Mead: The Most Noble Brew
Is there a brew that conjures up more images than mead? Whether you associate it with ancient druids, pre-Roman civilizations of central Europe, Vikings, Teutonic raiders, Celts ancient or modern, it is impossible to deny the hold that mead has always had on the imagination of Western civilization.
Some believe that it was mead that Homer and others had in mind when they described “nectar,” the favored beverage of the inhabitants of Olympus.
Certainly mead played a role in the Icelandic sagas, in Beowulf, in the writings of the ancient Irish bards.
It is mentioned in the Bible, in African tribal lore, even in the epic of Gilgamesh.
Wherever man has lived, he has made mead, even in lands where the grape or the grain grew in abundance.
But what is mead? In general terms, mead is wine made from honey. But there generality ends. Every region or people who has produced mead has given it a different customized spin. One need only look at the varieties of mead in the northwestern European tradition to begin to see this diversity. There are still meads and sparkling meads, strong meads and small meads, dry meads and sweet meads. Add to that spiced mead (metheglin, from which the English word “medicine” comes), fruited mead (melomel), mead mixed with grape wine (pyment) or with apple juice (cyser), even a blend of mead and beer known in Old and New England as ‘’bracken.” The peoples of the Celtic/Anglo-Saxon world knew them all.
Meadmaking follows many of the same basic rules and procedures as brewing beer from extract syrup. The major difference is time, both in the brewing and in the fermentation. Above all making mead requires a considerable amount of patience. Be warned that it will be several months (if not years) before your efforts will be rewarded, and there is really no way to speed it up.
Mead takes four steps:
- Brewing, in which a quantity of honey is diluted in water (either just hot enough to dissolve the honey without boiling or actually boiled for up to 15 minutes or so).
- Fermentation with a beer or wine yeast (or a specialized mead yeast, if one is available) in a fermentation vessel, preferably closed and similar to one that is used for beer.
- Aging (the single most important influence on the flavor of the mead), which may occur in bulk or in the bottle, depending on the brewer’s capacity for storage.
- Packaging, for which the brewer must choose between cask and bottle, between priming for a sparkling product or bottling “as is” for a still beverage.
The addition of fruit or spice may occur in almost any of these steps — in the kettle, in the primary fermenter, in an aging vessel, or at bottling.
Basic Step By Step
The basic step-by-step procedure is as follows:
- Bring water to a boil, add water treatments (usually gypsum and acid blend) and honey. Boil no more than 15 minutes, skimming the foamy albumin off the surface every two or three minutes.
- Chill to 75° F and add yeast nutrients, stir to dissolve, and then pitch yeast. Seal and put the mead in a relatively cool (65° to 70° F) corner.
- Ferment 10 to 14 days in primary, then rack to a glass secondary. Age in secondary for at least six weeks (check the airlocks regularly to avoid evaporation and contamination problems).
- Bottle (when gravity has fallen below 1.020), either as is or priming with one-eighth cup of corn sugar per gallon for sparkling mead. Since you will be aging for considerably longer than most beers, oxygen-absorbing caps or wine corks are strongly recommend.
- Leave the bottled mead undisturbed in a cool, dark place for three months before you even think about trying one. The first one will probably disappoint you. Leave it another three months and try it again. Like bottle-conditioned beer, bottled sparkling mead will cast a considerable amount of sediment, so decant carefully when serving.
Basic Ingredients
The most important ingredient, of course, is honey. The fresher and less treated the honey, the better the flavor and aroma you will get. Unpasteurized, unfiltered, and without preservatives is best. Beyond that, however, there isn’t any single honey that is better than another. You can use local wildflower honey, clover honey, orange blossom honey, blueberry honey, and so forth. Each honey contributes its own unique flavor profile. Mesquite honey is supposed to produce a very unique mead. The color of the honey will have some effect on the color of the mead, but aging generally lightens even the darkest mead considerably.
Water usually needs to be treated. Many mead brewers prefer a more sulfate and more acidic water, which seem to balance the inherent sweetness of the honey and retain the aroma better than more alkaline or carbonated water. It is standard procedure to add some gypsum (calcium sulfate) and some form of winemaker’s acid — either citric or a blend of citric, malic, and tartaric acids. Each brewer needs to experiment.
With the amount of fermentables involved in making mead — two to three pounds of honey per gallon sometimes — it is important to boost the yeast by adding a nutrient of some kind. Any of the commercial yeast energizers will work fine, and they are best added along with the yeast. It is important also to pitch an adequate yeast culture, at least 10 to 14 grams of dry yeast, or a pint or more of a liquid slurry, in five gallons or less. Meads can be made using ale yeast, lager yeast, wine yeast, champagne yeast, and custom-cultured mead yeast. Wyeast even sells two different liquid cultures, one with a higher alcohol tolerance (hence for drier mead) and one with a lower tolerance, leaving a sweeter finish.
