a quarter of the water from each bottle

2. Add Honey to bottles  im using 1x 454g jar in each bottle of water. you can heat the honey by putting the jars in some hot water to make it run easier or buy the squeezie bottles of honey.


3. seal the bottles, and shake, shake like the wind, until the honey is mixed well with the water this may take a few mins of shaking.

4. Add a small amount of sugar to the mixture this is for the yeast to help it on its way.


5. Wash! and chop up whatever fruit you would like to add to your mead mixture. im using oranges here and some raisins(these also contain nutrients and help the yeast) you can put the oranges in skins and all this doesn’t matter.

6. add the yeast. you can get specialised brewing yeast, but I'm just using easy bake  baking yeast that comes in sachets, one sachet per bottle should be enough. the reason i use this is because its fast acting and includes nutrients to help the yeast along.
 
7. seal and shake up again.

8. open the bottles and grab some balloons(or the airlock bungs if you purchased some), these act as an airlock, as gas from the fermentation process needs to escape but we don’t want anything nasty to get in. Poke a small hole or 2 in the top of the balloons and secure them around the top of the bottle

like so 

9. Place the bottles in warm safe place they wont be disturbed and can work away, temperature is important so don't put them out in the cold or the yeast will die and not do its job.

I will say on point 9. there may be some overflow / spitting from the bottles as gass and some of the mixture bubbles up and escapes so place the bottles in a box / container where this wont cause any mess / concern.

10. let the yeast and mixture work away until its stops bubbling this can be anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on your yeast and the temperature of the enviroment.


after a few weeks(1 - 2 depending on point 10.) you can either transfer the mead to a secondary container (this is called racking) and leave to mature / age a bit (a few weeks to a few months is good) or just put it somewhere cold and let the yeast die off in the same bottles(eg you dont need to transfer at this stage).

after its aged to your preference, you can bottle it and/or go ahead and party like a Viking

my last batch bottled: