MEAD!!! Mead, mead, mead! If you have only ever tasted an SCAer’s crappy month-old homebrew, don’t let it affect your opinion of this glorious beverage as you haven’t truly tasted mead. Good mead is ambrosial, indescribable, divine wine, and I highly recommend making your own at home. The stuff labelled mead in a few liquor stores still just isn’t at the same level you can get with home brew. Five gallons of mead makes about thirty bottles and usually costs $30 per 5 gallon batch — that’s $1 per bottle! On average, purchasing a good bottle of mead costs anywhere from $20-$60 per bottle. How can you not want to make mead after doing that math! I’ve found it’s also a very traditional and well received offering to gods and spirits. They love something you’ve slaved over making with your own sweat, blood, and tears as well as lots of love, care, and patience – now that’s a sacrifice. In case I’ve convinced you, here is a pdf I wrote of instructions for the mead party members: Basic Mead Making Method
Now on to the mead making! A couple weeks ago my apprentice and I hiked up the mountain with two pails in search of wild berries. We picked wild raspberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries, salal berries, blackberries, rowan berries, and wild Oregon grapes. As the majority of the berries are said to belong to the Monster Woman of the Woods in local Native lore, I think the name “Wild Monsterberry Mead” has a perfect ring to it. We left an offering of a handful of the berries at the dirt crossroad on the mountain and then headed home to make mead from our colourful harvest. Once home, we heated up some wild Dandelion honey mixed with a little water on the stove until hot, but not boiling and poured it over the berries. Yes, that’s right, we didn’t wash the berries! What good is a wild mead without some bugs and dirt in it? We added a black tea bag and a little lemon juice and then set to work crushing the berries in our hands to help speed along the fermentation. Lastly, we added the yeast. The bucket of berry deliciousness sat in my dining room for about two weeks with a heavy dish cloth covering it to keep out fruit flies and dust. I stirred it every day to add oxygen which is good for the yeast at this point.
Before and After the Explosion
Last night, my apprentice came over for her weekly lesson and we strained and racked the mead with more Dandelion honey into a sanitized carboy and then put it back in the dining room to ferment. We went on to sanitizing wine bottles to rack two already finished mead flavours into the bottles, but a quick look back at the newly racked carboy told us it was going to blow! So we moved it back into the kitchen and even though I cleaned it before going to bed, it still exploded during the night. It’s normal though. It happens when the yeast is very happy getting it on with the honey and just a little too over excited about it. I just wiped up the mess, cleaned the airlock and hope it doesn’t ejaculate berry juice all over my linoleum and fridge again. At least it wasn’t the carpet… After the minor mess we went on to bottling two Loki meads – which is just slang for “happy accident” mead made from the combined leftovers when racking multiple mead batches. One was a blend of Salmonberry and plain methlegin meads and the second was a mix of last Autumn’s “Pomegranate-Raspberry” and “Apple Spice” meads. The first one is delicious, but the second is ambrosial. My two gallons of Ginger-Lime and one gallon of Huckleberry mead should be ready to bottle soon as well. My wine rack is starting to look nice and full again… most excellent, yes…
Newly bottled “Loki” meads
My mead rack with six different varieties
I have been bugging the boyfriend to make some mead! Think we shall try sometime soon… hopefully! Lol.
So how do you know when it will “ejaculate”, haha! The only problem I’d have with making some is that our rooms are completely carpeted! Eep!
You can tell it’s going to blow when the mead creeps up into the airlock. This happens for almost a week when you make beer. The solution is just to put the carboy in a bucket for a few days so it makes it’s mess in a container instead of on your floor
Aaah, good to know!! Messes on carpets are not fun! I know, because I had to de-carpet our last place which had lots of carpet… :S Lol.
Well, this definitely sounds like something I would love to do… and your mead making basics pdf is pretty simple to follow, awesomeness
I’ve been wanting to do this, and now I have no excuse. I’ve been wanting to do a floral mead for spring and a pomegranate mead for fall. Yours looks delish!
Think it’s time to stock up on some supplies and host a mead making party!
Lily, aka Witch Mom
Yeah, you’re not preggers anymore – time for alcohol!
… this couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time! I’m making mead tonight!!
When I’ve made ginger beer in the past, I put the carboy in the bathtub and pulled the shower curtain. That way if it blows, you’ve got easy cleanup.
(Besides, it makes fun flatulent noises behind the curtain … a great conversation item for when guests are over!)
Sarah, what kind of yeast do you use? Do you go by a particular recipe for your quantities? If so, and you’re willing to share it I’d love it!
Blessings,
–Trothwy
I have brewing friends who leave the carboys in the bathtub too – especially for beer!
I use champagne yeast for mead when I can’t find mead yeast, but what is this “recipe” thing you speak of? LOL! I used a recipe for my first ever batch of mead, but haven’t since. I kind of throw everything into a bucket and mix it. I’m not the most technical mead-maker, but I’ve found sanitation is the most important part of brewing anyway.
