Mead, step by step
Interactive lesson: from a bucket of honey to a bottle on the table — ingredients, clean equipment, starting 10 litres, fermentation, racking, ageing and bottling.
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The whole lesson as text
1. Three ingredients
Mead is honey diluted with water and fermented with yeast.
- Honey — 300 g of honey per litre (about 5 oz per pint) gives a medium mead of 11–12 % alcohol. Dissolve set honey at 35–40 °C, but don't boil it.
- Water — Drinking water with no smell. Leave chlorinated water standing open for 24 hours, or boil and cool it, so the chlorine evaporates. Chloramine doesn't boil off: a crushed Campden tablet removes it.
- Wine yeast — One 5 g sachet from a home-brew shop is enough for 10–23 litres. Baker's yeast smells of bread and stops sooner.
- Yeast nutrient — Honey has almost no food for yeast. Without nutrient, fermentation sticks and the mead smells of sulphur and rotten eggs.
Why: Yeast eats the sugar in honey and turns it into alcohol and CO₂. The more honey, the more alcohol, but only as long as the yeast can tolerate it. Good mead needs patience more than knowledge.
- For your first mead take a mild, pale honey: clover, summer wildflower, lime. Honey that tastes of smoke stays smoky in mead.
- Mead is an alcoholic drink: not for children, pregnant women or drivers, and selling it needs licences.
2. Equipment and hygiene
Cleanliness is half the battle: everything that touches the mead is washed and sanitised.
- Carboy and airlock — A 15 L glass carboy, a rubber bung and an airlock. The airlock lets CO₂ out and keeps air and fruit flies out.
- Hydrometer and siphon tube — A hydrometer in a trial jar measures gravity, and so sugar and alcohol. A clear, food-grade tube, 1.5–2 m, is for racking.
- Wash, then sanitise — Warm water and a brush, with no scented detergent. Then rinse with a home-brew sanitiser, exactly as instructed. Don't use bleach.
- Ventilate the room — Metabisulfite releases sulphur dioxide, which chokes and irritates the eyes and lungs. Work with the window open and don't breathe the fumes over the container.
Why: Air, fruit flies and dirty equipment turn mead into vinegar, and that can't be undone. The equipment is simple and not expensive, but it must be clean.
- For 10 litres (2.6 US gal) you need a 15 L carboy or 2–3 demijohns of 4.5 L: the empty space is for the froth at the start.
- Keep metabisulfite closed, labelled and out of reach of children. People with asthma shouldn't handle it.
3. Starting 10 litres · Locked
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4. Fermentation · Locked
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5. Racking and ageing · Locked
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6. Bottling · Locked
Buy the Mead module and you get the PDF to download and print, plus lifetime access to this interactive lesson: all 6 chapters, 24 steps.