Introduction
Mead is the general term used for the beverage produced when honey is
fermented. It is sometimes called a "Classic",
"Traditional" or "Straight" Mead. There are several closely-related terms used to describe a mead
which is fermented with various ingredients in addition to honey. Melomel is a mead brewed with
fruit. If the fruit is apples, however, then it is a Cyser. If the
fruit is grapes (or if you add honey to wine), then it is a Pyment.
Metheglin or Metheglyn is a mead
fermented with spices. Although if you spice a Pyment then it is called
Hippocras. When you put honey into a beer (or malt into a mead) it is called Braggot.
And finally a Sack is a very strong mead usually brewed with so much honey that
the yeast conks out before all the honey gets converted to alcohol, therefore
leaving the beverage sweeter from the unfermented honey, and about 18% ABV
(alcohol by volume) depending upon the yeast used.
For millennia mead has been
brewed by humanity, and some argue it is the one fermented beverage which has
been brewed longer than any other. Whether or not this is true is
certainly up for debate, but the fact remains that mead has sunken it's roots
deeply into our society, even though it is ironically not that well known these
days. For example, the term "honeymoon" comes from a part of the
ancient traditions surrounding marriage. When a couple got married, it was
the responsibility of the father of the bride to supply the newlyweds with a
month's supply of mead, since it was thought to aid in fertility. As we
know from high school the word "month" was originally "moonth",
since it corresponds with the cycle of the moon. So a "honey
moon" is a "honey month" - the month during which the bride's
father supplies the honey beverage! (Let us all lament the passing of the
good old days).
Another term you will often see associated with
mead is "Ambrosia". The dictionary
will give you several definitions which could apply to mead. It is at once
the food of the gods, and at the same time something with an especially
delicious flavour or aroma. Once you've tasted your first mead you will
probably agree with both of these definitions!
Ingredients
Honey
Obviously the main ingredient we are all concerned with here is honey, and
though just about any honey will do, we recommend you obtain a good beekeeper's
honey. Where you find this is up to you. If there is a local
farmers' market in your area, then chances are good you will find a variety of
honeys here. A health food store is another good place to look for quality
honey. Or if you know right where the beekeeper herself lives, even better
yet!
Liquid honey is by far the easiest to work with, but creamed-style honey
can make a very good mead, too, though it will require considerably more
stirring to get it all to dissolve into your must. Most meadmakers use lighter honey since darker ones can have very strong
flavours. At first we recommend you do this as well, though
experimentation is encouraged so do not be afraid to try a darker honey at some
point to see if you like it. Clover honey is probably the most commonly
used. Some of the better beekeepers will offer varieties like Raspberry
Blossom (also very light), Blueberry Blossom (medium) and in fact just about any
kind of "blossom" you can imagine - apple, orange and so on. A
Raspberry Blossom honey would for example come from hives perched on the edge of
a raspberry field. Obviously bees will visit whatever flowers are
available to them, so expect a variety even among honeys with similar
names. These all can make fabulous meads - either fermented on their own as a
"straight" or "classic" mead, or fermented along with their
namesake fruits for an incredible melomel.
We prefer our honey
to be less processed, if and when possible.
Fruit
Only quality fruit should be used in your meads. Overripe or
excessively blemished fruit is not suitable for eating, so it is not suitable
for your meads. We have used fresh, frozen and canned fruit in
brewing. Canned (or bottled) has the advantage that it has already been
sterilized in the canning process, so you are free to just open a bottle and
dump it on into your fermenter. It has the disadvantage - along with
frozen fruit - that it is often packaged with sugar so you are getting more than
just fruit. A small amount of sugar in your mead is not an issue in the least,
so prefer those fruits which tell you how much they include. The 5kg
bucket of sour pie cherries that show up in local supermarkets here in Ottawa
for 2 or 3 weeks in September say right on the package that they are 10% sugar,
so we confidently use them to make excellent meads and beers. What you
really have to look out for is any ingredients other than fruit or sugar, since
chemical preservatives are often added which can inhibit your yeast from doing
it's job.
