Nothing like learning while you go. It's one thing having a guy who's been making something for generations telling you all this stuff, but when it's a fellow learner, it's so much more relatable. Thanks for sharing Sir!!
Edit: please don’t take this as mean spirited. (Pun intended :-) After 40 years of making mead, moonshine, beer and wine I’ve got a few suggestions for you. Rehydrating yeast: for each gallon of must take ~15 raisins and cut them up, put them in a couple cups of water and bring to a boil. Put a lid on the pot and let it cool down to ~95F sprinkle yeast over water surface and put lid back on. Now heat half the water for the must to ~140F, then pour warm honey in and mix. Now squeeze one lemon for each gallon of must into the warm honey water. Put the warm honey water mix in your fermenter and add some cold water. Once the must is down to ~95F pitch the yeast raisin mixture. Now add whatever amount of cool water is needed to top up the fermenter. Cap the fermenter put it in a cool dark spot and wait. That’s it. Other than what you said about sanitizing everything, you are over complicating a very very old process. Btw, 109F is just below the death temp of most yeast. Ya might want to dial that down a bit. Say 100F if you think hot is the way to go. You’ll get all the oxygen you need just by pouring the ingredients into the fermentation vessel. Yeast only need oxygen for reproduction not fermentation. Have a good one, Boden
EC-1118 is a great yeast for those wanting to start in mead-making!! The wide temp range is great for fermenting in a coat closet or the like. Check out "Joe's ancient orange mead" recipe which is pretty easily found on the internet. Just order the yeast and an airlock on Amazon or Walmart, a white bucket with a lid (found at Supermarkets or Homedepot), and a trip to the store for honey, raisins, and oranges!! Try it out using that recipe using low tech methods before investing too much in equipment!
By the way 105 is an ideal temperature for the start of your Brew the yeast will be the most happy and can sometimes almost double speed in which they reproduce normally during the early part as it's generally around 80 degrees or so so yeah yeast like it warm just not too hot
After watching a video about how easy it is to make mead I started my first batch. After watching like, 50 of your videos I am now FREAKING OUT MAN! Super useful information but there is a lot more to it than I first thought haha.
I think the biggest mistakes youll make starting out is basic things like putting the fermenter in a place thats too hot or too cold, not having enough headspace for the stuff to expand, cleaning everything properly, and making the booze too strong, and then during bottling or 2nd fermentation, blowing up bottles. basic stuff
This was a much better put together video than the others, much less pause in between thoughts. If checking the notes helps keep on it! Love the videos
Really like your videos, I am just starting out and I like having this list to read again when it's time for the next batch until it becomes "muscle memory" so to speak.. After reading about fermenting in general, wine, liquor, beer, natural fermentation, and more, just having these simple lists actually makes it less complicated..
Great video man! Detailed and specific! The best thing is you're on point and no BS chatter. If you like to learn listen to this guy. If you just wanna make some homemade alcohol then I guess it will sound complicated for you.
This video made me feel slightly better about my novice brews lol. As of my last batch of 3 different gallon meads, I use real sanitizer, Lalvin yeast although I will check out those other strains for melomels, waited 10 months to try my last batch, etc. I started out my first batch some years ago in a plastic water jug in my college dorm lol-it was pretty bad by comparison.
Very informative thank you! I have been making mead for almost 5 years now and have made pretty much all of these mistakes (and a few others)! Keep up the good work.
Self Sufficient Sarah Thank you! I’m sure I will have a whole other list of mistakes soon enough, it seems like they come pretty naturally in this whole learning process!
I really appreciate your video. I am new to mead-making and have looked at quite a few videos for content and inspiration. Much of what I have seen appears to be as much for entertainment as information. I have interest or no patience for that. Thanks for keeping it simple and approachable.
I started a full sized carboy with just 1 - 2 pounds of honey. And I've been watching the bubbles for a month now and it just keeps going like the energizer bunny.