Some meadmakers, in an attempt to boost the alcoholic strength of the mead, add other sugars (such as molasses, cane sugar, or corn sugar) but this is not entirely authentic. If tradition and authenticity do not play a major role in your brewing, then by all means go ahead and experiment. Any sugars other than honey may in fact speed up fermentation, but they may also contribute undesirable harsh flavors as well.
Recipes
With the exception of the cyser, the following recipes are all for three gallons each. Unless otherwise noted, follow the above step-by-step directions.
Still of the Night Mead
A light, still straight mead, similar to a sweet white wine. Perfect as an aperitif or with dessert.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 tsp. acid blend
- 1/2 tsp. gypsum
- 5 lbs. honey (clover or wildflower)
- 1/2 tsp. Fermax or other yeast nutrient
- Yeast (see Basic Ingredients)
Step by Step:
Follow the Basic Step by Step instructions. Treat 3 gals. water with acid blend and gypsum, then boil. Add honey, boil 15 minutes. Chill and add Fermax. Pitch yeast and ferment. Age at least three months before bottling. Do not prime. This mead should age for six to eight months before being served.
Sparkling Cyser
A thirst-quenching but deceptively strong sparkling brew. Darker than most, because of the cider. Serve chilled.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 tsp. acid blend
- 1/2 tsp. gypsum
- 5 lbs. honey (clover or wildflower)
- 2 gals. fresh apple cider
- 1/2 tsp. Fermax or other yeast nutrient
- Yeast (see Basic Ingredients)
- 2/3 cup corn sugar for priming
- 5 g. fresh champagne or ale yeast
Step by Step:
Follow the same procedure as Still of the Night, except stretch to 5 gals. by adding apple cider as you pitch the yeast. Age three to four months and bottle prime with corn sugar and champagne or ale yeast. Age cool for four to six months.
Kiwi-Strawberry Melomel
This is a great substitute for dry champagne.
Ingredients:
- 6.5 lbs. light honey (clover is best here)
- 1/2 tsp. gypsum
- 1 tsp. citric acid
- Prise de mousse yeast
- 2 lbs. fresh, bruised strawberries
- 5 or 6 peeled and mashed kiwis
- 3/8 cup corn sugar for priming
Step by Step
Follow Basic Step by Step. Boil honey, gypsum, and citric acid in 3 gals. water. Chill and pitch with yeast. After 10 to 14 days, rack onto strawberries and kiwis. Age on fruit three to four weeks, then rack into a third fermenter. Condition six to eight weeks, then prime with corn sugar and bottle in champagne bottles. Age cool for up to a year.
Saint-Valentine’s Metheglin
Beware of the reputed aphrodisiac effects of cinnamon! Serve warm, even slightly “mulled,” on a cold February night.
Ingredients
- 1/2 tsp. acid blend
- 1/2 tsp. gypsum
- 5 lbs. honey (clover or wildflower)
- 1/2 tsp. Fermax or other yeast nutrient
- Yeast (see Basic Ingredients)
- 4 to 6 crushed cinnamon sticks
- 1 chopped vanilla bean
- 1/3 cup corn sugar for priming
Step by Step
Follow the Step by Step section for Still of the Night, but when you rack to your secondary, put in cinnamon sticks and vanilla bean (in a muslin hop bag, preferably). Condition with the spices four to six weeks, then re-rack. Age six more weeks then bottle, priming with corn sugar. If you wish, put a candy cinnamon heart in each bottle.
Old/New England Bracken
An old recipe, perhaps originally the result of thrifty brewers wanting to make a less-expensive mead. It calls for a lot of malt, which would certainly have cost less than honey for most people. It’s malty like a Munich helles but big and powerful like a Belgian tripel.
Ingredients
- 1/2 tsp. gypsum
- 3 lbs. extra-light dry malt extract
- 4 lbs. honey
- 1/2 tsp. yeast nutrient
- A substantial yeast slurry (perhaps a blend of a neutral ale yeast and a white-wine yeast)
- 1/3 cup corn sugar for priming
Step by Step
Follow Basic Step by Step. In 3 gals. of water treated with gypsum, boil malt extract for 30 minutes. Add honey (here’s a good place to experiment with honeys such as blackberry, mesquite, and starthistle) and boil 15 more minutes. Chill. Add yeast nutrient and pitch a substantial yeast slurry.
Ferment 14 days at 70° F, then 10 more at 60° F, then rack to secondary. Age 10 to 12 weeks, prime with corn sugar, and bottle. Bottle condition for at least 10 months. The best bracken I’ve ever had (made by my brother) was 16 months old and was still perhaps a bit young.
