Mead

The Meadery
The Bee's Lees
The Mead Maker's Page
The Mead FAQ
Unicorn Unchained Meadery
Honeywine.com
Honeys, and their effects on mead
A guide to mead, by Lord Fionn MacPhail ORL
Gruit and Unhopped Ales, By Adam Larsen
SCA Brewing Library
Medieval/Renaissance Brewing Homepage
Brewing Authentic Early Medieval Beers - The results of some practical experimentation with early medieval brewing. Regia Anglorum.
A special bonus link: Chocolate Mead! No, not period, but...

Recipes

Steingrim's Basic Mead
Steingrim's Apple Mead
Traditional Mead and Maple Wine
Berserker Mead
Simha
Clarifying Meads
How to Clarify Mead with Gelatin

Steingrim's Basic Mead

You'll need:

two 5-6 gallon carboys
airlock set
siphon cane and hose
15 pounds honey
1 oz yeast nutrient (Fermax brand preferred)
1 package liquid yeast (Wyeast #3632 "dry mead" preferred or #3021 "pasteur champagne")
water, to make 5 gallons in the carboy

Added later: 3 tsp citric acid powder (or "acid blend"), to taste

A day ahead, read the yeast packet for preparation instructions.

Get yourself a big pot - biggest you can get and still fit it on the stove. Pre-warm the honey in a sink of hot water for ease of pouring.

Put approximately 1 to 2 gallons of water in the pot, and boil. Add all the honey (hopefully it'll fit - if it doesn't, you can do it in separate potfuls) and stir to dissolve. Do not let the honey boil, but continue to stir until it's all dissolved together. At the point when it's almost ready to boil, turn off the heat.

Let the pot cool (sitting in a sinkful of cold water helps speed up the process). When it has cooled to room temperature, use a funnel to pour it into the carboy. You do NOT want it to be hot because it can crack the carboy if so.

Add enough water until there's five gallons of liquid in the carboy. Add the yeast nutrient and yeast. Put the airlock in the top and set it in a cool, dry place.

The yeast will begin to work in a day or two and it will bubble and froth. Leave the carboy and try not to move or jostle it around. Check it every day for a week to see if it's bubbling (fermenting). If after a week it has not begun bubbling, add a tablespoon full of yeast nutrient into the carboy. Hopefully, you won't need to.

Presuming the mix has been fermenting... when it has stopped actively fermenting (in other words, bubbling as you watch), which can be any time between one and three months depending on your environment, you get to rack it.

Racking means to siphon the liquid from the carboy without disturbing the settled particles (sludge) from the bottom. Using the siphon cane and hose, transfer the liquid into a fresh carboy. Be careful not to siphon up any of the sludge!

Wait six months to a year and repeat. You want the liquid to be a clear, nice, golden color. If it looks cloudy, it's not ready. It might still bubble a little during the wait. In another six months to a year, it should be clear. Transfer it back into another carboy, add the citric acid, stir until dissolved. Then you can bottle it.

Enjoy!

Steingrim's Apple Mead (Hjordis' favorite!)

You'll need:

two 5-6 gallon carboys
airlock set
siphon cane and hose
15 pounds honey
Four 12-oz cans frozen apple juice concentrate
1 oz yeast nutrient (Fermax brand preferred)
1 package liquid yeast (Wyeast #3632 "dry mead" preferred or #3021 "pasteur champagne")
water, to make 5 gallons in the carboy

A day ahead, read the yeast packet for preparation instructions.

Get yourself a big pot - biggest you can get and still fit it on the stove. Pre-warm the honey in a sink of hot water for ease of pouring.

Put approximately 1 to 2 gallons of water in the pot, and boil. Add all the honey (hopefully it'll fit - if it doesn't, you can do it in separate potfuls) and stir to dissolve. Do not let the honey boil, but continue to stir until it's all dissolved. At the point when it's almost ready to boil, turn off the heat and add the apple juice concentrate.

Add enough water until there's five gallons of liquid in the carboy. Add the yeast nutrient and yeast. Put the airlock in the top and set it in a cool, dry place.

Wait six months to a year and repeat. You want the liquid to be a clear, nice, golden color. If it looks cloudy, it's not ready. It might still bubble a little during the wait. In another six months to a year, it should be clear. Transfer it back into another carboy, and then you can bottle it. You don't need to add citric acid because the fruit takes care of that for you.

