WHAT IS MEAD?
Mead is a fermented beverage based on honey.
It can be low in alcohol like beer, or higher like in wines.
It can be dry with little or no residual sugar, or it can be very sweet like a desert wine.
Mead can be made with only honey, or it can be made with fruits, vegetables, herbs and/or spices.
ABOUT HONEY
The character of honey has quite a wide range in color, aroma and flavor, from light and delicate to dark and harsh.
Not all honeys will make good mead, fortunately most of what you can find will.
Taste as many varietals as you can, and note the subtle or not so subtle differences between them. Then make Mead from one or two of your favorites.
Varietal honeys contain at least 50% from the listed source. Many will be much closer to 100%.
The Mead making community generally favors raw honey to processed.
Processed honey is heated and finely filtered to produce an attractive product. This process may drive off some of the delicate aromatic and flavor compounds.
Raw honey may also be heated and filtered, but to a lesser degree and as a result, you may find an occasional bit of bee or wax in your honey.
Costs can vary greatly depending on variety, quantity, source, shipping, etc...
Small quantities (1-5 lb) can cost from $1.50 - $3.00 per pound at a grocery or warehouse store, while 60 lbs in your 5 gal pail may cost less than $1.00 per pound from a beekeeper.
Try to find a beekeeper of beekeeping supply store in your area if you want to buy in bulk.
You may be able to locate a seller on the WWW, but shipping costs will jack up your cost.
A good starting point for your first mead (wine strength) would three pounds of honey per gallon of mead.
One gallon of honey weighs in at about 12 lbs, so 3 lbs would be about a quart.
The honeys I have used and measured, have had specific gravities clustering close to 1.440, so 1 part honey to 3 parts water would result in a must (unfermented mead or wine) of about 1.110.
If you are using fruit or vegetables in your Mead, less honey will be needed because of the sugars added by the fruit or vegetables.
YEAST
The yeast choices available are as varied as the honey selection.
Sometimes your choice is limited by local availibility, but mail order can help you around that.
I use wine yeasts for my meads, but will try ale and/or lager yeasts at some point.
Wine yeasts are more alcohol tolerant, so are siutable for stronger Meads.
Beer yeasts are less alcohol tolerant, so are suitable for lower alcohol Meads.
With the 3 lbs of honey per gallon suggested above, a wine yeast would probably ferment out most of the sugars giving you a dry Mead, while most beer yeasts would stop prior to complete fermentation, giving you a sweet Mead.
Mead yeasts are also sold, but I suspect that they are just repackaged wine or beer yeasts. I have heard of many dry Meads being made using sweet Mead yeasts.
With Meads, the degree of fermentation can vary greatly, because the honey itself contains very few of the nutrients needed by the yeasts to live long and prosper (and ferment your Mead).
To work around this lack of nutrients, there are several options available.
Add yeast nutrient end/or energizer.
Pitch more yeast using more yeast packs or by making a starter.
Add fruit and make a melomel. Most fruits should provide enough nutrients for the yeast to do their job.
The addition of nutrients will help the yeast to ferment out the honey and make a dry mead. If you are trying to make a sweet Mead, the lack of nutrients may help you achieve this.
MAKING A YEAST STARTER
The purpose of the starter is to build up the volume and health of the yeast colony.
The more yeast you pitch the better.
The healthier the yeast the better.
When using dried yeast, it is important to rehydrate the yeast properly. For a 5 gram packet of yeast typical instructions are to rehydrate in 50 ml of 95°F water. I do this in a small sanitized beaker, but you can use a glass or cup. Swirl or stir periodicaly and pour into the starter after 15 min.
You can make the starter in a variety of containers. I have used Erlenmeyer flasks, large beer bottles, wine bottles and gallon cider jugs. I use an airlock and stopper with mine, while others use foil, cotton balls or paper towels.
With meads, I use a variety of fruit juices in my starters like apple, orange, and grape.
Other juices can be used, but certain preservatives can inhibit or prevent yeast growth like potassium sorbate.
Others preservatives like sulfites should be ok.
I look for juices without preservatives or added syrups like fructose.
Make sure the juice is at room temperature before rehydrating the yeast.
The juice stirred or shaken to introduce oxygen for the yeast to use. You can do this before or after adding the yeast.
Periodically swirl the starter to keep the yeast in suspension.