Ok.. A New Mead
As mentioned earlier this evening, I decided to start a new Mead. Mead takes a good long time to age to be enjoyed thoroughly – minimum of one year. In fact, I started a mead over a year ago and will continue to age it before serving to others for at least another six months.
However, using this recipe, I do find this mead to be a bit on the “thin” side as far as taste. This evening, I decided to increase the number of pounds of honey by almost 50%, and I was aiming for a specific gravity of at least 1.090. Using Lalvin EC-1118 yeast, this should provide a dry mead. An even higher specific gravity would be fine as well and indeed, increasing the amount of honey to 20 lbs and then adding enough water to just go over the 23 litre (5 Imperial gallon) mark, I ended up with a specific gravity of 1.110. A touch higher than what I was aiming for – but within range that things can be fixed later if need be.
I didn’t check acidity – I’ll worry about that later. I’m too tired now 
.
I’m not sure exactly how much water I’ve used by volume for the 20 lbs. of honey but basically what I did was use a kitchen scale that uses a large wide mouth plastic container for placing material in to be weighed. Five pounds of honey by volume takes up a full volume amount of the plastic container – and five pounds of honey combined with two lots of water that can be carried by the plastic container is about enough for my biggest pots to hold.
If you read the recipe, you’ll realize that the honey should be combined with twice it’s volume of water and then boiled for awhile, and the foamy bits skimmed off.
So I have two large pots and therefore went through two separate events of boiling the honey/water, each event using two pots.
So, making mead this way is time consuming as far as one evening goes. You really do need to boil the honey/water mixture for at least half an hour and skim off the foam that appears on top. As you skim off the foam, you should end up with mostly just a boiling liquid. The foam will contain wax and impurities and the mead will clear much better the more foam that is skimmed.
A few other suggestions: Using liquid honey, if you can get it in a large enough size, will save you time!! My honey is not liquid, so I spent much of my time trying to carve up the hone in the large pails of it that I had and then spooning it out onto my kitchen scale. Makes for very sticky fingers. Which is ok.. if you like honey… and don’t mind sticky fingers
I have a very large “spoon” type of implement with holes in it – not sure what it is called… but it is simlar to what you might use for spooning out vegetables from boiling water. Except, mine has a very wide (about 4 inches across?) surface, with very little lip to it. This works well for me. But.. don’t worry too much if all you have is a ladle or some other type of serving spoon… don’t worry if you skim a little bit of the honey/water mixture. This ain’t rocket science, where you have to have everything exact.
Hey.. don’t forget that you’re boiling this mixture – it’s going to need time to cool down before you pitch your yeast! Hot temperatures can kill yeast. To get my must up to just over five gallons, I needed to add about two gallons of cold water – and it was still way too hot to add yeast. Use that time to proof your yeast in the orangejuice and yeast nutrient mixture. Heck, you could even just let it cool overnight to room temperature, and you’ll be fine.
Anyhow, if you’re interested in mead making, be prepared to experiment. Be prepared to realize it should take at LEAST a year before you have something that is enjoyable.. and even then.. it might be longer.
If you really want to make mead and melomels, prepare to spend a little on honey… experiment… try some different things (my next experiment will be decreasing the pounds of honey.. probably to about 18 pounds approximately, and using a yeast developed for sweet mead – I’ve got some yeasts that I want to try and see how things turn out as opposed to others that I’ve tried in the past).
And in the meantime, go buy some mead from the local liquor store. You might not even like the stuff that others like! And that’s ok.
But.. a bit of trivia… do you know that the term “honeymoon” and mead are related? The term “honeymoon” comes from an ancient tradition of some peoples, where newlyweds would drink “honeyed wine” or mead everyday for the first month after being married.
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Hi Ian,
I’m a meadmaker too, and I have found it a little easier to measure honey by volume. One gallon of honey is about twelve pound. Using a large stock pot with markings at the 8 quart and 12 quart levels, you could fill the pot with hot water to the 8 quart line then fill it with honey to the 12 quart line. I used liquid honey in my mead, but crystallized honey would also be pretty easy to measure this way (just keep plopping it in until the water level rose to the 12 quart line). That would leave you with one gallon (12 pounds) of honey dissolved in 2 gallons of water. You could then add more water until reach your target SG.
Erroll
I love mead, but man it is so hard waiting for it to age. I have six batches aging right now and I can only taste a hint of what the final product will taste like. I am starting to think my first batches of mead will come out a little on the dry side. That just gives me the excuse I need to dig out the brewing equipment…
Ah, it is hard waiting, isn’t it? One of the problems I run into waiting for mead is that I often forget to check the water levels in the air locks. So far, I’ve been lucky, but I need to make sure I remind myself on a regular basis to check those levels!
Another thing I do is try to make sure I’ve got some wines that won’t need as much ageing before it’s drinkable. Helps keep me sane and patient!
Thanks for your comment.
I wish I had read your response sooner, I was checking my mead yesterday and I noticed that 2 airlocks were letting air in… that is the first time I have ever let that happen (and hopefully that will be the last
Later!
Your mead may still be ok. I once showed someone how to make wine from a kit over the telephone, and thought I was clear about how to use the airlock. The person insisted I had not told them to put water or sulfite solution in it, and they left the thing dry for a month.
The wine was fine. But it sure is a good idea to have a routine to check those airlocks! Every couple of weeks I have a look at mine.