Enjoy!

Traditional Mead and Maple Wine

Source: John Gorman (john@rsi.com)
Mead Lover's Digest #19, 17 October 1993

Ingredients:

5-6 qts honey or 7-8 qts maple syrup (bulk grade B dark)
5 tsp yeast nutrient
15 gm white wine yeast

Procedure:

Relax, don't worry, have some mead.

Hydrate the yeast and dissolve the yeast nutrient _separately_ in warm water for 30 minutes. Mix the honey, maple syrup, or both with first hot and then cold tap water in a large open container to almost 5 gallons at your target specific gravity. Splash or spray the water to oxygenate the must so that the yeast will multiply. Pour the must into a glass carboy, then pitch in the hydrated yeast and dissolved yeast nutrient, dregs included.

Use a blow off tube for the first few days and then switch to a water trap. In a month or so, the alcohol will kill the yeast before it runs out of sugar. If not, and the mead turns out too dry, add some more honey. It is ready to drink as soon as fermentation stops.

Maple wine becomes crystal clear with a beautiful sherry color within 60 days. Mead will sometimes clarify in 90 days. If you choose to bottle the mead before it is clear, it will clarify in the bottles, leaving an unsightly but delicious sediment.

Use Bentonite (clay) to quickly clarify a mead anytime after fermentation stops. Boil 12 ounces of water in a saucepan. While simmering, slowly sprinkle and stir in 5 tsp of bentonite. Cover and let stand for 24 hours. Add during racking. It may be necessary to rack and bentonite twice. The result is crystal clear.

Comments:

Traditional Meads and Maple Wines have an alcohol content of 12-15%. Always use yeast nutrient and plenty of yeast for a strong start. The fermentation will take off with a bang and the rapidly rising alcohol

content will quickly kill off any wild yeast. There is no need to sulphite, heat, or boil the must. Why ruin good honey? I have never had a bad batch of mead, except when I added acid.

The Berserk Mead

“Til àrs ok fridar”! (The phrase the Viking said when we say cheers – it means “to the year’s crops and peace”.)

Mead was without hesitation the most important beverage for the early Viking. The mead was divine in origin - in the Saga of the Ynglings you can read Snorri’s tale about how Odin drowned in a mead-vat and the mead became sacred. Due to this incident the Viking considered that he drank the God himself when he drank the mead.

To brew approximately 18 litres of mead you need a 25 litre cooking-vessel made of stainless steel, a 20 litre demijohn with fermentation appliances (a rubber gasket and a ferment pipe), a plastic tube, a straining cloth and a perforated ladle.

When you’re brewing mead all the tools need to be kept as clean as possible. Therefore start the brewing by thoroughly washing up the tools and vessels.

Ingredients

12 litres of spring water
6 litres of honey
1 decilitre of dried rosehip
1/2 decilitre of cloves

Ingredients for the fermenting

5 decilitres of water
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoonful of yeast nourishment
1/4 teaspoonful of citric acid
Wine yeast for 18 litres

Let the water boil with the spices. Add the honey and stir until it has dissolved. Let it simmer for about an hour and skim frequently. Store in a cool place over night.

Mix the ingredients for the fermenting and store this too over night in a cool place.

Add the mixture when the mead is lukewarm, cover the vessel carefully and put it in a warm place (room temperature).

Pour the must into a demijohn as soon as the fermentation process has started. Seal the demijohn with the ferment pipe and the rubber gasket. Let the must ferment in a warm place for seven to ten days. Then filter the must and pour it back into the demijohn. Seal the demijohn again and leave it until the fermentation process is finished which will take another 3-5 weeks. Filtrate the must once more and then pour it into bottles that are hermetic. The mead is ready to drink but you gain both flavour and strength by letting it mature for a month or so. Enjoy!