Fresh fruit should first be processed, then frozen for at
least 48 hours before using it. How you process it depends upon the
fruit. Raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, currents and many other
smaller berries do not require any processing other than going through the boxes
and discarding any individuals which may be spoiled or have some mold on
them. Strawberries should first be hulled (have the leafy hulls removed),
and just about anything with a pit should first be pitted - though many meaders
do not bother pitting fresh cherries.
The fruit gets frozen to burst the cells
in it, which makes the sugars more accessible to the yeast. Many people do
not realize that a freezer is not a very sanitary place, but that is of little
concern since the first thing we will do in making our mead is either pasteurize
it, or add chemicals to kill off any nasties. We process the fruit into
roughly 1kg to 1.5kg (2.2 to 3.3 lb) bags, then toss it into the deep
freeze. If you tend to have a lot of fruit in your freezer you may also
want to label it indicating where you purchased it and when it went into the
freezer.
When it comes time to use the fruit, you may or may not want to remove it from
the freezer several hours ahead of time to allow it to thaw naturally.
Since we pasteurize rather than use chemicals, we do not bother thawing the
fruit because we can do this quickly enough in the brewpot. Plus, making
mead is usually done at the last minute in our house since our schedules are
such that we never really know in advance if we'll have time to brew. But
even if you do pasteurize your fruit, you may want thaw it in advance since it
saves energy over doing it on the stovetop. The choice is entirely yours.
Spices
We have yet to make a metheglyn, so we can only offer you advice that we have
learned in using spices in our beers. There are basically two ways to use
spices in your brew - either directly or by means of a "potion".
If you use them directly you simply measure and mix them into your brewpot or
fermenter. When doing this with beer you generally add them during the
last couple of minutes of the boil, so as not to boil off the essence of the
spices. Since a mead will never get boiled, this is not so much of an
issue. If you choose to pasteurize and to add spices directly, then add
them as you are heating your mixture. If you are not prone to heating your
meads, we guess that you will not get the full potential from your spices and
you should consider doing a potion. Though we certainly would defer to
others with more experience in this area.
A potion is a much cleaner way to
add spices to your mead, but it also requires significantly more advanced
preparation. You really want to make your potion several weeks in advance
by adding your spices to a cup or two of vodka, and sealing it up in a mason jar.
Actually, due to the very nature of how this works, you could do it the same day
you brew your mead and then add it a few weeks into the fermentation of your
ambrosia-to-be. The reason this is cleaner is that the spices will
sediment out in the mason jar, and this sediment will not get added to the
mead. After you make your potion you should give it a good shake every day
for a few weeks, up to a few days before you intend to add it to your mead, at
which point you should just leave it be to allow for sedimentation. If you
like you can filter your potion through cheesecloth before adding it, or you can
just carefully decant it off the sediment. The choice is yours.
The
alcohol in the vodka will suck the essence out of your spices, so the higher
proof you use, the better.
Equipment
What you need to make your mead will depend largely upon the method you
choose to make it. Please stay tuned.
Procedure
Mead is exceptionally easy to make - much easier than all-grain beer, for
example. The first thing you have to know is that there are almost as many
ways to make mead (or beer for that matter) as there are people making it.
What we're going to give you is the way we do it, along with some of the options
you will have along the way. If you read something to the contrary
elsewhere it would not suprise us in the least since there are few hard-and-fast
rules in making mead. Much of it has more to do with personal preference
than it has to do with what is right or wrong. The bottom line is that if
you are producing ambrosia, then you are doing it right.
One of the first options you will have is how to sanitize the mead.
Once you mix the basic ingredients you have to take measures to kill any
potential bugs which may be in there, before you introduce the yeast which will
ferment your ambrosia. The basic methods are either through pasteurization
or through chemicals. Though we began our mead-making career freely using
chemicals in many stages of the process, we have gradually shied away from their
use more for philosophical reasons than for reasons of quality or taste.
Lots of people use food-grade chemicals to make some pretty excellent
meads. The downside of pasteurization is that you need a fairly big pot to
do it with. We make 17 litre (4 US gallon) batches, which require a 20
litre (5 US gallon) pot to do it in.
