Looking for an easy mead recipe

[Mustang_Bobby]

All,

I am more of a beer brewer but am interested in trying a batch of mead. I want it to be like a dry wine if possible. Again my knowledge of mead making is minimal but I was seeing if anyone has an EASY recipe they recommend. As for adding fruit or anything like that I open to suggestions. Also please let me know what yeast is recommended for this.

Thanks,

MB

 

[wineforfun]

Google JAOM(Joe's Ancient Orange Mead). It is very easy and simple to make. Was the first one I made.
Also, check out this site for some other variations and easy meads. Scroll down toward the bottom and look at the Orange Clover Mead. It is essentially JAOM.
http://www.stormthecastle.com/mead/mead-recipes.htm

 

[Mustang_Bobby]

Thanks that website looks great. Quick question do you have to boil the honey and water first or can you just throw it directly into the fermenter?

 

[BernardSmith]

Wine making (including mead making) does not require brewing.. You want to avoid heat. Unlike grains , the sugars in fruit and honey are completely accessible to yeast and yeast can ferment dry all these simple sugars...

 

[cmason1957]

Thanks that website looks great. Quick question do you have to boil the honey and water first or can you just throw it directly into the fermenter?

You will find many older recipes that suggest boiling the honey. It is absolutely not required.

 

[Jocelyn]

This may be a silly question but how would you mix it without boiling the honey first? Is it enough to just heat it? Does it have to be pasteurized or non pasteurized?

 

[Bent-Brewer]

Honey is kind of awesome in that it is anhydrous. There is no water in it, and as long as it stays that way, it should never spoil since it will not grow bacteria (if it crystallizes, you can heat it to soften it again). I believe I've read that boiling honey will significantly reduce the flavor and smell up until it reaches the point of caramelization, at which point it imparts more of a toasted marshmallow flavor (bochet). This is just based off probably spotty memory, so don't quote me.

As a warning: JAOM is intended to be a sweet mead and you may want to balance out the sugars a little. At 6 months in, I had to add a good amount of water because it was too sweet for me to drink; it is still very sweet, but much more balanced for me now. I conveniently ran out of bottles and had to resort to drinking what was left in the carboy when I bottled this past Friday.

When I made mine, I heated the (closed) jars of honey in a bucket of hot water for a while just to make it a little less viscous. Poured some hot (not quite boiling) water into my fermenter, added the honey, topped off to the target volume with more near-boiling water, and added the orange/raisin/spices. The orange definitely takes up a good amount more space than you'd expect, and if you're anywhere near the capacity of the fermenter, it WILL plug the airlock.

I was unable to get a reliable SG reading on the JAOM because there was so much honey that it rapidly separated out (IIRC, almost 1/3 of the total volume was honey.) Regardless, the yeast still happily ate through it all.

 

[Arne]

If you want it to go dry, start out with a s.g. of 1.100 or less. If you get much higher than that it will probably ferment down, have the yeast die off from too much alcohol and you will wind up with a sweet mead. Arne.