Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

I've stumbled onto a honey supplier that wants me to make mead. I've never done it before, and have heard/read that it's really easy. I thought I would check here to see if anyone has some pointers or advice for a novice mead maker.

I made my first mead a couple of months ago and followed the "Staggered Nutrient Addition" profile suggested by Ken Schramm (http://www.amazon.com/The-Compleat-Meadmaker-Production-Award-winning/dp/0937381802) and a few others.  It's summarized here:
 
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/first-mead-staggered-nutrient-addition-timing-183388/
 
I sized my yeast pitch as if it were an ale and had a very vigorous fermentation that pretty much went to completion in 3 days.  The mead was pretty clean (i.e. no hot alcohols) in 1 week.  I think Joe carries Go-Ferm, DAP, and Fermaid-K.  You'll need a mix-stir or other de-gassing agent, too.
 
 
On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 9:57 AM, kjball <brew-recipes@crbeernuts.org (brew-recipes@crbeernuts.org)> wrote:

I've stumbled onto a honey supplier that wants me to make mead. I've never done it before, and have heard/read that it's really easy. I thought I would check here to see if anyone has some pointers or advice for a novice mead maker.



Bad people drink bad beer. You don't usually see an empty bottle of Rochefort tossed onto the side of the road

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I recently made a mead with a champagne yeast. Used a malt extract starter that I thought would include enough FAN for a healthy fermentation. It dropped 100 gravity points over about 1 month. Finished at 1.022. I was hoping for something drier in a shorter time period. I did not de-gas or stagger any nutrients.

My next batch I will stagger additions of DAP and de gas every couple of days. That should do the trick.

I have used a recipe that called for 15 lbs of honey(I used orange blossom twice and sage once). I have added 3 pounds of basswood honey each time. I used Wyeast dry mead yeast and have added 6 pounds of fruit puree (twice peaches and once cranberry). The original gravities have always been around 1.130 and they all finished at 1.000 or less. This recipe also called for 4 tsp acid blend. This supposedly accents the fruit and softens the "hotness" of the high alcohol.I read after the fact that I should have added the fruit puree late in the secondary but all three batches turned out great. The first peach mead was calculated at close to 16% (1.130 to .098) and was very well recieved. They all took 6-8 weeks to finish.
I may have got lucky 3 times running, and am hoping that luck holds. I'm planning a raspberry mead next

John, that was for a 5 gallon batch?

Having tried all your meads, I wouldn't change a thing John.

kjball wrote:John, that was for a 5 gallon batch?

Yes, I used a 6.5 gal carboy each time. Definatley not cheap. ~$50/batch if you're getting your honey cheap, jump on it.Add 1Tbsp gypsum, 1/4 tsp. wine yeast nutrient and 1/4 tsp Irish moss boil the honey for about 15 minutes less if you're afraid of driving off delicate flavors, boiling mostly makes for a clearer mead, add raw fruit for another 15min at 160F (at end of boil) I highly recommend the Dry Mead yeast from Wyeast. Sweet meads ,to me, are cough syrup.