Source: The recipe is from the book Vikingars Gästabud, Fant -98

Simha

Source: Gary Shea (shea@cs.ukans.edu)
Mead Lover's Digest #241, 7 December 1993

Ingredients (for 1 gallon):

1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
water to make a gallon
two lemons
yeast

Procedure:

Combine sugars, add water to make 1 gallon, boil. Squeeze two lemons into the mix and throw them in, quartered. When it's cooled enough add 1/8 tsp of yeast (I used bread yeast). Allow to ferment for a day or two at ~65-70F. Bottle, adding a few raisins and a tsp of sugar to each bottle. Allow to sit at ~65-70F until the raisins are sitting at the top (< 1 day). Refrigerate or place in quite cool place

Comments:

Drink in a couple weeks. So far I have only done one batch and I drank it over the course of two weeks. It keeps getting better and better. Plastic Calistoga bottles are what I've been using, they work great and seem to have no flavor.

This is a Finnish drink called 'sima' or maybe 'simha', made only for May Day celebrations. The recipes for it that I've seen (and made) are all pretty much like this.

Clarifying Meads

How to Clarify Mead with Bentonite
by John Gorman (john@rsi.com)

1) What is Bentonite?

Bentonite is pure powdered clay and is used in wine and mead making. It is inert and tasteless. You can get it at your local homebrew shop or by mail order quite inexpensively.

Bentonite is used during racking to flocculate out the leftover yeast so that it settles to the bottom, leaving crystal clear mead behind. The clay particles are tiny flat sheets of mineral with minute electric charges sticking out at the edges. These charges attract the yeast cells, which then stick together in visible clumps that settle out rapidly.

The time to bentonite is any time after active bubbling ceases. If you bentonite while there is still fermentation activity, the yeast that settles to the bottom will keep bubbling and re-cloud the mead. If you use a yeast nutrient, fermentation will proceed rapidly and cease in a month or so. By using bentonite, your mead will be clear and ready to bottle in a few days, freeing your carboy for more mead!

2) Bentonite Preparation

Use 1/2 tsp bentonite per gallon of mead to be clarified. To prepare the bentonite for 5 gallons, boil 1 cup of water in a small saucepan.

Pre-measure 2 1/2 tsp of bentonite granules into a small bowl. As the water boils, SLOWLY sprinkle in the bentonite, stirring occasionally with a fork.

If you sprinkle it in too fast, the granules will stick together as they absorb water, making large thick clots, which is not what you want. If that happens, just throw it out and try again.

If you sprinkle just right into the boiling water, it will stay soupy. Take it off of the heat and store covered for 24 hours while the clay goes completely into suspension.

3) Racking Procedure

Fill a clean pot with water, and bring it to a rolling boil for 10 minutes to drive off all of the oxygen. This water will be used after racking to fill up the head space. If you leave a head space after racking, the oxygen in the head space air will get into the mead and produce flat off flavors.

Stir the bentonite mixture with a fork to get it all into suspension. Pour the bentonite mixture into the second (empty) carboy. Then rack from the first carboy into the second. Avoid splashing, which will oxygenate the mead. Top off the head space with the boiled water. Stir the mixture thoroughly without splashing by rotating your J-tube in the carboy.

The bentonite will bind with the yeast into visible particles and flocculate out fairly quickly. After two days or so, it will all be resting in the bottom 1/2 inch of the carboy.

Sometimes there is so much yeast in a mead that the first bentonite cannot flocculate out all of the yeast. In that case, do it again. The result will be crystal clear.

How to Clarify Mead with Gelatin

by Joyce Miller (jmiller@genome.wi.mit.edu)

Clarifying mead with gelatin is similar to using bentonite. Powdered unflavored gelatin is available in most grocery stores (the Knox brand is probably the most widely known). I generally dissolve a packet of the powder into 1 cup of cold water in a pot. Heat this on the stove, swirling gently, until it's all dissolved. Cover it and let it sit 20 minutes to pasteurize it. Warning: do *NOT* let this stuff boil over! It's very difficult to clean up!

Put the pot somewhere where you can grab it easily, and start siphoning your mead into an empty carboy. When there's a gallon or so in the new carboy, take the gelatin solution, and slowly drizzle it in (if you dump it directly into the empty carboy, it will just coagulate on the bottom in a useless lump). Finish siphoning, and stir if necessary to distribute the gelatin evenly throughout the carboy.

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The Ravenstead household is dedicated to studying the arts and sciences of the Norse culture during the “Viking Era” (700-1066 AD) and re-enacting the lifestyle of that era in our encampments.