A lot of these you are correct on, I came back here because even after 5 years basics are always good to go back on. The only one so far that I can say is incorrect is the alcohol tolerance of the yeast, what is stated on the packet is more of a ballpark theory, I have managed to push D47 abd 71b up to 18% alcohol level in a mead using SNA protocol (I don't like going that high with alcohol because I find it runs the risk of getting too hot). Thank you for doing this list, dude!
Kid ! I'm 55 an iv been doing mead for 5 years .. you're great ,I've watched all your videos. Just one thing . You're making it too complicated son 😉 but I have to say ,even at my age, you have taught me a thing or two ....well done 😉🇬🇧 Got to go with that old " bootlegger" B Oden ..below .is it 2 comments down lol 😉
Great video! I am just about to make my first batch of mead and you saved me from making a few mistakes. I was definitely just going to dump my yeast in there 😅
LOL I was wondering what was going on with the D47 with the temp range of up to 68... you reversed the numbers. it is not 68... it is 86. I had a moment of... but my airlocks and yeasty beasties are all working overtime at 73 to 75... so I checked. I am all good.
Great Video! One correction in your video: Potassium Sorbate does not stop fermentation. If fermentation is still ongoing it does nothing towards stopping it. Fermentation is stopped either by yeast being super cold (cold crashing), hitting their alcohol tolerance or they eat up all the sugars (dry mead) you can put Potassium Sorbate in after those points to keep yeast from fermenting and multiplying. If you do something that would cause it to become active again so warming the must back up to fermentation tempature, you adjust the water ratios or you add sugars (back sweeten) without Potassium Sorbate it will go active again. One Suggestion you didn't discuss is: You may want to talk about Oxidation and using Potassium Metabisulfite's ability to counter that, you also may want to talk about minimizing oxygen access during secondary fermentation, racking and bottling. You may also want to discuss filtering and clearing products as a separate topic! Not so much as mistakes but it can be considered a fault if your talking mead making competitions.
Thanks for the introduction & information. I'm gonna give this a try. I brewed beer, from ales to stout for decades, however I lost a little confidence, (am now scared to death!) ...of my home brewing skills, since the 'ginger beer incident' of 2016. I've seen no mention of explosions, this gives me confidence. Thanks again.
Mead is very forgiving but it takes time whole lot of freaking time also the cool thing about me is sparkling Mead is wonderful but so is still Mead I personally prefer my mead not to be bubbly (citysteading have some great videos including some super simple ones
Thanks for the video. Just a thought- one long cut is fine but you can redo parts, add info, etc if you do multiple cuts. Also can hide anything like reading off paper. But I am going to dig deeper and watch more of your videos thanks!
I have been using Nottingham Ale yeast, while it does make a lower ABV mead, the taste so far has been pretty nice a lot cleaner with a smoother finish at the exhale. If you get a chance to play around with some of the other styles of yeast I would recommend it, and thanks for the video, started at the same time as your first posts so its been nice to see someone with about the same experience come along.
Pknight I’ll definitely write that one down. I love Lavlin products but I’m sure that there are other great ones out there. It’s cool that we started at the same time, hopefully I’m not too far behind you in this whole process!
Thank you for this video. Just got into meadmaking and licor (cordial might be the right word) making myself. Learnt how to make ginja and stuff from grandma, meadmaking I'm learning by myself. This video is very useful for a beginner like myself.
I homebrewed beer first so I knew all about this stuff before I made mead the first time. My first two batches of mead have turned out great. My first batch sat 13 months before I put it in the keg. The second batch went 15 months before I put it in the keg and I’m having a glass right now.
This additional info is VERY much appreciated, I'm going to try some of these (especially proper yeasts) the next few batches. Just finished a second batch of my mother's favorite mead (got her in to it), we'll see how number 3 turns out! Thanks!