If you do choose the chemical route you will first mix your ingredients, then
you will add your chemicals, then you will let the mixture set for 24 hours to
allow the chemicals to dissipate into the air. Finally, you will pitch
your yeast as detailed below. The chemicals most often used in this manner
are campden tablets, and sodium metabisulphite. Since we do not use them
we cannot tell you how much to use, so when in doubt follow the instructions on
the package or ask at the brewshop where you purchase your chemicals.
When going the pasteurization route, first put
10 litres of quality water (our tap water is safe and has no odd flavours or
aromas - yours may not) into the pot, and start to heat the water. Once it
gets to about 110F to 120F, turn off the heat and carefully stir in the honey.
The heat gets turned off to prevent the honey from burning to the bottom of the
pot before it gets fully dissolved. Turn the heat back on once you are certain
all the honey has been dissolved. We generally
add the frozen fruit directly to the pot after the honey has been
dissolved, but if you prefer to thaw if first that's fine too.
The mixture is brought up to 160F and held there for about 5 minutes. If
you want to bring the must to 160F quickly with high heat, then you should be
stirring constantly. If you want to do it slowly with medium heat (could
take an hour or more), then stir every 5 to 10 minutes. DO
NOT BOIL as this will drive off some of the desired aromatics from both the
fruit and the honey. It could also set the pectin in the fruit, making for
a hazy mead that will take an extremely long time to clear.
 |
We then take this stainless milk jug and drape a large
cotton or nylon hop bag into the mouth, and tie a string very tightly around the
rim to hold the bag in place. At this point the mixture gets scooped
out of the brew pot and into the milk jug. The bag catches the
fruit, but the shape of the jug still allows the fruit to ferment very
well even in the bag. Without a similar container you could use a
regular white plastic bucket, and just dump the mixture right in there.
Using the bag at this stage simply allows for very easy removal of the
fruit, once that time comes. Here is a
picture of the top of our jug while fermenting. |
Our first meads were then carried upstairs to the bathroom, where a cold bath
was run for it. After about 30 to 45 minutes in the cold bath, the must
is below 100F / 40C and so the yeast is ready to be pitched.
Nowadays we simply allow the jug to sit overnight and it is cool enough in the
morning to pitch the yeast. Once the must drops below 140F it is time to
add your pectic enzyme if using any. Stir the must well with a sanitized
spoon before measuring temperatures since it may cool unevenly and give
inaccurate readings.
If using yeast energizer and yeast nutrient you can mix them at just about
any time according to the
instructions on the package, which for ours is 1/4 teaspoon per 4 litres (US
gallon) for the energizer, and 1 full teaspoon per 4 litres (US gallon) for the
nutrient. Finally, take a cup of warm water and rehydrate your yeast in it
for about 10 minutes. Then stir up the yeast and pour into your mead.
All the while, please make sure to follow a proper
sanitation regimen.
If using nutrient and energizer the mead will almost be fully fermented in
about a week, at which point the fruit can be removed and the bag squeezed well
to liberate as much liquid as possible. If not using these, your mead will
take several weeks to a few months to reach the same point, and the fruit should
be left in for 2 or 3 weeks. If not using energizer or nutrient, it is
advisable to use pectic enzyme to help break down the fruit to make its sugars
more available to the yeast. Once the fruit has been removed transfer the mead to a carboy, affix a bung and an
airlock, and let it age for up to a year or more, or until it becomes crystal
clear, whichever you have the patience for. You can transfer to another
carboy every month, or whenever there is significant sediment. We rarely
do this.
Mead is generally bottled like wine, but we generally keg ours since we have
quite a few kegs, and are pretty lazy ;-)
Options
There are 2 camps of mead makers out there : those who think Mead should
taste like wine, and those who don't. The folks who do think so, add
things like tannin (or brewed tea, which contains tannins) and acid blend to
their mead. The other folks don't add this stuff at all. We've tried
it both ways, and have decided that we prefer our meads "au naturel",
without added tannins or acids. You can choose whichever method you like -
afterall it is a matter of personal preference.
