5 Tips for Making Better Mead
There probably isn’t a simpler process of making a strong drink than mead making. All you really need is honey, water, a bit of yeast, stick it all in a fermenter and you should have something that resembles mead within a few months.
Or at least you would think.
While the process itself can be simple, the fact is that there are many ways that it could fail, and you would be left with something that tastes more like rocket fuel than mead.
Luckily, we have a few tips to help you in your mead making process.
Ingredients for Mead Making
Just like with any type of food, your mead will only be as good as the ingredients you put into it. Ideally, you would have your own beehive that you can siphon raw honey from, have your own well or freshwater stream to mix with, and your own fruit orchard just outside of your cottage where you hang your armor and ulfberht.
Instead, we live in the 21st century where most of us live about a 15-minute drive to the nearest grocery store. But that doesn’t mean the ingredients you need aren’t available.
If you can get locally sourced honey, preferably some that hasn’t gone through a lot, if any, processing, and get fresh yeast, sometimes from a homebrew shop, find water that doesn’t have any off-flavors, and other quality ingredients, you are already well on your way to a successful mead making process.
Heat vs. No-Heat
In the past, a lot of mead making processes required the “must”, or the honey-water mixture, to be preheated to avoid contamination. While this was a precaution needed many years ago, it came with a big drawback. Heating the must for decontamination also affected the flavor, even taking away the shine of the honey once the fermentation was done.
Fortunately, a lot of meadmakers started realizing the issue and found different ways to clean the must without losing flavor. One such way is using sulfates, which allows the must to become sanitized without heat.
At the same time, decontamination has almost become a thing of the past. If your equipment is regularly cleaned and sanitized after each batch, if you use the right amount of brewer’s yeast to pitch into the must, any contamination that happens to be in the honey, water, or other ingredients won’t really be an issue.
pH Levels
Just like with any strong drink, be it beer, wine, or mead, you must make sure that the pH levels are at a point where the yeast can work its magic. There are a few experts that say that messing with the pH levels aren’t necessary, it’s something that we would still recommend in your mead making process.
Fermentation
Unlike with baking bread, yeast in mead making is usually best at a lower temperature. This allows for flavors and aromas of the honey and other ingredients to be preserved and tends to reduce the taste of alcohol.
This may require some experimentation on your part, but usually if you can try to maintain a temperature at the lower end of the yeast’s tolerance, or even a few degrees below, usually between 65-75 °F (18-24 °C), you won’t run the risk of losing the shine of the mead as well as ruining any of the taste.
Backsweetening
This part of the mead making process depends a lot on the amount of fermentables used and the type of yeast used to pitch. If your goal is to have a drier tasting mead, then there isn’t much more to do at this point.
However, if your goal is to have a stronger flavor, or even to not have your mead taste as dry, using a technique known as backsweetening can help. This technique usually is done to add a certain amount of sugar, usually honey since it’s a honey wine, to increase the color, gravity, and ultimately, flavor of the drink.
This process needs to be done carefully as too much will overpower the yeast and you might as well not have a wine at all. However, too little and the yeast will consume all the sugar and you’ll have an even drier mead than what you started with.
While the process of making mead can be a bit time consuming, we promise it is well worth the wait. There’s just something satisfying about making your own mead to drink and enjoy, either by yourself or with friends and family.
As always, though, if you just can’t wait to have great-tasting mead while you’re in the middle of your own mead making process, join us at Twisted Horn Meadery in Vista Wednesday through Friday at 4 PM and Saturday and Sunday at 2 PM! Also check out the meads and ciders we have for sale for you to enjoy in your home!
SKAL!