Article

Modern Meadmaking

Mead, which is a fermented beverage made from honey, is arguably one of the oldest alcoholic beverages. Vessels found in China dating back to 7000 BC have organic compounds consistent with fermented honey and rice. Mead was the revered “nectar of the gods” in ancient Greece and the “drink of kings” throughout history, though it has faded to obscurity in modern times.

For homebrewers, mead is a great addition to complement your other fermented offerings. Many of your guests may have never tasted a good quality mead or melomel (fruit mead), but almost everyone enjoys this sweet beverage. Using some modern methods, mead is also relatively easy and quick to make, and you can use equipment you already have on hand for homebrewing.

MODERN MEADMAKING TECHNIQUES

When I started homebrewing back in 1987, the fermentation of mead was a very slow process, taking 12 to 18 months for a mead to fully ferment and age. Honey has antibacterial properties and is poor in nutrients, particularly nitrogen, resulting in a very slow fermentation.

Over the last 10–15 years, however, meadmakers have made significant advancements in speeding the fermentation and aging process through a combination of techniques and utilizing yeast nutrients. It is now possible to complete a primary fermentation in two weeks or less, even for a high-gravity mead. Some low-gravity meads can be enjoyed in as little as a month, and even high-gravity meads can be cleared and aged within three months, though many will continue to improve with age for years to come.

CREATING A MEAD RECIPE

For the first time meadmaker, I recommend making a straight honey mead, also called a show mead, as it highlights the flavor of the honey varietal itself. See my recipe for “Fast Mead” at the end of this article for an example.

The variety of honey and strength you use will largely determine the flavor of the finished mead. Honey varieties are determined by the blossoms the bees feed and pollinate. For example, I enjoy the flavor of orange blossom honey with fruit meads. Orange blossom honey is made from bees that pollinate orange trees, and this variety also makes a nice show mead. Another honey varietal I enjoy is Tupelo, which is made by bees that pollinate white (Ogeche) Tupelo trees in the swamps of the Southeastern US for two weeks every spring. Other varieties such as clover or wildflower can have more variation in flavor depending on where specifically the honey is harvested and the mix of flowers found near the beehives. There are at least 40 widely available honey varieties, and your local area or country may have additional variants.

In the US, a lot of honey production is still done by small, independent beekeepers. The National Honey Board runs a honey locator at http://honey.com/honey-locator that can help you find local honey in your area. In addition, many commercial vendors sell honey in bulk; 60-lb. (27-kg) pails typically offer the best price and volume for a serious meadmaker.

Once you have found a source for your honey, the next decision to make is how sweet you want to make your mead. The basic guidelines for straight mead is based on the final gravity, which is mainly a function of the original gravity and the alcohol tolerance of the yeast used. Dry mead is generally below 1.010 finishing gravity (FG), semi-sweet runs up to about 1.020 FG, and sweet can run into the 1.030s, though very sweet “sack” meads may be as sweet as 1.040.

RESIDUAL SWEETNESS

One critical point to understand when making any mead is the fermentability of honey and the concept of residual sweetness. Honey is composed of a variety of simple and complex sugar chains and will ferment to a dry finish much like grapes ferment into dry wine. The implications of this is that, in general, yeast will continue to ferment away almost 100% of the sugars in your mead, leaving a very dry beverage with a final gravity below 1.000. The dry mead won’t taste much like sweet honey, as it has almost no remaining sugars.

If you want a semi-sweet or sweet finish to your mead you need to use one of two methods. The first is simply starting with an original gravity high enough to exceed the alcohol tolerance of the yeast. In this case, the yeast will ferment until it reaches its alcohol tolerance level and then stop and leave residual sweetness because the yeast itself can’t tolerate the high alcohol environment. Wine yeasts used in mead generally have a high tolerance of 15% ABV or more, so this means starting with gravity that may be 1.100–1.150 to end up with meads in the 0.996–1.040 final gravity range.

The other option you have to make a semi-sweet or sweet mead is back sweetening. This method involves adding both sulfites and sorbates to inhibit fermentation after your mead is complete and then adding additional honey or sweeteners to bring it up to your target final gravity. Many mead purists avoid this method as the fresh honey added does not have the same flavor and finish as residual fermented honey added in the primary.

For large fruit meads, I’ve found that fruits high in acidity and tannins such as raspberries, blackberries, tart cherries, red and black currants, and cranberries work best as they provide the acidic/tannic structure to offset residual sweetness in the honey. Variants like loganberry, elderberry, and boysenberry also work well. Unfortunately, many sweet and stone fruits like peaches, strawberries, plums, etc… tend to ferment away leaving very little fruit flavor in the finished mead.