Thanks for this clear and specific advise I have 2 successful primary brews on the go at the moment and will be doing my first melomel next week so this was welcome advise :D
Excellent information. I've probably made all of those mistakes at one time or another, and I can guarantee I still make the yeast selection one now. Only addition I would have made under sanitizing is cleaning your fruit too. I made a cyzer with apple slices and didn't wash or sanitize them beforehand and it got an infection. I tried curing it over time, but after a year-plus the stuff just tasted horrible and I threw it out. Fortunately it was only a 1-gallon batch. Still, great video and a lot of good information for those starting out and a good reminder for those who have been making mead for awhile.
Absolutely! I should have mentioned that but totally forget. You're definitely right. It's interesting just how many variables go into the end result of a mead.
Cameron Venegas You can further ensure that you’re not dealing with that problem by rinsing your apples before you put them in. You can also use a sanitation substance on the actual fruit and it was kill any bacteria living on the surface of the fruit but won’t hurt the fruit flavor.
Cameron Venegas You can! In my opinion it’s better to put them in the secondary. You lower the risk of wild bacteria contaminating the mead and you can leave them in for longer generally. Also, when the fermentation is first happening a lot of the aroma of the fruit will dissipate through the airlock and you will lose that flavor. It doesn’t happen as bad during the secondary fermentation.
So it has been just under a year since i bottled my first batch of mead. Due to popular demand from a dinner invitation, i broke open a bottle. I honestly was expecting a disaster, but i was quite happy with it!! All who had some said it was pretty good as well. Dunno the alcohol content as i didn't take any readings to start with, but it was pretty strong hahaha
I heard you can make wine with kombucha.. You take the scoby out when it's still on the sweet side and bottle it with an airlock and cap with more tea and sugar.. Add something like a 50% higher sugar content than normal.. I've outsourced as much as I can to make a green tea honey (jun) ferment that gave birth to a scoby and am looking to make some honey wine with this.. Given that it was made with a scoby I figure the yeast won't need extra nutrients as it has already formed an ecosystem and I have only ever fed it organic green tea, jasmine tea and tai guan yin, with raw organic honey. I've done the same with a pomegranate/basil/brown sugar mixture, tomato/cloves/molasses.. Apparently keeping it sweet before you bottle it and overloading with sugar activates the yeast which will hopefully drown out the bacteria when bottled.. Hope so.
On the note of aeration: When yeast is undergoing anaerobic respiration (when all of the O2 has been used up) isn't that when they're producing the alcohol we want? If we aerate more, will it not take longer to ferment?
Oh GOOD! I was just about to ask if I messed up by putting the yeast nutrient in with my yeast while it was re-hydrating. It just seemed the right thing to do instinctively, but my mead is now foaming up so hard it's climbing into the airlock chamber and I was afraid I had wrecked it by doing that. So if you do your nutrients the same way, then it's something else. I probably got greedy and filled the carboy too high with honey and water, LOL. I'll keep shaking it down.
It's not uncommon to have meads push foam into the airlock, especially if you add certain fruits (try blackberries, lol!). You can use something called a blow-off tube: nstead of the airlock, get ~30cm of tube that you use for racking, stick it in the bung and the other end in a jar filled with water. That way the foam will go into the jar = less cleaning :) Cheers!
@@theastronomer5800 Excellent, thank you! That particular batch turned out great, but yeah it did involve a lot of cleaning at an annoying to get to location before I felt safe to rack it off. I'll use that tubing and jar method next time for sure.
Making my first three gallons of mead. Today was raking into second fermentation. I am adding my extra ingredients on this fermentation cycle. Doing a strawberry mead, spiced orange, and straight mead. Thank you for the video cause I just said fuck it and started making mead. I have more fermenters on the way so I can do more than three gallons. I don’t have room for a massive 5 gallon but I have tons of small shelves for one gallon jugs so I plan to start having 10 going at a time.
And the most important thing you forgot: the need for really good honey. In my experience mediocre honey very slowly produces something drinkable, while excellent flower honey can produce a tasty mead within two months. Don't believe it? Travel to Ethiopia, the world's no. 1 mead country (they call it tej).
