Make Mead part 2

Mead Rule: 1 tea, 2 oranges per gallon.

In the previous post, we told you everything you need to know to get started making mead. Now we'll fill in some blanks, so you will understand more of what you're doing, and so you can adapt that recipe to your own tastes and style. First, about honey...

Honey is simply amazing, for many reasons. The amount of work and flight miles that bees put into every ounce is staggering. It can't spoil, all that happens is it hardens, and can be warmed to soften again. Local honey is considered by many to provide nearly magical healing and health-supporting benefits, partly because of the sampling of local pollen that is included. For the recipe we gave, we used Tupelo honey, just because we really wanted to try it, but usually we use our own locally harvested unpasteurized wildflower or clover honey. We encourage you to find your nearest apiaries and buy directly from them. You'll be getting local honey which will be a health boost for you, you'll be saving money over supermarket prices, and you'll be supporting an important local farmer.

Add yeast when it's cool enough!

As far as yeast goes, we use RedStar yeast, which is a dry wine yeast, costing pennies per packet, available at many home-brewing shops and health-food stores. RedStar makes several varieties, and we have gotten good results from the Cote des Blancs, or the Montrachet. There are many other options, just make sure not to use beer yeast or baker's yeast. Those will not be vigorous at the higher alcohol levels that you will need them for. We use one packet of dry yeast for up to three gallons, and two for up to six, the most that will fit in any of our carboys or buckets.

Wine yeast is most happy if you feed it grape juice. Since we're feeding it honey instead, we need to round out the nutrition in the must by adding a couple of things. You can buy yeast nutrients, but we like to use all natural ingredients instead. Since the two main nutrients that are missing from the yeast's diet are citric acid and tannic acid, we add citrus fruit juice and strongly steeped black tea. Our Rule of Thumb is this: for each gallon of must, add one teabag and two oranges. It really is as simple as that, and after you feel confident enough, you can certainly experiment. I have used oak bark for the tannic acid (it being locally grown), and strawberries, rose-hips, spruce tips, for the citric acid for the same reason, and you may want to use your own local alternatives.
 
The yeast will be added when you have everything stirred together, at the desired sweetness, and cooler than the mid-nineties fahrenheit. You'll keep it sealed up with a way for the gases to escape. Over several weeks, it will convert sugar and those acids to alcohol and carbon dioxide, which will be your signal about its activity. When no more bubbles occur, it's done. Just don't let the water evaporate from the bubbler. 

Some people use sulfites to stop the yeast activity. We believe that sulfites are unhealthy and prefer to let the yeast takes its natural course. The yeast will die off naturally when the alcohol is somewhere in the upper teens, +/- 17% alcohol. Then you pour it off into jugs to settle out, and bottle it when it's clear.

Reading a hydrometer for mead

You use the hydrometer to measure your mead's alcohol content. To do this you need to take two readings with it, one before you add the yeast, and one when the fermenting is all finished. There are several scales drawn on the paper inside the glass, all running vertically. You only need to read the scale that says "Potential Alcohol." To do this accurately, half-fill your column with mead that has been cooled to sixty degrees, and drop the hydrometer in. Read where the surface level comes to on the scale. That's all there is to it. Save that number, measure again when fermenting is all done, and compare the two numbers; the difference between them is your alcohol content!

Example: at the beginning, our batch measured 18.2. When it is all done, let's say it measures 2.5, that means there's a bit of honey left unused, so it's a little sweet. 18.2 minus 2.5 equals 15.7, which is the alcohol level, a bit stronger than table wine. 

Hydrometer's easy.

I like to start my mead with a potential alcohol of 17 or 18 percent. Before adding the yeast, I adjust the mix by adding water or honey so as to make it heavier or lighter, until it measures at the number that I want. If I put together everything, measure it, and it says it has a potential of 20 percent, then I add water a pint at a time because it's sweeter than I want. When I get it to measure 17 or 18 percent, that's when I stop, write it down for future reference, and get on with add the yeast and getting it into the fermenting container.  After you have some experience, and know better how dry or sweet you like your mead, you will have your own preferred starting point. 

What can we add to mead? Take chances!

What can you add to mead for flavoring? Basically, fruits, berries, and spices, all just depending on your taste. Some of my favorites have been apple (with apple pie spices), raspberry, chinese-5-spice, licorice, spiced date, pear, and blueberry. Thinking further outside the box, I've made very nice spruce tip mead, young oak leaf mead, sumac mead, maple sap mead, and then there are the braggots, which are mead that include malted barley or malt extract. Don't be shy about this, just be careful to avoid ingredients with preservatives (yeast is alive, remember), and to be aware of how much sugar is in what you're adding. Good luck, and happy meading! I'll post a part three about racking, jugging, bottling, corking, labeling, at least the way we do it here.