Thread: Anybody heard of mead?

So I saw that there's a thread on home brewing and thought I'd add home fermenting to the mix. For those who don't know, mead is basically wine made with honey instead of grapes. I've been making mead for a few years now and most of my friends are happy to be my guinea pigs when it comes time to taste test. Most of my batches have been pretty good hits with a few misses along the way. So far the concensus seems to be that my dry raspberry is the best and I make 5 gal batches whenever the berries are in season. At the moment I've got a mango batch aging, waiting to see if I need to tweak my recipe. I'd love to see if anybody else has tried this or has a favorite mead to recommend trying.

One of my friends is a big time home cook/fermenter/experimenter and I have had the pleasure of imbibing a few of his meads. A blackberry one was delicious and went down real nice. The last one that I had was so dry that it was almost difficult to swallow and gave me the worst hangover of my life. Kinda put me off of it. I refuse to make my own, I saw the aftermath of one of his failures.... Looked like he murdered his entire family and extended family in the kitchen and I have a lot of carpet in my apartment....

Sounds like he either had a blow over or he dropped something lol. I keep all my containers inside a massive Tupperware for just that reason. My meads usually average around 15% ABV, but I can get it higher with careful tending so I usually tell my friends to not drink the whole bottle at once. I prefer at least semi sweet meads but everyone I know has out voted me for dry so usually end up sweetening a bottle or two for my personal stash.

Yea, he was pushing the envelope with that batch, I forget what he was trying to accomplish. The last mead I had was a nightcap (~5-6oz.) to top of a long day of drinking, probably a pretty bad combination haha

I also have a couple of friends back home in New Hampshire that are mead brewers. It was one of my favorite indulgences before I became diabetic and moved 600 miles away. Good luck to your brewing!

I've made quite a few meads, I have 30 gal aging in carboys right now. My best, though, used 18 lb of honey for a 5 gallon batch, with 4 vanilla beans in the primary and 8 in the secondary. It was great after a year, but divine after 4. Had I known, I would have been more stingy early on. I have another batch that I made with 30 lb of honey (has to be added in stages to not kill the yeast), it took 4 years of aging to come into its own. It's now 6 years old and getting better all the time.

Made several batches with honey.
Then thought myself smart mead from maple syrup , with orange and cinnamon notes. Bottled after a year. tasted like crap at 5 years. Used champagne yeast so that made for bubbly junk. At 10 years it turned into maple orange champagne. bottled it in Coke mini bottles and still have a case. Could not throw 2 gallons of maple syrup away. Since no one does that sort of crazy I had no one to turn to. Who holds onto such things for 10years??
Yes I have heard of mead, so did the Egyptians back around Pyramid times. Carboys, Basements and cellars and Northern latitudes sets up nice to age such experiments.
I hate to think what mead made in Florida would turn out like.

Hummmmmm, daughter and son in law have honey hives, I could try this, got a good recipe? Tc

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

Hummmmmm, daughter and son in law have honey hives, I could try this, got a good recipe? Tc

Start here and tell us what kind of flavors you like.
10 Of The Best Mead Recipes

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

Hummmmmm, daughter and son in law have honey hives, I could try this, got a good recipe? Tc

I've used a recipe put together by a guy that uses beer yeast that's drinkable at 1 month...it's still best aged though and it's a good base recipe that you can add to to get the fruit or whatever flavor you desire. It may sound technical the first time you read it but any home brew store would have everything you need.