Subbing due to you saying 'fewer mistakes' rather than 'less mistakes' it's a rarity, and yes, I'm that pedantic :) Seriously though, it was an interesting video and really helpful too. I'm just starting my mead journey so a lot of this will be really useful. Thanks!
One thing about potassium sorbate as a "chemical"... it is a naturally occurring chemical, and to be honest, water is also a chemical mixture. H2O is a chemical formula... adding yeast nutrient or minerals makes the water a much more complex chemical formula. It's not like we're adding shit with warning labels into our beer wine or mead. Just like how calcium chloride is used in cheese making... it's not gonna hurt you one bit to use it.
I just put together my first one-gallon batch of mead this morning and I'm eager to learn more. I plan to age my mead in wine bottles after all the fermenting is done in my carboy. Quick question: is it always a good idea to add potassium sorbate to the mead, just before racking in the wine bottles to age for a few months? My guess is, yes, to avoid explosions.
Great video. I am just about to start my process. Doing research first and you have taught me alot and added alot to my research list haha. Question I have is headspace. Trying to decide if I buy a 23 l carboy or a 19 to make a 5 gallon mead. And if having that much room would hurt either primary or secondary. Any info would be great. Jeff
Jeff Heath Hey Jeff, so sorry about the delayed response. Head space is a topic that a lot of people have different opinions on. I don’t think that having some head space above your mead is not too bad if you don’t open the mead a bunch after the primary and secondary fermentation’s. As far as during the primary and secondary fermentation a little head space isn’t too bad either. Many people worry about reoxidation within the mead, which can be a problem, if you are constantly moving it around. I wouldn’t be too worried about it! So feel free to buy either size, I would personally get the 23.
Jeff Heath meads need headspace, the foam does not break like a wine so in the early stages of fermentation more is better. You are creating carbon dioxide so don’t worry about the level of air above it, just leave the airlock on. If making 5 gallons use at least a 6 to start.
mead is hundreds of years old, no one in 1540 had this much effort in making mead......thanks for this really difficult mead making exercise........guess I will be stupid and follow my old recipe
I am very certain when I say that they did not make consistent beverages back then. Also, fermentation science has come a long way and we know way more about brewing than they did, so why not use the information to make better meads? You’re welcome to brew however you would like, there is no wrong way to brew! My hope is that I’m showing people how to make more consistent beverages that can be recreated and not just one offs!
Do you have any thoughts about using Cider yeast for making a hydromel type of mead? I love wine, but I also like the craft meads that are more close to a cider type of beverage. I know you can do this by using less honey for a lower ABV, but then wont it be dry? Sorry for so many comments, I just recently found your channel. Love it so far!
You can totally use cider yeast for a lighter mead! You can use virtually any yeast you want with mead making. A lot of people actually use beer yeast for their meads and have some great results. You’ll probably have to get a kegging operation if you want to carbonate and backsweeten at the same time. You can get a sweeten mead without carbonation by stabilizing it after it finishes fermenting (with potassium metabisulfite). You would then add your honey to backsweeten. I hope this helped!
@@ManMadeMead Thank you for the reply! I think I'll look into a stabilizer for now. I imagine that would be the less expensive option . I'm a teacher as well, and so I'm out of work with everything going on. Once things go back to normal with my income I'll consider looking into kegs, and becoming a patron member for your channel. I'm having a lot of fun learning about mead!
I happen to have access a couple ICB totes of honey from a commercial bakery. It was drizzled over pastries or something, and this is the collected runoff. They are not allowed to re-use the the stuff. It has some bits of nuts and possibly chocolate and such but that has all settled to the top. I'm thinking of fermenting it in the tank. If I clean the stuff off the top and leave 100 gallons of honey, add 100 gallons of hot water... I think I should pitch the yeast in a gallon, and then into a 5-gal bucket and then pitch that into the 200 gal tank. Obviously I'll want to scale up the nutrients, but do you see any other problems with that scale? Is heat generation going to be a problem?