FRUIT MEADS (MELOMELS) AND ADDING SPICES

In order of preference, I always try to work with fresh, ripe, whole fruits first as they provide the biggest, freshest flavor impact. Fruit juices, particularly pure fruit with no preservatives can also work very well. I generally stay away from purees only because they are very difficult to separate from the mead resulting in quite a bit of loss. I prefer to add all of my fruit in the primary.

As with straight honey meads, fruit meads will generally ferment very dry finishing below 1.000 specific gravity (SG) unless you make the effort to introduce residual sweetness. I personally prefer to make a high-gravity mead and ferment it to its alcohol tolerance. Keep in mind that many big “fruit bomb” meads require additional residual sweetness to offset the acidity and tannins from the fruit and may therefore need an even higher finishing gravity than sweet meads. Many of my big fruit meads finish in the 1.030s and even 1.040s if using acidic fruits.

If you are making a mead with spices, it is often best to make the mead and then create an infusion or tea from spices and add them to taste to get the best balance of flavor.

For yeast, my go-to mead strain is Lalvin 71B Narbonne dry wine yeast, which many commercial meadmakers use exclusively for all of their meads. This yeast performs particularly well in fruit meads in part because it can process some malic acids common in fruit, and also it has a predictable attenuation of just over 15% which is important for reaching a target final gravity and residual sweetness level critical for these fruit meads.

PREPARATION OF INGREDIENTS

Many older meadmaking books and articles recommend heating your honey and fruit (if making a fruit mead), or heating the must. Today, the vast majority of meadmakers mix the honey and water at room temperature before pitching yeast.

I recommend using a large plastic fermenting bucket for primary fermentation, just as you would for homebrewing. You will need to degas the mead twice a day during the early stages of fermentation, and this is much easier in a bucket than a carboy.

For melomels with fruits like blackberries, raspberries, or currants, it is often best to freeze the fruit first, which will break down the cellular walls. I typically wash, dry, and then freeze the fruit on a cookie sheet. After the fruit is frozen you can bag it to prevent freezer burn if you are not using them immediately. When you’re ready to make your mead, thaw the fruit. You will have much less waste in the fermenter if you bag the fruit in a large grain bag before adding it, just as you would for dry hopping. Bagging the fruit also makes it very easy to remove after a few weeks.

When mixing the mead to create your must, the critical point is to hit your target original gravity. With software or an online mead calculator you can calculate the amount of honey and water needed. I generally add the bulk of the honey and all the water and then slowly add the remaining honey until I reach my target gravity. When working with real fruit you can crush a bit of fruit to get juice and measure the gravity of the fruit juice to get an accurate number before mixing it. Keep in mind when you mix fruit in with the mead it will often come in a bit below your predicted gravity until the fruit dissolves into the must.

When measuring high gravity meads: Always use a hydrometer instead of a refractometer to measure the gravity. Refractometer equations used to adjust for fermenting beer or wine simply do not work well and you will get an inaccurate reading. A hydrometer, as long as it has a scale high enough for your starting gravity, will work well through-out fermentation.

YEAST PREPARATION

Because most meads have a very high starting gravity, yeast preparation is very important. If you try pitching dried yeast directly into a high gravity mead you can shock the yeast due to an effect called osmotic shock. The sugar will pass directly into the cell before the yeast is in a state to regulate its cell wall resulting in a strong shock that may even kill the yeast cell. To prevent this, dried yeast should be added to warm water at about 104 °F (40 °C) with Go-Ferm yeast nutrient at the manufacturer’s recommended dosing rate of 1.25 grams of Go-Ferm per gram of yeast. Next, slowly bring the temperature of the mixture down to the temperature of your mead must by adding small quantities of must, making sure you don’t change the temperature of the must more than 5–10 degrees °F (5 degrees °C) at a time. This gives the yeast the nutrients and time needed to adjust to the high gravity must before pitching.

If you are using liquid yeast, osmotic shock is much less of an issue, but I do recommend using a yeast starter as high gravity musts certainly benefit from a high yeast cell count and active yeast culture.

AERATION OF THE MUST

Proper aeration of the must when pitching is probably even more critical for a mead than a typical beer. Yeast will very quickly absorb the oxygen during the early growth stage, resulting in a robust fermentation. There are two methods for aerating your wort: Vigorous stirring, and direct oxygen injection.

