How to Make Mead (Honey Wine)

Posted by Chris on November 7, 2007

I found out about Chaucer’s Mead on Wine Scamp’s blog post about mead and mulled wine.  I like mead almost as much as I like mulled wine.  Mead is honey wine and is pretty simple to make.

Make Your Own Mead 

MeadMadeComplicated.Org has a great explanation of how to make mead including recipes and methods. Making mead does seem to be fairly equipment-intensive, though.  Here is the list of equipment on Mead Made Complicated:

• 2 5 gallon carboys. Use vessels made out of glass (fragile but funny: it is possible to see what is going on inside) or stainless steel. Plastic can be hard to clean but some of them seem to be usable for short periods and wood is more suitable for ageing than for fermentation,
• 3-4 gallon pot (enameled or stainless steel as aluminum can react in an acidic environment),
• 2 qt vessel for the starter,
• drilled rubber stopper + air-lock (figure 3),
• (thermometer to monitor temperature for sanitation of honey),
• (hydrometer to measure the specific gravity (density) of the must and extrapolate the potential alcohol content),
• big spoon to stir honey while it is heated (avoid wood which is porous and therefore hard to sanitize),
• (pH-meter),
• funnel (big enough to avoid pouring out of the carboy (it is not easy to aim when handling gallons of water)),
• transparent hose made of food grade plastic,
• 25 75 cl bottles + corks,
• measuring spoons for quantities as small as 1/4 or 1/8 tsp (tea spoon) which are common for some chemicals,
• scale or equivalent to measure quantities of honey.

Whew!  That’s a lot of equipment and you need to be very careful to keep everything clean but if you like making beer or wine, it might be right up your alley and you might already have a lot of the equipment anyway.
Fortunately, the only ingredients required are water, honey, and yeast.

I am sticking to gluhwein myself.  If you try making mead, please let us know.