Martian Anthropologist So at that scale you’ll need to figure out how to mix all of that stuff super well. I think once you mix the honey and water you’ll want to let it set for awhile to get down to room temp before you add in the yeast. Otherwise I think it’s do able!
I'd suggest straining your recaptured honey before making your mead. Eons ago, I kept bees in Fairland, MD. I entered honey in the Montgomery and Prince George's County Fairs, as well as the Maryland State Fair. I often won first prize because my honey was so clear. Rather than buy commercial honey-filtering cloth, my depression-raised mother used my father's worn out cotton under shirts. Wash and rinse very thoroughly, spread over a clean bucket and clip the shirts to the edges with clothes pins. Then ladle the honey into the center of the shirt. You can use two shirts if you wish. This will take hours if not days to drip through, but you'll get everything out of it.
Hopefully you see this, I have an idea for a video. I live in ksa, so the ingredients I have is pretty shite. Bread yeast, poor equipment, not 100% juice. A video of making wine / beer on the bear minimum ingredients. I know you did one with juice bottles. But, just a bear minimum ingredients to make nice booze.
It sounds like it could possibly have been some bad water or the yeast just didn’t ferment well. Sometimes yeast can get stressed and produce some off flavors. It happens sometimes, I would just let it set for a bit and then try it after while.
Wait at least two weeks... And sip if you must . pull your fruits and rerack two more weeks will be alot better. I know I'm way late. PS I just pitched on a 4 gal batch of mixed berry melomel ... I've been making closet hooch for awhile now and I know what your talking about trying it too soon . Every time I cant wait wait I get punished lol , very sweet makes your tummy hurt and will give you a neck/back head ache I've noticed.
You can cold crash a fermentation and it normally allows the yeast to drop to the bottom, from that point you can rack it off into a new container. However, this isn’t 100% perfect. Some times yeast can “wake back up” after being cold crashed and continue fermenting if there are still sugars. One of the best ways is to use potassium sorbate and sulfite.
I think they made it but they weren’t exactly consistent. There wasn’t a standard of commercialism within mead making, so I’m sure they had tons of variations of their meads. I’m striving to make a consistent product!
Man Made Mead: Thank you SO MUCH for this video series and the notes! I haven't made my first mead yet (too hot here in Arizona, even with the AC on); I'm waiting until I can get a more constant temperature in the correct range. Question: would an aquarium pump with airstone work for the aeration? And would you keep it on constantly (and how many days?) or just turn it on a couple times a day for maybe an hour?
DrValerie800 Thank you for the kind words! An Aquarian pump would work for aerating your meads. Ultimately you only really need to aerate it when you first start it (for like 30 minutes per gallon) and then maybe some a few days later if the fermentation hasn’t started. You don’t really need too much oxygen in the mead though, too much will actually hurt the fermentation and mead!
Hey, Man Made Mead: I just remembered, didn't you say something about the yeast needing nitrogen? Our atmosphere is actually more nitrogen than oxygen (we are actually nitrogen breathers), so I'm wondering if that is actually what helps the yeast more? (not trying to be a smart-ass, just asking...so please forgive...I really want to understand this better)
@@DrValerie800 Yeast want the oxygen in the air, just like us. For this reason, if you aerate using an aquarium pump and stone (with an in-line filter!), you'll want to let it run for about a half hour, but if you use pure O2, you can achieve adequate saturation by cracking the regulator valve for about a minute. I use something similar to this with a standard Bernzomatic oxygen cylinder: www.morebeer.com/products/oxywand-connecting-kit.html
@@ryewhiskeyblues Thanks; I have several pumps and tubing but keep forgetting to get more filters and airstones (the ones I have, have all be used in my hydroponics setup).
My double bubble airlock becomes unleveled, sometimes only one bubble is filled with water when it starts working, this may cause that my mead becomes vinegar? Awesome video btw!