Mead is such a touch and go thing as you’re constantly adjusting the unpredictable sweetness. In general I just use 2-4 kg of unpasteurized honey per 5 gallon batch, one yeast packet, and then either add a ton of fruit or use purely juice instead of water. You don’t use all the honey right away and every batch uses a different amount of honey depending on the aggressiveness of the yeast and also if you’ve used fruit or not.
There are lots of great recipes online though for starting out:
http://www.realbeer.com/spencer/cats-meow/chap10.html
http://www.solorb.com/mead/
Those berries are beeyoootiful! I want to make an elderberry mead, and will probably be doing a pomegranate one on the weekend if I can get more pomegranates off the tree.
So far I just have a plain old clover honey mead, still on the initial yeast, waiting to be racked into a secondary fermenter. It was ambrosial just at a week. We tested its gravity to see how much of the sugar had been munched up so far, and well… I couldn’t very well pour that sample back into the fermenter after testing w/ the hydrometer. So… I chilled it and we tasted it later on. WOW. Sunshine, flowers, blue sky, puffy clouds, warm breeze, green things… All of that in a single sip.
Mead is magic because honey is magic. It’s basically the sexual fluid resulting from the copulation between honey bees and the earth. Mead is sexy!
Heh heh, ejaculating berry juice.
Ahh, I’m going to get the shun from my fellow vegans for saying this, but: I’d totally sip on your mead! I bet its amazing. I’ve never had it before!
I’m a vegan and I will not shun you! :p
Looks so amazing! I love mead, but have never tried making it before. hmmm.
I love mead, and I have plans to make some next summer (I’m in the southern hem) ! I’ve started looking into things I need to gather and deciding what kinds I want to attempt. I’d like to make one spicy kind and one sweet. Perhaps one pomegranate and one peach! I haven’t tried peach, but I hear peaches and apricots do well in mead.
I’m also eager to try making elderflower champagne, but it’ll be a long while before my elder is older enough to do much – I’m starting it from seed. Elder grow just fine in my area, but I have never found one out in the wild to harvest or take a cutting from…
Anyway, you brew looks delicious! I wish it were possible to taste through the monitor when it’s all ready to drink!
Wow, making mead is almost as easy as making wine. I had no clue. I’ll have to try it.
It all looks luscious and thank you, thank you for the mead making instructions!
I just recently discovered the wonder of mead and was considering making some at home!! Perfect timing, and I love the PDF, so handy! Thanks, and happy meading
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As an SCAer who does home brew mead, I should take offense at the comment about SCA homebrew, however I have tasted some nasty meads. Your batch sounds wonderful, and what a great idea to just go pick wildberries, may have to do that myself. I’ve been dabbling in mead making for a while now and have collected my research over at http://mead.lilleypress.com
Not trying to spam you, but thought you might be interested in the site, and I’d love to hear how your mead turns out too
Lol, I hope you didn’t take offense. I’ve just heard one too many stories of people tasting horrid mead in the SCA! I know a few members who make excellent mead though and its good to know there’s more out there! Thanks for sharing your resource too, I’m already poking around in the articles
No no offense taken
The SCA is a wonderful organization filled with some who take it seriously and some who don’t, and then there are those who take it WAY too seriously. The range of skills, meedmaking and other, constantly astound me. Hope you have been enjoying the articles and I am always looking for more so if you have a recipe to share or mead related article to share I’d be more than willing to post it and link it back to your blog
When I read your posts, it makes me wish I was a neighbour. I would love to try making mead in the future but will need training wheels for sure. Thank you for the inspiration to try. – WG
I read your post with great enjoyment. I am inspired by your posts. You are awesome. Wish I had cool friends like you. I, being a know-it-all, I will give you a tip about airlock explosions from my own experience with fig wine and beer fermentation. Take your bung plug (I love saying that) and drill a hole, or buy one with the proper size hole in it, and fit it with a clear siphon hose of the right size, cheaply available at home improvement stores (look in the plumbing section). Run that into a bucket that has enough water in the bottom to cover the end of the hose. Next time that happens you will get all the ejaculate in the bucket and still have a working airlock. Thanks for making the pdf available. I am looking forward to trying your method.
That’s a great tip Edward! My beer-brewing neighbours will thank you!
Wassail!
I will be making some mead this Hallowmas (I should have started Lammas, but I didn’t think of it then) and hopefully it will be ready by Yule for gifts. But if not I will just have to make them gifts for some other day.
Thanks for the PDF, it is much more concise than what I was looking at before!
Hi Eric,
Regular mead takes a year minimum to be ready to drink – you might want to look into making it now for Yule gifts next year. There are quick mead recipes, but they do not taste good. Maybe make absinthe or ginger beer this year instead?
Wassail!
Oh, what a shame. Ah well, I will just have to get my list started for next year hehe. I figured something like that would have been the case.
And absinthe sounds fantastic! I would like to make my own batch. That sounds like an excellent plan
Regards,
Twisting.