Vigorous stirring is usually done with a wine-whip (degasser) device or paint stirrer driven by an electric drill, which you can find at most well-stocked homebrew and home winemaking suppliers. This is the same setup you will use over the next week or so to degas the must while it is fermenting. Stir the must at high speed with the wine-whip near the surface to get as much oxygen as possible into the must, and continue for at least one or two minutes.

If you have access to pure oxygen from an oxygen tank or small welding tank (make sure it is food-grade), then direct injection is the best option. I use an aeration wand for about two minutes with pure oxygen for a typical 5-gallon (19-L) batch of mead.

White Labs also recommends a second injection of oxygen at the 12-hour point for high-gravity musts (above 1.080 SG).

MONITORING THE pH DURING FERMENTATION

When you prepare the mead must, the pH should be in roughly the 3.6-4.2 range. The pH of the must will often drop once fermentation enters an active phase. If the pH drops below 3.4 it can start to affect the speed of fermentation, and if your pH falls below 3.0 it can actually inhibit fermentation and also stress your yeast. As a result, monitor the pH of the must with a pH meter once a day during early fermentation to make sure it stays above 3.4.

Monitoring pH is particularly important if you are using a large portion of acidic or tannic fruits. Fruits such as black currants and cranberries have a pH as low as 2.4 and can significantly lower the pH of the must, inhibiting fermentation. Straight honey meads are less likely to reach very low pH levels, but I still monitor them just to be sure.

If your pH drops too low, you will need an alkaline additive to raise the pH back above 3.4. My preferred additive is potassium bicarbonate, which comes in a powdered form. Since it is difficult to predict the buffering capacity of the must, the best approach is to add a little at a time. I generally mix in 12– to 1-tsp. increments (into a 5-gallon/19-L batch) and then wait an hour or two for the chemistry to settle before measuring and adding more if needed.

In the later stages of fermentation the pH will often slowly rise, and at that point you will not need any additional additives and can stop monitoring the pH daily.

DEGASSING THE MUST DURING FERMENTATION

As the mead ferments it builds up a lot of carbon dioxide. Much of the carbon dioxide will end up in solution within the must as carbonic acid, which can actually inhibit fermentation. To promote rapid fermentation, meadmakers now “degas” the must twice a day during active fermentation.

To degas the must, I use a simple wine whip and electric drill as discussed earlier. Vigorous degassing running a cordless drill at high speed to get all of the CO2 out of solution can result in a huge amount of foam on the top of bucket, which is why I recommend using an oversize 8–10 gal (30–40 L) bucket, even if you are making a 5-gallon (19-L) batch.

There is some controversy over whether it is good to add additional oxygen by splashing at this point. Some meadmakers say that the additional oxygen will be metabolized by the yeast to promote fermentation. The counterpoint is that fruits, in particular, are prone to oxidation so adding free oxygen may not be a good idea after fermentation has progressed. While I don’t have the final answer, I generally avoid splashing too much when working with large quantities of fruit and focus on degassing instead.

Most sources recommend you continue degassing until about23 of the sugar has fermented away. This means that when you get 23 of the way to your expected final gravity you stop degassing, though I will often degas one final time after fermentation is entirely complete because I prefer still meads (no spritz).

STAGGERED YEAST NUTRIENTS

The addition of staggered yeast nutrients — small nutrient additions added during fermentation — literally revolutionized meadmaking over the last 15 years by allowing meadmakers to make mead in months instead of years. A variety of nutrients have been used in that time, though most provide critical nitrogen needed to promote a rapid fermentation of the honey.

The current “state of the art” nutrient schedule is called TOSNA-2 (Tailored Organic Staggered Nutrient Addition) and uses Fermaid O, an organic yeast nutrient, along with the Go-Ferm addition discussed earlier in the section on hydrating yeast. Go-Ferm is added when hydrating the yeast, and then Fermaid O is added in equal size increments at 24, 48, and 72 hours after pitching, and lastly at either one week or when the 23 sugar break is complete. In my experience, this combination can result in a complete fermentation even for a high gravity mead in as little as two weeks.

I covered the Go-Ferm addition for hydrating yeast earlier, but the Fermaid O amount is governed by the nitrogen requirements of the yeast, original gravity of the must and batch size. The formula for grams of Fermaid O is:

Fermaid O = BS x YR x Brix / 5

BS = Batch size in gallons

YR = Yeast requirements. This is 0.75 for low nitrogen, 0.90 for medium, and 1.25 for high nitrogen strains.