Thanks for the video, I love getting the perspective of different people (I come from the winemaking world). That being said, I couldn't help but laugh at 15:53 "this entrails..." lol, ew...
ItsAlleged It’s crazy how seemingly similar the worlds of wine, beer and mead are but in truth they have some big differences! Yeah, I’m just glad that I only made a few mistakes like that after talking for so long. Haha thanks for watching!
Well you've got a new subscriber. This is the first of your videos that I've watched, but to be honest what interests me is seeing how someone new to fermentation has tackled (and made mistakes during) fermenting honey helps a lot. The most similar thing I am familiar with is white wine production, and seeing what parts have troubled you on a small scale should help me avoid mistakes on a smaller scale. I currently have (my first) 2 batches of mead brewing with the first done with primary. I'm still watching this video but after I'm going to look for one on stabilization and bottling if you have it. If you don't, please make that next!
Another great video on Mead I found! Thanks! I am a newbie myself and trying to perfect my mead so I don't encounter any problems along the way! Can I ask a quick question, I am currently in the third week in primary stage of fermenting a 27L glass demijohn of traditional mead, and Its still bubbling (2 bubbles a second), and barely slowed down! So I did a taste test and SG test today and it was down from Starting SG 1.10 to 1.035 and it tasted still very sweet but smelt and tasted absolutely disgusting at the same time! Is this normal because its still fermenting? Why is it taking much longer than usual? I should probably note the temperature in my garage is 12 - 14 degrees celcius (day and night) so I have ordered a heat pad for it which ill get in a couple days and put underneath to boost it up to 20c mark. Thank you :)
That’s normal! Most of the time the beginning stages of the mead create something that doesn’t taste amazing (yet). The yeast are still active so you’ll probably get a yeasty taste to it. All fermentation’s are different, so don’t worry if yours takes a few weeks! It sounds like your temperature fluctuates enough that the yeast might be having a hard time fermenting, but that blanket will help!
@@ManMadeMead that's put my mind to rest at least haha! Thanks, I was starting to worry something was wrong!! I am going to put a heat pad under it today.
So much mead was started on September 3 and I aerated it for the following 3 days after the fact and added nutrients of course, and finally am here on September 11. My quick question is what do you think I should do now. The bubbling has stopped significantly a lot. It's like 1 bubble per minute. I know that the rule of thumb is 1 bubble every 3 minutes. But does this mean I would be able to transfer it to a new carboy soon, is it a good sign?
IronTrek 96 So I would let it sit for about 7 - 14 more days just to let a lot of the fermentation go away. Then rack it over into your new storage with you ingredients you want to add. You don’t want to rush the yeast by any means!
@@ManMadeMead ok. Thanks so much for that. And I will definitely do that. And at that point, typically how long should I let it sit with the extra ingredients (flavors)?
IronTrek 96 That’s completely based on the strength you want those flavors to pop out. I generally let my stuff set for about 45 days, but I would just put it in and then taste it as it goes.
So, i am making mead for the first time and i realised after watching this video that i ordered yeast nutrient instead of yeast and poured it in my 20 liter batch. So now it will take about 5 days until i get my yeast, i just ordered it. Do you think something will happen to the water and honey or can i put in my yeast after it been for 5 days and still get a good mead out of it? Sorry for my bad english btw
As a long haul trucker i wonder if i could make mead and travel. I was thonking temp regulated storage unit. Oxygen pump and app controlled aerator. Get everything set up and get it going then later one once ever month come back and rack it.
Hi there! A video that's truly nice!! Bro.. But bro.. Yeasts that you show are pretty expensive so tell me how about using the bread 🥪 yeast or some alternatives.. Thanks ☺️
Doesnt keeping the mead oxygenated lead to the risk of turning the alcohol into vinegar and is the whole reason one uses an airlock so co2 gas can escape but oxygen cannot get in?