For practical purposes Brix and Plato are the same, so for example a big 1.140 SG show mead would be 32.2 Brix/Plato. My go-to yeast, Lalvin 71B/Narbonne, is a low-nutrient strain and I generally make 5 gallons (19 L) of mead at a time. So, running the numbers I have, the equation is:

5 gal. x 0.75 x 32.2 / 5 = 24.1 grams

So my total Fermaid O requirement would be 24.1 grams, which I would then divide into four additions of 6 grams each.

For big fruit meads, only half the amount of nutrient is often needed because the fruit itself may have a substantial contribution of nutrients. For more information on this method, Google “TOSNA 2 Mead” and you can find the original source article as well as online calculators to assist in determining your of nutrients addition requirements.

The other popular nutrient schedule for mead is called TiNOSA (Tailored Inorganic Staggered Nutrient Additions). It follows a similar schedule but uses Fermaid K in the place of Fermaid O, as Fermaid K is generally easier to find and less expensive than Fermaid O. Finally there are several older nutrient schedules that use either Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) or a combination of DAP and Fermaid O. These are still in wide use including by some commercial meadmakers and you can find details for either using a quick web search.

CLEARING AND FINISHING YOUR MEAD

If you’ve handled the yeast nutrients and degassing properly to this point, your mead should usually ferment to completion within the first two to three weeks. I’ve done a few very high-gravity meads that have taken a bit longer, and it is not a bad idea to let the mead sit for a month or so before adding clarifying agents and sulfites.

When working with fruit and certain yeast strains like 71B Narbonne, I generally try to separate the fruit and primary yeast from the mead as I get close to completion of primary fermentation. Depending on how much sediment accumulates, I may rack it again before attempting to clear it. While a bucket works well for active fermentation, I recommend racking to a closed glass or plastic carboy with an airlock for aging as many meads are still subject to oxidation.

The mead will not clear until fermentation is 100% complete. My personal choice for clearing a mead is Super Kleer KC Finings, which is a two-part clearing agent consisting of kieselsol and chitosan. If you have access to refrigeration, you can cold crash your mead, which will certainly clear it more quickly.

Once I’m certain my mead is 100% fermented, I also add a small quantity (18 to 14 tsp.) of potassium metabisulfite (sulfite), which is a preservative. These sulfites help to stabilize the mead and also aid in preventing oxidation during aging. You can also add potassium sorbate if you plan to back sweeten your mead with additional honey or sugars.

After you’ve added your clarity agents and sulfites, it mainly is a waiting game while the mead ages and clears. Your mead, which may taste something like rocket fuel immediately after fermentation, will mellow significantly over time. Most meads I’ve made are quite drinkable within 90 days, though a few with very tannic/acidic fruits took a bit longer to age out. I generally keg my mead at low pressure without carbonation, though you can certainly bottle it, or even carbonate it if desired.

FAST MEAD

(5 gallons/19 L)
OG = 1.126 FG = 1.035
ABV = 13.9%

This is a simple and straightforward mead recipe that should have your fermentation finished within a few weeks.

Ingredients
18 lbs. (8.2 kg) Orange blossom honey
2 packages Lalvin 71B-1122 Narbonne yeast
12.5 g Go-Ferm (when hydrating)
6.2 g Fermaid-K (at 24 hours)
6.2 g Fermaid-K (at 48 hours)
6.2 g Fermaid-K (at 72 hours)
6.2 g Fermaid-K (at 7 days or the 13 left sugar break)
1 package Super Kleer KC Finings
0.3 tsp. potassium metabisulfite

Step by step

Add honey to 3 gallons (11 L) of room temperature water in a large (8- to 10-gallon/30- to 37-L) fermenter. Stir the honey and water mixture well and top up with enough water to make 4.7 gallons (18 L), saving a liter of space for your yeast.

Prepare the yeast by adding it to a liter (0.2 gal.) of warm water at about 104 °F (40 °C). Add 1.25 grams of Go-Ferm per gram of yeast. Slowly bring the temperature of the mixture down to the temperature of your mead must by adding small quantities of must. When the temperature is acclimated, add the yeast slurry to the fermenter and stir vigorously.

Monitor your pH throughout fermentation. If the pH drops below 3.4 add an alkaline additive, such as potassium bicarbonate, to raise the pH back above 3.4. Degas the must during fermentation using a wine whip regularly until about 23 of the sugar has fermented away. Add your fermentation nutrients at the intervals indicated in the ingredients list. Following primary fermentation, add potassium metabisulfite, and fine your mead with Super Kleer. When your mead is fined to your satisfaction, you can bottle or keg, carbonating if you choose.

Issue: October 2017